China said Friday it had recently uncovered a “spy case” on behalf of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) involving a Chinese national named Zeng who provided “essential classified information” in exchange for cash.
• Also read: “I miss ‘my children’ and ‘the sun,'” says the Australian jailed in China
“After careful investigation, the State Security Agency obtained evidence of Zeng’s espionage activities and, in accordance with the law, took coercive measures against him to avert harm in time,” the Beijing State Security Ministry said in a statement released online.
No details of Zeng’s punishment were released.
The statement said Zeng, 52, had been sent to Italy for study purposes, where he befriended a CIA agent stationed at the US embassy in Rome.
This agent convinced Zeng to provide “sensitive information about the Chinese military” in exchange for “great compensation” and help to allow Zeng and his family to settle in the United States, the statement said.
Zeng reportedly signed a contract with the US side and received training before returning to China to conduct espionage activities.
The case quickly garnered widespread attention in China, topping the most-watched and commented-on topics on Chinese social media site Weibo as of Friday morning.
Beijing’s overhaul of its anti-espionage law has unnerved many US companies doing business in China as relations between the two countries continue to deteriorate.
Under these amendments, “relying on espionage organizations and their agents” and unauthorized obtaining of “documents, data, materials and items related to security and national interests” may constitute a crime of espionage.
The changes “have raised legitimate concerns about the conduct of certain routine business activities that are now at risk of being viewed as espionage,” Craig Allen, president of the China-US Chamber of Commerce, wrote in a recent blog statement.
“Confidence in the Chinese market will suffer more when the law is applied frequently and there is no clear, close and direct link to activities commonly recognized as espionage,” Allen wrote.