China claims that the British secret intelligence service, MI6, based on London's River Thames, has “framed” two Chinese central government officials to be spies for Beijing, calling it a case of “large-scale espionage.” Photo by Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA
June 3 (UPI) — The Chinese government claims that the British foreign intelligence service “framed” two Chinese central government officials as Chinese spies in a “major espionage” case.
China's Ministry of State Security claimed in an official social media post late on Sunday that MI6 operatives had recruited and trained a Chinese couple, Wang Maomao and Zhou Mao, who work in the government's “core secret” department.
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British secret intelligence first approached Wang on the campus of an unnamed university after he arrived in the UK on an exchange program in 2015, posing as a graduate and hiring him as a paid consultant, beginning the training process.
Intelligence agencies had allegedly targeted him before after they spotted his name among applicants for the program and intervened to expedite his application.
“The British side started with public research projects and gradually moved into core matters of the central government, paying significantly higher consulting fees than usual. Despite his doubts, Wang Maomao continued to provide 'consulting' services to the UK due to the lure of large sums of money,” the State Department alleged.
As well as financial compensation, MI6 is said to have wined, fed and provided tours for Wang, but the Ministry of Defence says his motive was greed.
The Ministry of Defence said MI6 eventually uncovered the truth and persuaded Wang to defect, promising him large financial rewards and safety guarantees, after which he was instructed to return to China to undergo “espionage training” and gather “significant intelligence”.
Wang also succumbed to sustained pressure and persuasion to bring in his wife, who also held a “very important and sensitive” government position, tempted by the offer to double her salary.
The ministry alleges that, at Wang's urging, Zhou Mu also agreed to spy for the UK.
The pair were found after a thorough investigation by the ministry, which said it had questioned them and “eliminated key spies placed within the organisation by the UK”.
British authorities did not immediately comment.
The news comes amid a flurry of tit-for-tat accusations between Beijing and Britain and other Western countries over espionage.
In April, German authorities arrested three suspects, Christopher Berry, 32, from Oxfordshire, and Christopher Cash, 29, from London, after they were charged with spying for China under the Official Secrets Act.
The three, all German nationals, were detained on suspicion of providing restricted military technical information to Chinese authorities.
In May, the head of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Representative's office in London, the city's de facto embassy, a border police officer at Heathrow Airport and a Home Office official were released on bail under strict conditions after being charged with working for Hong Kong intelligence agencies for allegedly trying to break into the home of a Hong Kong dissident living in Britain.
Two days later, on May 19, immigration officer Matthew Trickett, 37, was found dead in a park in his west London home.
The arrests sparked fierce protests from Hong Kong's Chief Executive John Lee and the Chinese embassy in London, which denied the allegations as an unjust “malicious fabrication.”
The Chinese government has condemned the allegations against Berry and Cash in similar terms, calling them “malicious slander”.
