China's state security department makes public the unmasking of a suspected spy from the British secret service MI6. Beijing encourages the population to fight against agents.
China's Ministry of State Security says it has exposed and arrested a suspected spy for the British foreign intelligence service MI6. Starting in 2015, MI6 recruited a person with the surname Huang from a third country to gather information in China, the ministry announced on Monday. Huang is said to have delivered state secrets and intelligence-relevant reports to MI6 in several cases. Huang does not have Chinese citizenship and works in a senior position in an unnamed international consulting firm outside China. We already have criminally relevant evidence.
“MI6 directed Huang to enter China on several occasions and directed him to use his public identity as a cover to spy for the British side,” the ministry wrote. His mission was to “gather information about China and identify people that MI6 could turn around.” The foreign ministries of China and Great Britain initially declined to comment. The report follows two arrests of suspected spies for the US secret service CIA a few months ago.
China steps up crackdown on espionage: Two suspected CIA agents also arrested
Beijing and London have repeatedly accused each other of espionage in recent months. The United Kingdom accuses China of increasing spying on government officials, something Beijing denies. British security forces also arrested a research assistant to the British Parliament in 2023, citing the Official Secrets Act. The man denied the allegations of having worked for China.
Meanwhile, Beijing is stepping up its fight against espionage – including by tightening the anti-espionage law, which will come into force in 2023. It no longer only protects state secrets, but also very vaguely defined “national interests”. It also prohibits the acquisition and transfer of “documents, data, materials or items related to national security” and facilitates raids and arrests without a court order. The vague wording makes foreign companies very nervous: Can this mean that even normal research into possible business partners (“due diligence”) can be viewed as espionage? Several raids on foreign management consultancies did not help ease the situation.
Signal from Beijing to the people: The West is spying in the People's Republic
With the public announcement of the case Meanwhile, China is sending signals externally and internally. The government shows to the outside world that the West, which regularly complains about Chinese cyber espionage, is also spying in the People's Republic, and is doing so in the old school way with freelance agents. Beijing is signaling to the population: Look, the threat is real! In recent months, the Communist Party has repeatedly called on the Chinese to keep their eyes open and report anything suspicious.
The police in the central Chinese province of Henan demanded loudly Bloomberg for example, encourages people to ask neighbors they distrust about pop culture to gauge their patriotism. State media in Shandong Province pasted posters with the slogan “Spies could be anywhere!” Several universities announced in September 2023 that a crash course on catching spies would now be part of the curriculum. According to state media reports, even elementary school students receive such training.
Xi Jinping wants to anchor security policy in the public consciousness
In August 2023, the notoriously silent ministry – China's only one without an official website – began posting on WeChat about what it was doing to strengthen national security on an almost daily basis. In August, the arrest of one person was announced twice, both of them spied in China for the US secret service CIA should have. A person named Hao is said to have signed a contract and taken part in US training to spy on China. The other person, surnamed Zeng, is said to have provided the CIA with “sensitive information about the military” for a large sum of money. It is uncertain whether the public arrests are a response to statements by CIA Director William Burns that the US would rebuild its spy network in China.
The increasing visibility of state security serves the goal of anchoring national security as a top priority in government policy and letting people know this. State and party leader Xi Jinping has been making it clear for years that this issue, in addition to maintaining power, has absolute priority for him – even before economic development. In this way, Xi is clearly setting himself apart from his predecessors, who always primarily pushed the economy and growing prosperity.
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