[Fertionbratte]

HONG KONG | Fri Jun 1, 2012 6:38am EDT


Meng Hongwei, China's vice-minister of Public Security, chairman of the Regional Anti-Terrorist
Structure of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) inspects the soldiers after a joint anti-terror
drill in Kaxgar, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, May 6, 2011.


(Reuters) - A Chinese state security official has been arrested on suspicion of spying for the United States,
sources said, a case both countries have kept quiet for several months as they strive to prevent a fresh
crisis in relations.

The official, an aide to a vice minister in China's security ministry, was arrested and detained early this year on
allegations that he had passed information to the United States for several years on China's overseas espionage
activities, said three sources, who all have direct knowledge of the matter.

The aide had been recruited by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and provided "political, economic and strategic
intelligence", one source said, though it was unclear what level of information he had access to, or whether
overseas Chinese spies were compromised by the intelligence he handed over.

The case could represent China's worst known breach of state intelligence in two decades and its revelation follows
two other major public embarrassments for Chinese security, both involving U.S. diplomatic missions at a tense
time for bilateral ties.

The aide, detained sometime between January and March, worked in the office of a vice-minister in China's Ministry
of State Security, the source said. The ministry is in charge of the nation's domestic and overseas intelligence operations.

The incident ranks as the most serious Sino-U.S. spying incident to be made public since 1985 when Yu Qiangsheng,
an intelligence official, defected to the United States. Yu told the Americans that a retired CIA analyst had been spying
for China. The analyst killed himself in 1986 in a U.S. prison cell, days before he was due to be sentenced to a lengthy
jail term.