A former top Chinese official in Hong Kong has been detained amid allegations he spied for the West, according to Hong Kong newspaper reports. Cai Xiaohong was head of China's Hong Kong liaison office and held another senior post in the territory before Britain handed sovereignty to China.
The semi-official China News Agency said he had been detained while being investigated for selling state secrets.
The agency did not say which countries were involved in the alleged spying.
A report in Hong Kong's Oriental Daily said that Mr Cai had been detained by a mainland security department between July and August this year, and is being investigated in Beijing.
Cai Xiaohong is the son of China's former justice minister Cai Cheng.
He had been in Hong Kong since 1989 - his various jobs over the years included the post of deputy director of the Xinhua news agency.
He was Secretary General of the Central Liaison Office when he left the territory in the summer.
Hong Kong newspapers have been speculating that Britain was the country given information by Mr Cai in the run-up to the handover.
A minister from Britain's Foreign Office, Bill Rammell, who is visiting Hong Kong, declined comment on the allegations.
"We never comment on intelligence matters regardless of the circumstances," he said.
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