China has warned that foreign spy agencies are targeting its citizens working abroad in a series of “rather deceptive” campaigns to steal high-tech industrial secrets.
Foreign workers could be vulnerable to foreign espionage, especially if they are separated from friends and family and sent to another country, the country’s government has warned.
China’s Ministry of State Security says foreign adversaries are targeting foreign workers in a three-part campaign that initially started as a helpful friendship, then transitioned into an effort to build trust through dinners, conversations and establishing a bond. deeper friendship.
Report suspicious activities
The ministry warned on social media that foreign workers should “remain wary of the motivations others may have as they make friends, have a strong consciousness to keep secrets and resist temptations.”
Once friendship is secured, targets are then threatened or tricked into selling state secrets to their so-called ‘friends’, with the ministry claiming these tactics have been used in a number of “classic examples”. In 2019, China sentenced a foreign worker to death for stealing and selling state secrets over several years.
China has stepped up its engagement abroad as part of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which aims to rival the US and establish new trade relationships in Asia, Africa and Europe.
Distributing warnings via social media has become a normal practice for the Ministry of State Security, with warnings about consultants carrying out espionage, foreign students being targeted to hand over information and regular reports of underwater spyware being found in water that China claims it owns it.
Through S.C.M.P