EXCLUSIVE: Furious China believes UK spies tracked one of their submarines by bugging a sailor’s Apple smart-watch before the vessel got caught in one of Beijing’s own underwater traps, killing all on board

Paranoid officials in Beijing believe British spies tracked a stricken submarine by tapping a sailor’s Apple smartwatch, Chinese dissidents say.

The theory that ghosts followed the Type 093 – which crashed with the loss of 55 lives – has emerged as part of an investigation into the disaster.

The Mail revealed earlier this week how the ship was lost in the Yellow Sea on August 21 after colliding with a ‘chain and anchor’ device intended to damage Western submarines.

China has denied the incident took place, but private British naval intelligence officers are convinced it did. Officially, the British Ministry of Defense does not want to comment.

Now dissidents outside China claim to have obtained copies of the Chinese Communist Party’s investigation, including Western interference.

The priority of President Xi Jinping’s officials appears to be to blame the West for interfering and eavesdropping on the operations of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN).

One dissident told the Mail: ‘We have received an update from the Central Military Commission. In the secret report, the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) believes that MI6 tapped the Apple Watch of a senior naval officer under Guang Dong’s command and caused the leak of the 093-417 accident.

“This report was given to President Xi Jin Ping and the poor official was arrested. They want to find a scapegoat with foreign connections. They believe the watch was used to record conversations about the submarine at a Navy headquarters.

“PLAN has installed ‘chains and anchors’ in the Yellow Sea, the Philippine Sea and the South China Sea and successfully damaged the US nuclear submarine Connecticut and other ships.”

The official US version of what happened to the USS Connecticut in October 2021 was that the ship suffered damage to its propulsion system after hitting an underwater seamount – rather than a man-made obstacle.

However, the report on the accident released by the US Navy did not provide a location for this natural phenomenon; that information was secret.

The loss of the nuclear attack submarine is a huge blow to Chinese prestige – at a time when it is investing hundreds of billions of pounds in its armed forces.

The sinking of PLAN 093-417 is also the third largest loss of life aboard a submarine in maritime history. The worst accident was the sinking of the Russian Kursk ship in 2000, with the loss of 118 lives.

According to a British naval intelligence officer, the crew died of “hypoxia due to a systems fault on the submarine that took six hours to repair.”

The officer added that the “oxygen system on board the submarine poisoned the crew after a catastrophic failure.” Rescue efforts were apparently hampered by a thunderstorm.

British submarines are believed to contain technology that absorbs carbon dioxide and generates oxygen in such a situation. Apparently, no such equipment was installed in the Chinese submarine.

The 093-417 is one of China’s six nuclear attack submarines and is armed with torpedoes and cruise missiles. It is 351 feet long, 30 feet wide and has a top speed of 30 knots.

The Chinese Navy is expected to expand to 65 to 70 submarines by the end of this decade. This is part of a massive £1 trillion investment package from China in its navy between 2024 and 2028.

The country reportedly already has the world’s largest surface fleet, consisting of more than 340 warships, but it wants to build more advanced vessels, including more aircraft carriers, submarines and unmanned naval drones.

Western observers believe China plans to dominate the South China Sea and beyond using its growing naval power and building bases on coral atolls.

China has militarized at least three islands and armed them with anti-ship and anti-aircraft missile systems. These developments contradicted Beijing’s previous commitments not to do so.