The host of a military affairs show on Chinese state television has been thrust into the centre of an espionage scandal after a report in a state newspaper said she was suspected of spying for Taiwan.

Fang Jing, a 38-year-old veteran of China Central Television, denied the allegations from The China Daily, the English-language mouthpiece of the Chinese government, including suggestions that she had been seduced by a Taiwanese man eight years her junior.