Chinese mainland authorities have arrested two suspects accused of spying for intelligence agencies in Taiwan, according to a media report.

The Hong Kong-based news website takungpao.com reported on Monday that prosecutors in Jiangsu province have accused two people of espionage on behalf of Taiwan spy agencies. The report quoted Liu Hua, chief of the Jiangsu Provincial People's Procuratorate, as saying that this is a "big spy case" that involved classified military information.

According to Liu, the two suspects, Ma Liangliang and Liang Xin, were retired officers from the Armed Police Force's Beijing Corps and worked in Baoding, Hebei province, after retiring.

In July 2016, they were recruited by Wu Rongtong, an agent for an unidentified Taiwan intelligence agency, though they were fully aware of Wu's identity. The suspects took advantage of their knowledge of the Armed Police as well as their connections with officers in active service to collect information about the Armed Police's training and equipment and defense contractors' research and development activities, the prosecutor said, adding their acts caused severe damage to the mainland.

The Criminal Law stipulates that an act of espionage leads to a penalty of at least three years in prison and that violation with serious consequences is subject to execution.

Professor Zhu Songling, director of the Cross-Straits Relations Institute at Beijing Union University, said Taiwan has never relaxed its endeavors in the "silent battlefront" targeting classified information from the Chinese mainland.

"Spies working for Taiwan collect everything that they believe concern the island's interests, and some of them even steal secrets for the United States and Japan," he said.

Liu Guoshen, a professor of Taiwan studies at Xiamen University, said information about the mainland's military affairs and defense industries are "top priorities" on Taiwan spies' lists while those pertaining to the mainland's politics, diplomacy and cross-Straits policies also are major targets.

zhaolei@chinadaily.com.cn

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