Beijing says MI6 recruited couple employed by Chinese state agency as spies

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

China’s spy agency has accused its British counterpart MI6 of recruiting a Chinese couple employed by a “central national agency”, in a move that will ratchet up tensions with the UK over espionage.

China’s Ministry of State Security said a man surnamed Wang and his wife, surnamed Zhou, were recruited by MI6 to “collect information for the British”.

Wang was targeted by MI6 shortly after arriving in the UK in 2015 as part of a “China-UK exchange programme”, the MSS said on its WeChat social media account on Monday.

“MI6 provided Wang with professional spy training, directing him to return home and collect important intelligence related to China,” the ministry wrote.

The Financial Times was unable to independently verify the claims. The UK government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The accusation follows a series of allegations of Chinese spying in the UK and Europe, where authorities have warned that agents working for Beijing’s intelligence services have infiltrated western political systems.

In April, two men, including a former parliamentary aide, were charged in the UK with spying for China.

Last month, in a separate case in the UK, three men were charged for allegedly agreeing to undertake information gathering and surveillance to materially assist Hong Kong’s foreign intelligence service, London’s Metropolitan Police said.

One of the three men, former Royal Marine Matthew Trickett, was later found dead in a park in unexplained circumstances.

In Germany, authorities in April arrested a couple suspected of trying to sell sensitive military technology to China, along with their contact with Chinese authorities. A staffer for a far-right member of the European parliament was also arrested for allegedly spying for China.

Last year, the Financial Times revealed that a far-right Belgian politician served as an asset for Chinese intelligence agents for years.

The tensions over spying have threatened to cloud relations between the UK and China at a time when London is keen to promote international business links to help the struggling British economy. They also come as the MSS has increasingly publicised its role in China’s security apparatus at home and abroad.

In the latest case, the ministry accused MI6 of meticulously cultivating Wang and Zhou as assets.

It said the British intelligence service expedited Wang’s application for the exchange programme to the UK in 2015 after realising his potential value as a source. It followed up with “special treatment”, inviting him on tours and for meals, and exploited his “strong desire for money”.

Wang was hired as a “consultant” before being solicited to supply “core” information from his central government agency, which the MSS did not name. Later, MI6 finally revealed itself and openly recruited him as a spy, offering him more money before training him and asking him to return to China, according to the MSS.

Wang’s wife, Zhou, also worked in a “critical unit”, and MI6, through a mixture of “persuasion” and “even coercion”, induced her to begin gathering intelligence for Britain, the Chinese spy agency said.

The MSS said that “after meticulous investigation and solid evidence gathering”, it took decisive action, “uprooting the significant ‘nail’ the British had planted within”.

The allegation followed previous claims by the MSS that it had uncovered British spies, including a person surnamed Huang, a national from a third country whom it claimed in January was working as the head of a foreign consultancy in China.