They then approached Wang to offer well-paid consulting service that involved the inner workings of central state firms after learning that he “had a strong desire for money,” according to the government.
Eventually, MI6 members eventually revealed their names to Wang and instructed him to go back to China to gather intelligence, persuading him to compel Zhou into doing the same.
The government said it had gathered information and taken “decisive methods” against Wang, adding that the situation was under deeper analysis.
The speech gave no particulars of Wang or Zhou’s present occupations in China, the nature of the information they provided, or their movements.
AFP has contacted Britain’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, which handles MI6 hit requests, for opinion.
China and the European powers have long exchanged information about eavesdropping, but they only just started disclosing specifics of reported individual cases.
Matthew Trickett, who had been accused of helping the semi-autonomous Chinese area of Hong Kong to obtain knowledge in the UK, was discovered dead last month by English officers in mysterious circumstances.
In the same week that American authorities charged two men with giving Beijing sensitive data between 2021 and last year, European authorities arrested four people on suspicion of spying for China in April.