Visitors look at the intelligent expression pavilion of Hema Fresh Store, an online-to-offline retailer under the e-commerce platform Alibaba Group, at the Light of the Internet Expo during the fifth World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, East China's Zhejiang Province, on Tuesday. The conference will be held from Wednesday to Friday, featuring topics such as artificial intelligence, 5G, big data and internet security. More than 1,500 guests from 80 countries and regions will participate in the event. Photo: IC

China's Ministry of State Security (MSS) has strengthened effort in non-traditional security sectors, with espionage cases in economic and financial sector uncovered last year seven times from that of five years ago, an official of the ministry said on Monday.

Dong Jingwei, vice minister of MSS, China's national intelligence and anti-espionage authority, said at a press briefing on Monday that the authority's work in non-traditional sectors including bio safety, internet security and data security produced significant results. 

It is part of the first series of results from an ongoing effort of the country's nationwide education and rectification work on the political and judicial personnel. 

Under the plan, the MSS has sent 31 inspection teams to intelligence authorities at provincial level to strengthen inspection and guidance work.

In April, MSS has rolled out a new anti-espionage regulation, allowing the national security authority to strengthen the building of legal standards and implement the responsibility of counter-intelligence on Party and government organs, enterprises and public institutions. 

MSS has also opened a reporting platform for national security, which covers the line of defending national security not only to organizations but also to individuals. 

To date, members of the public have reported over 11,000 clues involving national security, many of which have become formal investigations. Rewards and commendations are available for those who provide valuable tip offs. 

Global Times