Beijing claims to arrest Chinese national over spying for US

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China has said it is prosecuting a Chinese national employed by a military-industrial group for spying for the US, in a case that highlights espionage activities between the countries.

A man in his early 50s surnamed Zeng agreed to provide military secrets to the CIA in exchange for cash and help for his family to immigrate to the US, China’s Ministry of State Security said in a rare statement detailing the alleged recruitment of a Chinese citizen by the CIA.

The notice came a week after prosecutors in California charged two US Navy sailors, one of them a Chinese-born naturalised American citizen, for passing sensitive military information to the Chinese government.

The Chinese statement described Zeng as having access to classified information and said he was sent to study in Italy, where he was cultivated by a CIA operative. The US spy, via “flattery and enticement” that included dining and attending the opera, instilled “western values” in Zeng, the statement alleged.

The Chinese ministry added that after Zeng returned to China, he continued to meet CIA personnel, providing information and receiving money. The statement did not provide details of his activities but said his case had been transferred to prosecutors after an investigation.

The Financial Times was not able to verify the MSS statement. The CIA did not respond to a request for comment.

The claim comes as the FBI and US justice department have increasingly publicised cases of Chinese nationals accused of spying in the US and of American citizens, including former intelligence officers and military personnel, who have been convicted of spying for Beijing.

The CIA has been forced to step up recruitment of spies outside China because of the dramatic increase in surveillance cameras and other surveillance technology in recent years. Intelligence operatives who have spent time in China said the monitoring had made recruitment exceptionally difficult.

Just over a decade ago, the MSS identified a number of Chinese citizens who had been spying for the CIA, partly because of extensive technical surveillance. US intelligence officials said a number of spies in their Chinese network were executed.

In a recent rare disclosure, CIA director Bill Burns said the agency was working to rebuild its China network following the catastrophic exposure. “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,” Burns said about the agency’s operations in China.

The chair of the UK’s intelligence and security committee last month sounded the alarm over Beijing’s “increasingly sophisticated” spying activities. Microsoft also warned in May that a state-sponsored Chinese hacking group had compromised critical US infrastructure.

China also broadened its opaque anti-espionage laws last month to cover any “documents, data, materials or items related to national security”.

Dennis Wilder, a former China expert at the CIA, noted that Beijing had captured two CIA officers in the country in the 1950s, which was revealed later.

He said it was unclear if the current case occurred recently or was only being made public now, suggesting the announcement could be connected to the indictment of the two US sailors and their alleged Chinese handler.

“FBI director Christopher Wray has been very outspoken about the Chinese intelligence threat,” Wilder added. “Perhaps Beijing wanted to demonstrate that spying goes both ways and that the US does not have the moral high ground on this issue.”

Additional reporting by Ryan McMorrow in Beijing