China imposes death sentence on traitor to state secrets | News

Former employee of a state agency convicted of passing on secret information to foreign secret services.

China has handed down a rare death sentence to a former state agency employee for passing classified information to foreign intelligence agencies.

Beijing’s Ministry of State Security said in a statement on Wednesday that the man, identified only by the surname Zhang, was recruited after leaving a position in which he had access to “a large number of state secrets.” .

The statement said Zhang was a member of the “confidential core staff of a state agency,” but did not specify which agency he was employed by.

He had “passed on a large number of top secret and confidential state secrets to foreign intelligence services, thereby seriously endangering China’s national security,” it said.

Zhang was reportedly lured abroad with the promise of “experiencing exotic customs” and began cooperating as a double agent. A foreign spy surnamed Li forced him to sign a cooperation agreement and confiscated Zhang’s USB flash drive and personal belongings, the ministry said.

“Zhang, who had a weak character and could not resist the temptation of money, became a ‘puppet’ controlled and used by the other party,” the statement continued.

Intensification of focus

It was not specified which foreign agency was involved in the case. A colleague of Zhang’s, surnamed Zhu, was sentenced to six years in prison for his support. The ministry did not provide any information on the timing of the execution.

The case underscores China’s increasing focus on national security under President Xi Jinping, who has stepped up warnings about foreign powers allegedly targeting Chinese citizens.

The revised anti-espionage law passed this year expanded the definition of espionage to include all information related to national security, not just state secrets.

China and Western powers have long traded accusations of espionage but have only recently begun disclosing details of alleged individual cases.

In June, China accused Britain’s MI6 intelligence agency of recruiting a couple who worked for the central government. Earlier this year, a Beijing court sentenced Australian writer Yang Hengjun to death on probation on espionage charges, a decision the Australian government described as “shocking.”

In August, U.S. prosecutors charged a New York resident who participated in the Chinese democracy movement that led to the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989 with spying for China.

The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency posted instructions in Chinese on social media last month on how to safely contact the agency.