Besides the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the only other spy agency the MSS has publicly named is MI6 – otherwise the description used was simply “some country” or “a foreign spy agency”.
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China executed scientists for espionage in 2016, documentary reveals 10 ‘shocking’ cases
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The Ministry of State Security said in a WeChat post on Monday that one of the officials involved in the case, surnamed Wang, worked in a position handling top state secrets and had applied for an exchange program to Britain in 2015.
According to MSS, after the king arrived in Britain, MI6 arranged for staff to treat him to parties and organise tours, after deciding they could convince him financially., In a WeChat post, the Ministry of Defence said MI6 had sent an agent onto the university campus and told him there was a well-paid part-time job available.
China’s counter-espionage agency said that after some time, MI6 revealed his true identity to Wang and invited him to serve the British government, offering him higher pay and security. MI6 then trained him as a spy and sent him back to China to gather more intelligence, MSS said.
According to the State Department, Wang’s wife, Zhou, also works for a core Chinese government secret service, and MI6 offered to double the reward to implicate her, and after much intimidation and persuasion, Zhou also agreed to gather intelligence for the UK.
The incident remains under investigation.
In a statement at the time, the ministry said MI6 had had an “intelligence partnership” with the man surnamed Huang since 2015, providing him with training and spy equipment.
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Matthew Trickett, a British man accused of espionage in Hong Kong, found dead in park
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The department has previously accused the CIA of being behind several espionage cases, including framing employees of a Chinese state-run arms company as spies.
They provided information and reported suspicious activities through the MSS hotline, website portal and WeChat, as well as making direct reports, and cooperated with the ministry in subsequent investigations, it said.
