China accuses married couple of passing state secrets to Britain’s MI6

China’s top anti-espionage agency said it cracked a major espionage case involving a married Chinese couple who worked for the government while passing information to the British Secret Intelligence Service, or MI6.

It is the latest case announced by China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) amid a public campaign to counter espionage in the country, and the second involving MI6.

Besides the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the United States, MI6 is the only other spy agency the MSS has publicly named. In other cases, it simply used the descriptions “some country” and a “foreign spy agency”.

One of the employees in this case, surnamed Wang, worked in a position dealing with top state secrets, the MSS said in a WeChat article on Monday. It said he applied for an exchange programme to Britain in 2015.

According to the MSS, after Wang reached Britain, MI6 arranged for staff to invite him to parties and set up tours. After determining he could be persuaded financially, MI6 sent operatives to befriend him on campus, telling him of high-reward part-time opportunities, the ministry said in its WeChat post.

The part-time research job started with public programmes but gradually involved core information from the Chinese government and the pay offered was several times that of a regular consultation fee, the MSS said, adding that even though Wang was alert to the possibility it was contrary to China’s interest, he kept offering “consultation services”, tempted by the high fee.

China’s anti-spy agency said that after a while, MI6 disclosed its identity to Wang and asked him to serve the British government, offering higher pay and security. They then trained Wang as a spy and sent him back to China to gather more intelligence, the MSS said.

Wang’s wife, surnamed Zhou, also worked for a core confidential government agency in China and MI6 offered to double its pay to involve Zhou as well, the ministry said, adding that after rounds of threats and persuasion, Zhou also agreed to collect intelligence for Britain.

The case was still under investigation, it said.

In January, the MSS disclosed a case involving MI6 for the first time. It said it had detained a foreigner who was in charge of a foreign consultancy and had been recruited by MI6 to gather information.

In the statement at the time, the ministry said MI6 had developed a “cooperative relationship for intelligence” with the person, surnamed Huang, since 2015, and provided training and spy equipment.

Previously, the ministry accused the CIA of being behind a handful of espionage cases, such as turning a worker in a Chinese state-run arms company to spy for them.

In recent months, the ministry has also sought to mobilise the Chinese public to report “suspicious” activities. In April, state news agency Xinhua reported that the MSS had recognised 86 representatives from the public for “maintaining national security”.

They had either sent tips or reported suspicious activities through the MSS hotline, website portal, WeChat or reported in person, and cooperated with the ministry in follow-up investigations, it said.