Chinese official found spying for the CIA

[Kunal Biswas]

An aide to one of China's most senior Security officials has been arrested on suspicion of passing secrets to the United States, in the most serious breach of Chinese intelligence for two decades.

By Malcolm Moore, Beijing
4:35PM BST 01 Jun 2012

The unnamed aide was detained several months ago, between January and March, but both sides have hushed up the potentially explosive scandal.His boss, a vice minister of China's State Security ministry is also thought to have been suspended. The ministry is responsible for China's domestic and overseas intelligence operations.Unnamed sources told the Reuters news agency that the aide had provided "political, economic and strategic intelligence" to the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and had received hundreds of thousands of dollars in return. "The destruction has been massive," another source said.The news of the scandal first appeared in the World Journal, a Taiwanese-American newspaper published in New York for expatriate Chinese.It reported that the aide had access to the very highest levels of the Chinese bureaucracy and had provided information on China's overseas intelligence network and on confidential diplomatic negotiations.



According to the World Journal, the aide is a 38-year-old graduate of Peking university's Institute of International Relations who became a trusted assistant to the vice minister six years ago.However, three years ago, on a work trip to Hong Kong, he was said to have fallen into a honey trap involving a female US agent and was subsequently blackmailed into passing information to the CIA.Last year, officials at the ministry became aware that there was a mole and the aide was eventually drawn out with a series of deliberate leaks.One vice minister who has recently departed the ministry is Gao Yichen, a 61-year-old English, French and Russian speaker whose portfolio included the deputy directorship of the leadership team for "maintaining stability" and the deputy directorship of the 610 Office,responsible for operations concerning the Falun Gong, a spiritual group banned in China.Mr Gao was listed as a vice minister last September, but had left by March.



The head of the 610 Office is Zhou Yongkang, China's most powerful Security official whose own career has been under a cloud since March, when he was linked to Bo Xilai, the disgraced former party secretary of Chongqing whose wife is accused of murdering Neil Heywood, a British businessman, last year.Tensions between the United States and China have already been raised this year first by the arrival of Wang Lijun, Chongqing's police

chief, at the US consulate in Chengdu and then by the decision by the US to shelter Chen Guangcheng, a blind activist, inside the embassy in Beijing.There was no comment on the case from the Chinese government, but the news was not censored and quickly lit up the Chinese internet.
The incident is the most serious spy scandal between China and the United States to be made public since 1985, when Yu Qiangsheng, an
intelligence official, defected to the US and exposed a double agent inside the CIA.

In 2004, Cai Xiaohong, the former secretary general of China's Central Liaison Office was convicted in a closed trial of spying for the UK in Hong Kong in the 1990s. Wei Pingyuan, the alleged leader of the intelligence cluster, was also found guilty.

Chinese official found spying for the CIA - Telegraph

 

[ice berg]

I hope she is worth it. :shocked:

 

[Ray]

Greed and Love for money!

That is the Mantra in China!

 

[W.G.Ewald]

I hope she is worth it. :shocked:

I heard this news on the radio today. Money in large amounts over many years was mentioned, but not a woman.

And this from Reuters:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/01/us-china-usa-espionage-idUSBRE8500IH20120601

The aide, detained sometime between January and March, worked in the office of a vice-minister in China's Ministry of State Security, the source said. The ministry is in charge of the nation's domestic and overseas intelligence operations.

He had been paid hundreds of thousands of U.S. dollars and spoke English, the source added.

 

[Ray]

China 'arrests high-level US spy' in Hong Kong - reports


A Chinese security ministry official has been arrested on suspicion of spying for the US and passing on state secrets, Hong Kong media reports say.

The man, who was private secretary to a vice-minister in the security ministry, was arrested earlier this year, various press reports say.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declined to comment on the reports.

If confirmed, it would be the third major incident to hit China-US relations in the past few months.

It would also be the highest-level spy case involving China and the US to become public since 1985, when intelligence official Yu Qiangsheng defected to the US.

The official had been recruited by the CIA, local press and Reuters report.

'Pretty woman trap'
Hong Kong-based Oriental Daily quotes the monthly New Way as saying on 25 May that the official "fell into a pretty woman trap" set up by the CIA.

After the two were photographed in secret liaisons, he was blackmailed and agreed to supply secret information to the US, the reports say.

"The destruction has been massive," a source told Reuters.

The official was arrested between January and March on allegations that he had passed information to the US for several years on China's overseas espionage activities, Hong Kong press and Reuters report.

China's foreign ministry did not respond immediately to a request for comment faxed by Reuters on Friday.

China-US relations have been fraught with tension in recent months, following two high-profile cases.

In March, rising political star Bo Xilai was sacked as Communist party chief in the city of Chongqing, after his police chief fled to the US consulate in the city of Chengdu in neighbouring Sichuan province.

And earlier this month, blind activist Chen Guangcheng left for a new life in New York, after he caused a diplomatic crisis by escaping from house arrest and seeking refuge in the US embassy in Beijing.

It would put further pressure on China's security chief, Zhou Yongkang. Rumours were swirling about his possible downfall in the wake of Mr Bo's sacking, wrote the BBC's Beijing correspondent Damian Grammaticas at the time.

Most China-US spy cases involve industrial espionage. Last year, an Indian-born engineer was found guilty in the US state of Hawaii of selling military secrets to China to do with the B-2 bomber.

In 2003, a US woman who had been recruited to spy on China by the FBI was arrested along with her lover, a former FBI agent, but a judge later dismissed the charges against her.

BBC News - China 'arrests high-level US spy' in Hong Kong - reports

 

[Ray]

The Chinese senior officials are really horny toads.

And they think that they are beyond law.