Two men arrested in Dalian for spying military secrets

File photo shows the aircraft carrier "Liaoning" of China' navy.

People always believe things like lurking and spying can be seen only in movies. Actually, they are not far from our lives.

The National Security Bureau (NSB) of Dalian city cracked two cases of gathering and providing military secrets to foreign spies illegally last year, according to a report from the Dalian TV.

Dalian, a core city in northeastern China, is an important shipping hub in Northeast Asia and a military strategic place of China.

In the context of the U.S.'s return to Asian stage, with the growing intensity of conflicts in the East and South China Sea, the Navy of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLAN) has embraced a historic opportunity in its development.

Military scientific research and development institutes in Dalian are faced with such arduous tasks as equipment production and experimentation. So Dalian city has become a key target for foreign spying agencies. In a large enterprise of Dalian, the unusual behavior of a Chinese man aroused the suspicions of the NSB in April 2014.

After investigation, the man surnamed Han is from Wafangdian of Dalian city. He was recruited by a "journalist" to take photos in the production fields of military projects, according to Han's confession. The "journalist" is actually one of the foreign spies who had been under the surveillance of China's security department for a long time.

According to Han, he had posted his job-seeking résumé online, and then a stranger made contact with him on WeChat (Chinese voice message service) in March 2014.

The stranger called himself a journalist in need of news clues and promised to pay him if he worked in a military industry and provide photos on military projects.

Under the instruction from the spy, Han, taking advantage of his work, repeatedly entered sensitive regions of the military industry to take photos and transmitted them to the outside.

In addition, he took photos and recorded the scene of the introduction meeting of national defense technical projects in Beijing. He also made a special trip to Huludao city in Liaoning province and took photos of another key military target. Only within a few months, he obtained profits over 90,000 yuan.

Han illegally offered more than hundreds of photos of important military targets to foreign spies, according to the investigation.

Another man surnamed Zhang, from China's Hebei province, chatted online and met a stranger who claimed to be an editor of a foreign magazine.

The stranger wanted to employ Zhang as a part-timer for taking photos of the aircraft carrier "Liaoning". Attracted by the well-paid job, Zhang started to work for the so-called editor.

Zhang offered more than 500 photos to the editor before he received enforcement measures in August of 2014, posing severe threats to national military security.