In just two days, Germany managed to arrest four individuals accused of espionage on behalf of the People's Republic of China. While Beijing denied these accusations and rejected the notion of implicating its embassy in Berlin, German authorities spoke of these spies transferring information regarding naval military technology and spying on Chinese dissidents and activities of the European Parliament.
This case recalls one of the most famous and bizarre espionage operations led by China against France in the past. Relying on a man disguised as a woman, China was able to acquire sensitive information during the last century through a French diplomat working at his country's embassy in China.
Shi Pei Pu, born on December 21, 1938, in the Shandong province of China, is considered one of the strangest spies in history. During his espionage career, he impersonated a woman who worked as a singer in Beijing Opera. Thanks to his knowledge of literature and proficiency in the French language, he was able to work as a tutor for the children of the charge d'affaires at the French embassy in Beijing.
In 1964, Shi Pei Pu met French diplomat Bernard Boursicot, a 20-year-old accountant at the French embassy in Beijing. During this meeting, Shi Pei Pu deceived the French diplomat into believing he was a woman and entered into a romantic relationship with him. During that time, the Chinese military intelligence agency Qingbao monitored the French diplomat closely, looking for a way to compel him to provide sensitive information and documents regarding French activities.
After the diplomat was transferred within the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Shi Pei Pu contacted Boursicot to inform him of the birth of a child from their relationship. This child, named Shi Dudu, was an orphan obtained by Shi Pei Pu, aided by military intelligence, to continue executing his plan.
In hopes of maintaining his relationship with Shi Pei Pu, whom he believed to be a woman, and his supposed son, Bernard Boursicot began supplying Chinese intelligence official Kang Sheng with sensitive documents about the activities of the French embassy in Beijing.
When Boursicot returned to Paris to settle there with Shi Pei Pu and their presumed son, he, along with Shi Pei Pu, was arrested on June 30, 1983, by French intelligence agents who uncovered the reality of the situation. During the investigations, it became clear that Shi Pei Pu had kept all his sexual encounters with Boursicot in the dark to conceal his true gender. Upon learning this, Boursicot attempted to take his own life in his cell.
Meanwhile, this case sparked a diplomatic scandal that shook the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs as global media reported on the incident. By May 1986, the French court, after the conclusion of the investigations, sentenced both Bernard Boursicot, accused of treason and leaking information to a foreign state, and Shi Pei Pu to six years in prison. Additionally, French President François Mitterrand pardoned Shi Pei Pu in 1987, allowing him to remain in Paris under strict surveillance until his death in 2009.
