China’s top espionage agency says a Chinese citizen has been accused of spying for the United States and is being tried in the southwestern city of Chengdu, Sichuan Province.
The details of the case, which involve a researcher surnamed Hou, who allegedly turned American spy while studying in the U.S. in 2013, were revealed by state television media, which reported Sunday that Hou is a nuclear physicist or researcher.
He’s accused of continuing to work for the U.S. upon his return to China until his arrest in Sichuan in 2021.
According to state-run tabloid Global Times, Hou willingly engaged in more than 20 encounters with representatives of U.S. spy and intelligence agencies, providing top-secret intelligence information on China's national defense and its military.
The Chinese reports coincided with a 60 Minutes report about international "Five Eyes" intelligence chiefs warning of the unprecedented threat of China's state-sanctioned hacking.
FBI Director Christopher Wray warned that China represents the “defining threat” of this generation.
“There is no country that presents a broader, more comprehensive threat to our ideas, our innovation, our economic security, and ultimately, our national security,” Wray told 60 Minutes.
He added that there were currently some 2,000 active U.S. investigations related to Chinese government efforts to steal information.
“You have [in China] the biggest hacking program in the world by far, bigger than every other major nation combined,” said Wray.
In July this year, Chinese hackers breached U.S. government email servers after a month of forging digital authentication tokens to access federal government email servers hosted on Microsoft's Outlook email platform.
China, which has its own concerns, is holding its corner and has enacted a slew of anti-espionage laws and regulations over the past year.
"National security is the foundation of national rejuvenation," the Global Times opined earlier this year in a reference to China's version of "Make America Great Again."
Li Wei, a researcher at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, a leading research institution on national security, told the Global Times that foreign espionage forces, led by the U.S. are reaching new heights.
“Relying solely on professional counter-espionage police is no longer sufficient to cope with the current situation. Therefore, we need to seek the support of the public and encourage them to provide more clues,” Li added.
Walls have ears
In August this year, China's security ministry opened an official account on WeChat, which has more than 1.3 billion active monthly users – think of it as X, Facebook and daily banking all rolled into one – calling on Chinese citizenry to "enhance the awareness of counterespionage of the whole society, and form a strong joint force to maintain national security."
At the time, Chinese state media said it was a necessity to put all of China on an anti-espionage footing as a result of new “criminal activities” that endanger national security.
Less than a month after that National Security Law came into effect, China's top security agency, the Ministry of State Security, or MSS, accused a government worker of spying for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.
It was the second such spying accusation in August this year, as Beijing continued to ramp up an anti-espionage campaign that it says every Chinese citizen should participate in.
Associate Professor Chongyi Feng of the University of Technology, Sydney in Australia told RFA at the time that since the new National Security Law was implemented, China's anti-espionage efforts have gone into a state of "hyper-vigilance."
“This newly implemented law empowers security personnel to commit injustice. They have a strong motive to fabricate false accusations to gain merit. They can easily concoct a story and then release it to the world. It’s a mechanism of persecution that’s extremely terrifying,” Feng said.
Bill Bishop, in his widely read Sinocism Substack pointed out Monday that China's MSS – obviously sensitive to accusations of overreach – made a statement in its WeChat account about "Misinterpretations and Facts of [the] 'Counter-Espionage Law.'"
"The vast majority of voices respect and support China’s legitimate legislative activities, although there have been some misunderstandings, and even malicious accusation and smear,” China’s MSS said on social media.
The “MISCONCEPTION” [by MSS reckoning] … Bishop adds, is that the Counter-Espionage Law was enacted in 2014, and revised in 2023, in no way suggesting that China is overreaching on counterespionage issues.
Meanwhile, according to Chinese-language state-media reporting, “In July 2021, criminal coercive measures were taken against Hou, and he has now been transferred to the Chengdu Intermediate People’s Court for trial.
“The case is currently under further review.”
More than 99% of Chinese criminal cases result in a guilty verdict.
Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.