An employee of a Chinese defence firm has been arrested, accused by supplying “core information” to the CIA, China’s anti-espionage agency said on Friday.
The announcement by the Ministry of State Security – Beijing’s top intelligence and counter-intelligence agency – comes less than a month after CIA head William Burns said the US agency had “made progress” in rebuilding its spy networks in China.
It also coincides with a ramping up of anti-espionage rhetoric from both Beijing and Washington.
In a rare move, the ministry named the CIA and spelled out that the 52-year-old defence worker, surnamed Zeng, had been recruited by the agency. The ministry has used terms like “foreign agent” and “certain countries” in most previous cases.
Zeng, who worked for an arms supplier with access to “important confidential” information, was sent by his unit to study in Italy, according to the ministry statement.
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“Seth, an official of the US embassy in Italy, took the initiative to get acquainted with Zeng” and gradually developed a close relationship through “activities such as dinner parties, outings, and watching operas”.
The report said Zeng gradually “fell for the Western values” promoted by “Seth” and “became psychologically dependent” on him.
“Seth” revealed his identity as a member of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Rome station and promised to pay Zeng a “huge amount” of pay, as well as help his family emigrate to the US, the ministry said.
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The report said Zeng signed an espionage agreement with the CIA, and passed its assessment and training processes.
After finishing his overseas studies, Zeng returned to China and continued to secretly meet CIA personnel many times, “providing a large amount of China’s core information and collecting espionage fees”, it said.
The ministry said Zeng was arrested after careful investigation in accordance with the law and has been transferred to prosecutors for indictment.
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China and the US have both intensified their spying and counter-spying efforts in recent years, as they increasingly see each other as main rivals and are locking horns on almost every front.
The United States arrested two US Navy sailors on August 3, charging them with sharing secrets with China.
Beijing has vowed to take “all necessary” countermeasures after Burns, CIA director since 2021, said his agency had been rebuilding its networks after the Chinese government caught some of its agents a decade ago.
“We’ve made progress and we’re working very hard over recent years to ensure that we have strong human intelligence capability to complement what we can acquire through other methods,” he told the Aspen Security Forum on July 20.
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A New York Times report in 2017 said US intelligence operations in China had suffered a heavy blow between 2010 and 2012, with dozens of sources killed or disappeared.
In April 2017, Jiangxi’s provincial state security department said on its official WeChat account that US agents had tried to steal secrets related to China’s fourth-generation J-20 stealth fighter jet and the lightweight J-10 multi-role fighter.
The WeChat statement said the agents tried to sneak into a Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group factory and bribe relevant researchers, in an attempt that ultimately failed.
In his July speech, Burns also said the CIA was working to ensure it could give early warnings about any plans to attack Taiwan “if that day ever comes”.