BEIJING: China’s Ministry of State Security said on Tuesday (Oct 29) it had recovered spying devices both on the surface of the ocean and in the deep sea, including underwater “beacons” that could guide the transit of “foreign” submarines.

The ministry said it had discovered devices that had been hidden on the ocean floor and were sending back information that could “preset the battlefield,” in a post on its official WeChat account, China’s most popular social media app.

Recent Naval and Air Clashes in the South China Sea between China and the Philippines over competing territorial claims in the highly strategic waterway have increased the risk of an escalation that could eventually implicate the US, which is bound by treaty to defend the Philippines if attacked.

China has also done so recently they organized war games around Taiwan in which he simulated attacks and the deployment of ships and aircraft, drawing condemnation from the government of the democratically-ruled island and the United States.

“National security forces seized a variety of special technical devices used for spying on marine information and data, hidden in the vastness of the sea,” the Ministry of State Security said, without specifying where the devices were found.

“Some act as ‘secret agents’, drifting and drifting with the tides, monitoring the situation in our territorial waters in real time. Some act as underwater ‘beacons’, indicating the direction of foreign submarines that have invaded our waters.”