Hong Kong, Dec 20: Hong Kong has become a focus of the world's spy agencies keen to get an insight into a quickly-developing China, an official with Beijing's political office in the city said in press reports today. The recent arrest of a Chinese bureaucrat for selling state secrets to Britain was just the "tip of the iceberg" in terms of cloak-and-dagger espionage here, Li Gang, deputy director of the city's Beijing liaison office told the South China Morning Post.

"Hong Kong is a place where foreign intelligence agencies conduct a lot of activity," Li said, adding that "there are other matters" regarding spying in the city.

Former liaison office secretary-general Cai Xiaohong was detained in Beijing for selling secrets to London for USD 6 million, the Post said.

During the height of the Cold War, while the city was under British colonial rule, Hong Kong was an important conduct of intelligence for western spies keeping tabs on Communist China and vice versa.

Local police had been charged with spy-catching, the report said, but since Hong Kong's transfer of sovereignty to China in 1997 such roles had been taken on by the Central government in Beijing. Bureau Report