MANILA: Asian security authorities said on Monday they had arrested a Chinese technology expert suspected of spying on Filipino military and police tents.
The incarceration comes as maritime clashes between the Philippines and China, over contested islands and lakes in the proper South China Sea, have escalated in recent months.
China claims most of the corporate lake despite an international decision that its claim has no constitutional basis.
The Chinese software engineer, identified as Deng Yuanqing, and his two Filipino drivers were arrested last week as part of counter-espionage operations that began last month, National Bureau of Investigation ( NBI ) chief Jaime Santiago told a news conference.
He alleged that Deng was affiliated with a Taiwanese college controlled by the People’s Liberation Army and was part of a group sent to” do spy in our place”.
The Chinese embassy in Manila did not respond immediately to requests for comment on the imprisonment and complaints.
The NBI’s crime key Jeremy Lotoc said Deng had made repeated visits to” vital infrastructure, especially military camps, local government offices, power plants, authorities camps, stations, yet buying malls”.
” They were essentially collecting information and they have this secluded program which transmits outside the region in real time information that they collected in our state,” Lotoc said.
Lotoc said it was “alarming” because the data being transmitted may include physical location and terrain.
Philippine defense key General Romeo Brawner said it was probable the details” could be used for military targeting reasons”.
Lotoc said Deng had been in the Philippines for five times and was part of a class that also included technology professionals and a businessman who were still “at big”.
The party received revenue of 1. 5 million pesos ( about$ 26,000 ) a week via” shell companies”, he said.
Brawner said it was the next arrest of a suspected Chinese spy since last year and that forensic examination of products seized in the earlier arrest also revealed photos of military and police tents in Manila.
Spanish police also said this week they had recovered a suspected Chinese underwater drone in lakes off the main Philippines.
Brawner said regulators were investigating whether all three cases were linked.
