Beijing offers big bucks for spy tip-off

Suspected espionage can be reported through a special hotline or by mail

Beijing, April 10: Budding Chinese sleuths could start stalking foreigners as suspected spies in Beijing after authorities in the city on Monday offered a cash bonanza for information on overseas agents.

Members of the public can report suspected espionage through a special hotline, by mail or in person and will be rewarded with up to 500,000 yuan ($72,460) in compensation if their intelligence is deemed useful.

The average annual wage in Beijing in 2015 was 85,000 yuan ($12,300), according to the most recent data available from the city government.

“Citizens play an important role in spy investigations,” said a statement from the city’s security bureau, in the latest sign of concern about foreign agents in the capital.

Cartoon posters began appearing in Beijing public offices last spring warning Chinese women against falling for the romantic wiles of foreign men with undercover motives. A 16-panel poster titled “Dangerous Love” showed a blossoming relationship between a Chinese government worker named Xiao Li and a visiting scholar, “David”.

Their thwarted happy ending takes the form of a visit to the police station when the pair is arrested after Xiao Li gives David secret internal documents from her government workplace.

The new incentives for whistleblowers will be implemented ahead of China’s second annual National Security Education Day on April 15.

Sources can choose to remain anonymous and request police protection for themselves and their relatives.

Those who deliberately provide false information will be punished, the security bureau said.