A 70-year old Beijing resident named Gao Yu was detained on May 8, 2014, for leaking "state secrets" to foreign contacts. Beijing police said she is suspected of illegally obtaining a highly confidential document and sending an electronic copy of it to an overseas website in June last year. The document was later published at the website and widely reposted abroad. She was detained on April 24. While Gao Yu has reportedly expressed deep remorse, the case is under further investigation. Interestingly, earlier in 1993 also Gao Yu was sentenced to six years in prison for leaking state secrets.

Chinese security officials claim to have detected about 30 cases of Chinese students being “recruited” or targeted through the Internet by just one foreign spy called “Li Hua” since 2012. National security agencies say the findings are confirmed and that most of the students were “approached” on online chatrooms or job-seeking websites.