Chinese Researcher Receives Death Sentence for Selling State Secrets

A man named Liu received the death penalty in China for selling secret documents to foreign spies, as confirmed by the State Security Ministry’s announcement on Wednesday. Liu took classified documents after resigning from his research institute because he held anger towards the institute. 

One year after debt pushed him to bankruptcy, Liu offered undisclosed state documents to overseas spies who bought them for under market value. During this period, Liu tried to sell secret national information to foreign agencies and made multiple international travel attempts to do so, according to official reports.

The authorities in China continue to observe more suspected espionage incidents as part of their ongoing threat identification strategy. In November 2018, authorities gave a death sentence to a former government employee for alleged contact with foreign spies. The Australian government repeatedly tried to recover Yang Hengjun, but he stayed imprisoned in China under espionage charges. Countries worldwide now arrest more Chinese nationals whom they suspect of spying activities in stepped-up defense operations.