Chinese officials said a US citizen who was sentenced to life in prison tricked them into honey traps so they might be blackmailed

Beijing said on Monday that a US citizen serving a life sentence for espionage tricked Chinese officials into staying in hotels that had been bugged and used “honey traps” to extort them into spying for the US.

John Shing-wan Leung, 78, a native of Hong Kong, was given a life term in jail in May for espionage.

Beijing’s Ministry of State Security, one of the nation’s main intelligence agencies, said in a statement on social media that he had been hired by the US in the 1980s, beginning a “30-year career in spying.”

According to the ministry, US agents created a complex biography for him, portraying him as a philanthropist and pressuring him to spy on the Chinese diaspora and capture Chinese leaders traveling to the US.

Leung engaged in extensive espionage against our nation, the ministry said on Weibo.

According to the statement, “If (he) learned about Chinese personnel’s plan to travel to the US for official business, he would report them to the US intelligence agencies.”

According to the US side’s instructions, “He would take them to restaurants or hotels where the US intelligence agencies had beforehand installed monitoring equipment,” it said.

After that, according to the government, he would “work to extract information and even set up honey traps in an attempt to coerce and recruit our personnel.” The ministry was alluding to the practice of using sexual blackmail in espionage.

CRACKDOWN ON SPY

For anyone found guilty of espionage, Chinese law imposes severe penalties, ranging from life in jail to death in the most extreme circumstances.

In light of a new legislation issued in July that significantly broadened the definition of espionage, President Xi Jinping has intensified his battle against purported covert operations recently.

China has long been accused of conducting espionage on Western nations. Beijing has disputed the assertions.

Chinese espionage is “the greatest long-term threat to our nation’s information and intellectual property, as well as to our economic vitality,” according to FBI Director Christopher Wray in 2020.

In addition, authorities in the UK said over the weekend that they had detained a guy in his 20s at his house in Edinburgh on suspicion of espionage; according to the Sunday Times, the man worked as a researcher in the British parliament.

The suspect is a British citizen who has experience in China and has worked on international affairs, especially Beijing-related issues, the publication claimed.