BEIJING — China has accused UK's Secret Intelligence Service MI6 of recruiting Chinese state employees as spies. In a post on its official WeChat channel, China's Ministry of State Security said MI6 operatives turned a Chinese man identified only by his surname Wang and his wife surnamed Zhou against Beijing. Both worked in "core confidential" departments in a Chinese state agency.
The ministry alleged that MI6 started cultivating Wang when he went to the UK for his studies in 2015, under a Sino-British exchange program. The operatives took "special care" of him in the UK, such as by inviting him to dinners and tours to better "understand his interests and weaknesses" the ministry alleged. The BBC has reached out to the UK authorities for a response.
This comes just over a month after the UK charged two men with spying for China. UK police have accused them of giving "articles, notes, documents or information" to a foreign state, while China has called the allegations "malicious slander". Earlier this month, a former Royal Marine charged with assisting the Hong Kong intelligence service was found dead, said police.
Beijing and several Western countries have increasingly been trading accusations of espionage. China did not reveal how it uncovered the case involving Wang and Ms Zhou, saying only that it came after but a "thorough investigation". Chinese authorities claimed the MI6 operatives took advantage of Wang's "strong desire for money", befriended him on campus under th.
