China’s Ministry of State Security Claims to Have Caught MI6 Spy

Chinese and British flags fly on Pall Mall in London on Nov. 7, 2005 in London, England. (Daniel Berehulak /Getty Images)

The Chinese regime claimed on Monday to have caught a spy who provided information to MI6.

In a post on Chinese social media WeChat, Beijing’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) identified the individual as Huang from an unspecified “third country” without revealing the individual’s given name, and accused he, or she, of providing 14 “state secrets” and three other pieces of intelligence to Britain.

The allegation came as the UK’s crown prosecutors are considering charges against two men, including a well-connected parliament researcher, who allegedly spied for the Chinese regime. The researcher has said he’s “completely innocent.”

According to claims published by the MSS, Huang, who is in charge of an “overseas consulting agency, was approached by MI6 in 2015 to establish an ”intelligence cooperative relationship.”

The MSS alleged that MI6 has since instructed Huang to enter China a number of times and coached Huang to use his or her job as a cover to collect China-related intelligence and identify potential human assets for the British agency.

The department also alleged that MI6 trained Huang on intelligence gathering in the UK and other locations, and equipped Huang with professional spying tools.

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According to the MSS, the state security protection department identified pieces of intelligence that Huang allegedly gave the UK, including nine “secret level state secrets”—the middle level of three classification levels, and five “confidential level state secrets,” which is the lowest level of the three.

The MSS said the state’s security apparatus “took criminal coercive measures against the individual” and arranged consular visits.

Meanwhile, the UK said Chinese spies are targeting its officials in sensitive positions in politics, defence and business as part of an increasingly sophisticated operation to gain access to secrets.

In a report published in July, the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament warned that the UK is “just below China’s top priority targets” of espionage and interference.

The report warned of China’s state intelligence apparatus and the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “whole-of-state” approach in which any Chinese organization or citizen may be willingly or unwillingly co-opted into espionage and interference operations overseas, making it more difficult for UK intelligence agencies to detect.

According to MI5 Director General Ken McCallum, Chinese agents have targeted at least 20,000 Britons on websites such as LinkedIn in a bid to extract information.

The Cabinet Office said in September that the Chinese regime had been trying to “headhunt British and allied nationals in key positions and with sensitive knowledge and experience, including from government, military, industry and wider society.”

Last month, Anthony Glees, an academic who specialises in intelligence-led security, also warned that unsuspecting British students and researchers who don’t believe they have valuable information can also by targeted by Chinese agents.

A parliamentary researcher in their twenties was arrested in March last year. He and another man were under police investigation “relating to allegations of Official Secrets Act and espionage-related offences.”

The Crown Prosecution Service is currently considering charges against the men. The researcher has denied allegations against him.

Beijing repeatedly condemned the allegations with a foreign ministry spokesperson saying they were “entirely groundless.”

“We urge the UK to stop spreading disinformation and stop political manipulation and malicious slander against China,” said foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning when queried at a press briefing.

Last year, MI5 told Parliament that an individual named Christine Ching Kui Lee had been “knowingly engaged in political interference activities” on behalf of the CCP’s United Front Work Department, before issuing a series of public warnings about Chinese espionage.

The CCP has been cracking down on perceived threats to its national security, revealing several cases of spying that it uncovered in recent years.

The regime has been warning its citizens in the country and abroad of the dangers of getting caught up in espionage activities. It has been encouraging people to join counter-espionage work that includes creating channels to report suspicious activity.

Beijing has also unleashed a sweeping crackdown on foreign consultancy and due diligence firms over threats of revealing state secrets that has unnerved foreign companies operating in the country.

The Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office did not respond to The Epoch Times request for comments.

Reuters contributed to this report.