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| East Asia |
| China holds top official as "British spy" |
| 2004-01-16 |
| China has taken a top Hong Kong official into custody on suspicion of spying for the UK in the biggest espionage incident between the two countries since the 1997 handover of the British colony to Chinese rule. Communist party sources and western diplomats said Friday that Cai Xiaohong, secretary-general of the Liaison Office of the Central Government in Hong Kong, had been detained sometime after Tony Blair, the UK prime minister, had visited China and Hong Kong in July. It was not clear exactly why Mr Cai was detained but one party source said he had been leaking state secrets to the British. He is thought to have received payment for the secrets that he betrayed, a diplomat said. A Hong Kong magazine, Open, said Cai leaked the itinerary of Jiang Zemin, China’s then president, to Hong Kong in 2001 for celebrations marking the anniversary of the territory’s return to Chinese rule. Two accomplices also have been detained, according to the Hong Kong media. The incident was unlikely to upset UK-China relations, which have been warming in the years since the 1997 handover. Mr Blair’s visit to China last year was regarded as a success and Wen Jiabao, China’s premier, is scheduled to visit the UK in May this year. The fact that the spying charges have been kept secret for months is another indication that Beijing may not plan to make Mr Cai’s activities a source of bilateral friction, observers said. Mr Cai comes from a senior official family. His father, Cai Cheng, was minister of justice in the late 1980s. The biggest espionage case in China in recent years involved bugs that were planted in the upholstery of a Boeing 767 that was being fitted in the US before its intended use as Mr Jiang’s presidential plane. The bugs were discovered in 2001 shortly after the plane’s arrival in China because of a humming sound they emitted. The bugging incident did not lead to any appreciable souring in US-China relations. Analysts say China, which conducts a vigorous espionage programme on foreign countries, is resigned to the fact that other countries will try to spy on it. Nevertheless, General Liu Taichi, youngest son of one of China’s 10 marshals, as deputy head of the air force command’s equipment department, was fired from his job because of the bugging incident, officials said. He was also given a suspended prison sentence. |
| Posted by:rkb |
| #3 Here's the AFP article from the Taipei Times. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2004-1-16 2:38:55 PM |
| #2 ZF, good catch on the spying specifics. Elite media also totally distorted (pc for lied) this fact when it came out. Par for the course. |
| Posted by: Jarhead 2004-1-16 2:02:42 PM |
| #1 The biggest espionage case in China in recent years involved bugs that were planted in the upholstery of a Boeing 767 that was being fitted in the US before its intended use as Mr Jiang’s presidential plane. The bugs were discovered in 2001 shortly after the plane’s arrival in China because of a humming sound they emitted. The bugging incident did not lead to any appreciable souring in US-China relations. What really bugs me is the fact that the Financial Times routinely get the facts wrong. This was an instance of a Chinese intelligence agency spying on Jiang.* US, not Chinese, officials informed Jiang about the bugs. * No, China is not a monolith - factions do and continue to contend with each other. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2004-1-16 1:39:57 PM |