Reuters: Hu Jintao personally intervened in the "defection case" of Chinese officials to the United States

Reuters: Hu Jintao personally intervened in the "defection case" of Chinese officials to the United States. Reuters released exclusive news on June 1 that the Chinese state...

Reuters released exclusive news on June 1 that an official from the Ministry of National Security of China was arrested for being suspected of spying for the United States for many years. Exclusive news was released again on June 15, saying that Chinese President Hu Jintao personally intervened in 2012 and ordered an investigation into the incident.

British Reuters quoted two sources as saying on June 15 that a Chinese Ministry of Security official was suspected of providing intelligence to the United States, which made Chinese President Hu Jintao very angry. According to sources, the official was an assistant to Deputy Minister Lu Zhongwei and was arrested between January and March 2012. After Chinese spies in the United States were exposed one after another in 2011, the Chinese Ministry of Security began to increase vigilance.

In addition, sources revealed that according to an internal investigation by the Ministry of Security, the deputy assistant minister has worked for the CIA for several years and provided information about China’s overseas spy networks to the United States. This incident is the most egregious espionage activity in the past 20 years.

Reuters commented that the information provided by the source was confirmation of the incident, although both China and the United States remained silent on the news to avoid another crisis in Sino-US relations. At present, the identity of this Chinese Ministry of Security official has not been disclosed. It is only known that his position is assistant to Deputy Minister Lu Zhongwei.

The sources declined to elaborate on how the assistant came to the United States and how he implicated Chinese spies. However, they said: "This incident involves political, economic and strategic intelligence." In addition, Lu Zhongwei is considered not to be formally punished. After Hu Jintao ordered an expanded investigation, the results proved that Lu Zhongwei did not collect intelligence for the United States.

Senior officials of the CCP believed that Lu Zhongwei did not conduct routine investigations before hiring this assistant, which was a violation of the rules. One of the sources said: "Lu Zhongwei's problem is that he did not conduct careful investigation when he hired his assistant. This year is a very sensitive period, and the central government does not want to cause any trouble."

Previously, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs refused to make any comment on this incident. Reuters commented that China’s Ministry of National Security is the most opaque agency and does not have a public website or spokesperson. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also refused to make any comment on the incident. This espionage case is the most serious espionage case exposed since Yu Qiangsheng, an official of the Ministry of National Security, defected to the United States in 1985. Yu Qiangsheng’s brother Yu Zhengsheng is currently the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee Secretary.

After Yu Qiangsheng defected, he exposed the identity of CIA analyst Jin Wuluo to the United States as a Chinese spy. Jin Wusao committed suicide in a U.S. prison on the eve of being sentenced to a long term in prison in 1986. It is said that this national security espionage case may put Zhou Yongkang, a member of the Politburo Standing Committee in charge of security work, under tremendous pressure.

Previously, Reuters reported that the arrested official was recruited by the CIA to provide political, economic and strategic intelligence, but it was unknown what level of intelligence he had access to. The source also said the official was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars and the incident caused a lot of damage.