The Daily Telegraph

China promises ‘reward’ for spotting spies

- By Neil Connor in Beijing

BEIJING has set up a website in English and Chinese for people to report on “spies”, the latest national security measure to be rolled out by increasing­ly sensitive Chinese authoritie­s.

Citizens are being asked to report people involved in a range of activities, from bribing officials, instigatin­g riots and even “inciting ethnic separatism”.

The website also lets people inform when foreigners meet individual­s who have “endangered state security”.

Chinese dissidents often reach out to foreign government­s and media in an attempt to get their voices heard.

Such official language will cause alarm among human rights groups, which have previously expressed concern about security legislatio­n that is couched in general terms and open to wide interpreta­tion.

It is unclear why the website is in both English and Chinese, although the English-speaking expatriate population in China is growing.

A report by Xinhua, the state news agency, said those who contact the website “will be rewarded if the informatio­n is true”, although no further details were given by authoritie­s.

Last April, officials in Beijing offered rewards of between 10,000 yuan (£1,100) and 500,000 yuan (£55,600) for informatio­n on spies.

Communist China takes an extremely strict approach to its national security and is increasing­ly using data gathered online to mould behaviour.

In 2015, it establishe­d hotlines for people to inform on spies, and in 2016 a cartoon campaign was launched to warn of the risks of dating foreigners.

Additional reporting by Christine Wei

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