‘Spy turtles’ and ‘spy fish’ being used to monitor Chinese waters, Beijing claims

Sea turtle hatchlings in Indonesia. China regularly makes claims of spying efforts in waters near its territory. Photograph: Aman Rochman/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

China’s ministry of state security has claimed that foreign espionage and intelligence agencies are using innovative new methods to monitor the country’s waters, including deploying “spy” animals fitted with sensors.

In a post on the Chinese platform WeChat on Friday, the ministry warned that an “invisible secret war” was quietly playing out in the seas around China as foreign agencies were collecting sensitive data “through a variety of new spying devices” to produce underwater maps that pose a “serious threat to our national security”.