Stop the presses! Barely a month after President Donald Trump visited Beijing, an espionage scandal is brewing in the pristine waters off China’s long stretches of ocean coastline. China’s Ministry of State Security addressed the situation in a post on the social platform WeChat, the exact wording of which depends on your choice of translator. We’re going by Google Translate’s interpretation here. The post is really quite a read. It begins by setting the scene: China’s territorial waters, an “expansive blue territory [that] is a precious gift from nature to the Chinese nation.” And we’re not talking about nice beaches and an abundance of fish here. No, the sea “[provides China with] strategic space and abundant resources for promoting high-quality development and advancing Chinese-style modernization.” But despite the high-quality development and Chinese-style modernization, all is not well in the expansive blue territory! No, beneath the waves, “an unseen covert war of espionage is quietly unfolding.”
“Foreign intelligence agencies,” the post continues, “are continuously collecting and stealing sensitive maritime data through various new types of espionage equipment.” Egad! What sorts of espionage equipment are we talking here? Well, the culprits are many and varied, but the ones that caught our eye were “spy turtles and spy fish.” Yes, apparently these devious marine creatures have been “fitted with sensors” and sent to “swim in specific areas, collect ocean data, and transmit it to overseas satellites.” You might wonder exactly how much data a turtle could collect, but according to the Ministry, this is no laughing matter. “Sensitive data such as ocean current dynamics, water temperature characteristics, temperature distribution, and seabed topography, if stolen by foreign intelligence agencies, will seriously endanger China’s national security, military security, and economic security.”
