China claims married couple working for government spied for UK’s MI6 | CNN

Hong Kong
CNN
 — 

China on Monday accused Britain of recruiting a married couple employed by the Chinese central government to spy for its MI6 intelligence service, as the two countries trade allegations of espionage.

In a statement, China’s civilian spy agency, the Ministry of State Security (MSS), said it had recently cracked a “major espionage case” involving MI6, in which it uncovered two important moles “planted by the British side within our ranks.”

The allegation comes just weeks after British police charged three people with spying for Hong Kong’s intelligence service, following charges laid in April against two other people accused of spying for China, including a former researcher for a prominent lawmaker in the ruling Conservative Party.

Those charges in the United Kingdom came after China’s MSS said in January it had detained the head of a foreign consultancy who had allegedly spied for MI6.

Under Xi Jinping, China’s most authoritarian leader in decades, the country’s notoriously secretive spy agency has drastically raised its public profile and broadened its remit. From a shadowy organization without any discernable public face, the MSS has been transformed into a highly visible presence in public life.

Over the last six months the MSS has made regular public declarations of dismantling foreign spying operations, claims which are impossible to verify given their nature but paint the agency in a positive light and provide regular reminders to Chinese citizens to be wary.

In its latest statement Monday, the MSS detailed its allegations against the married couple.

It said an alleged spy, identified by his surname Wang, was working at a position “with access to core confidential information” in an unnamed central state organ.

In 2015, Wang’s application to study in the UK under an exchange program was “swiftly approved” because MI6 valued his access, according to the MSS.

While studying in Britain, Wang was allegedly invited to meals and tours arranged by MI6 to understand his “character weaknesses and personal interests,” MSS said.

After finding out Wang had “a strong desire for money,” the British spy agency used an alumnus to lure him into a part-time consulting opportunity with high remuneration, MSS said.

“The British side started with open research projects and gradually moved into core internal matters of our central state agencies, paying him a fee significantly higher than normal consulting rates. Although Wang was somewhat wary of this, he continued to provide so-called ‘consulting’ services to the British side under the lure of large sums of money,” the MSS statement said.

After a while, MI6 personnel approached Wang to work for the British government with promises of higher monetary rewards and security guarantees, the MSS alleged.

Wang allegedly agreed to the terms and received espionage training before he was told to return to China to gather intelligence, the statement said.

The MSS claimed MI6 also repeatedly urged Wang to persuade his wife – who worked at a “core” government agency – to join the espionage, offering to double the money. Despite his initial hesitation, Wang and his wife, surnamed Zhou, eventually agreed, MSS alleged.

The case is under further investigation, according to MSS.

CNN has asked for comment from Britain’s Foreign Office, which handles media enquiries for the Secret Intelligence Service, the official name for MI6.

In August last year, the MSS made its social media debut: it launched an official account on WeChat, China’s most popular social app, with a rallying call for “all members of society” to join its fight against foreign infiltration. Its posts regularly rack up hundreds of thousands of views and are widely shared by state media outlets.

According to the MSS, foreign spies are omnipresent and infiltrating everything – from mapping apps to weather stations. The ministry has previously posted details of what it claims are espionage activities carried out by Western spy agencies, and detailed how Chinese nationals studying or working abroad have allegedly been recruited by the CIA.