Province is strategic home to air, naval bases in South China Sea
China's first 24-hour anti-spying hotline in South China's Hainan Province has helped bust over 10 alleged espionage activities, as the region has become increasingly important to China's national security due to its proximity to the South China Sea, reports said Thursday.
The hotline has received dozens of calls since it was launched by Hainan's national security department in July, the Legal Daily, a newspaper under the Ministry of Justice, reported. Several suspects even called to turn themselves in to receive leniency, the report added.
"The hotline is an unprecedented move in China, as efforts against spying is always conducted clandestinely," Wang Guoxiang, an associate professor of anti-terrorism at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.
Some of those suspected of engaging in spying activities are coerced, and the hotline tells them how to seek help under such circumstances, added Wang. "For those who unwittingly leak sensitive information and haven't seriously jeopardized the nation will not be held accountable if they surrender."
"The anti-spying hotline is used in many countries, and other provinces should launch one as well," said Li Wei, a security expert at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations.
The hotline was launched amid Hainan's publicity campaign on national security since July. National security information will be aired on radio and television, published in newspapers and posted on new media platforms such as WeChat.
Hainan launched the hotline because of the strategic importance of naval and air bases in the South China Sea, and foreign intelligence networks are keen on knowing China's military capabilities, added Wang, saying the province is to become another "intelligence center in the Far East."
As Hainan rises in strategic importance, overseas spying and intelligence activities are becoming more serious than ever, said an unnamed senior official with Hainan's national security department, reported the Legal Daily.
TVs on public transportation and places such as banks and hospitals in Sanya and Haikou in Hainan will broadcast security-related information.
Whoever steals, spies into, or unlawfully supplies State secrets or intelligence for overseas agencies will face a maximum of death penalty, according to China's criminal law.
Four employees of an unnamed State-owned defense company suspected of leaking sensitive information to overseas spy agencies were arrested by local security officers in Sichuan Province in July, Chengdu-based West China Metropolis Daily reported Wednesday.
A 53-year-old fisherman had caught a torpedo-shaped Remotely Operated Underwater Vehicle (ROV) in 2012, Haikou-based news portal hkwb.net reported in August.
The ROV was allegedly secretly deployed by a foreign navy to gather data and spy on the movements of the nearby navy fleet, said the report.
Wang also reminded Hainan residents and visitors not to reveal geographic or sensitive information when taking photographs of military airports, warships and airplanes, which might be used by spy agencies.
