TAIPEI, Taiwan — China has accused two Chinese nationals of spying for Britain, posing a new test for increasingly tense relations between the two countries.
China and Britain are at odds over Beijing’s crackdown on freedom of speech and open elections in Hong Kong, a former British territory that has been guaranteed economic and political freedoms for 50 years since it was handed over to China in 1997.
China’s main intelligence agency, the Ministry of State Security, announced in a social media message on Monday that it had uncovered a major espionage case involving a married couple known only by their surname, Wang and Zhou, who are allegedly recruited by Britain’s foreign intelligence service, M16. The ministry said Wang came to Britain as a student in 2015 and his wife later accompanied him. Wang was provided with a hotel room, trips around Britain and financial incentives.
The ministry said the couple worked for a “central government agency” of the Chinese government and handled government secrets, which they passed on to MI6. It did not say what specific information the couple may have provided. It said the case was still under investigation and gave no indication of the couple’s whereabouts.
There has been no immediate comment from the UK.
Britain announced last month that it would try two men on suspicion of collecting secret information for Hong Kong authorities. A third suspect, 37-year-old Briton Matthew Trickett, also charged in the case, was found dead in a park under unknown circumstances, police said. Police later said the death was not being treated as suspicious.
