China Arrests Ministry Official Who Allegedly Spies for the CIA

China said it’s investigating a senior official who is allegedly spying for the CIA. But outside observers suspect that Beijing’s claims of American spies are aimed at taking the public’s attention away from the Chinese Communist Party’s real trouble: an ailing economy.

Chinese paramilitary police guard an alley in a street next to Tiananmen Square ahead of an overnight rehearsal of a military parade to mark communist China's 70th anniversary, in Beijing, on Sept. 7, 2019. Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images

China’s top spy agency said on Monday that it is investigating a senior official who is allegedly spying for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the second claim in 10 days as the communist regime intensifies its counterintelligence campaign amid unprecedented economic troubles.

The 39-year-old Chinese national, surnamed Hao, was a cadre at a ministry and allegedly recruited by the CIA as a spy while he was studying in Japan, according to a statement released by the Ministry of State Security (MSS), the central agency overlooking intelligence and security operations at home and abroad. The agency did not reveal Hao’s gender or the ministry Hao worked for.