Another Foreigner Detained in China, This Time a Korean Soccer Pro

SINGAPORE—Chinese police have detained a South Korean soccer player on allegations of bribery, the latest in a spate of enforcement actions affecting foreigners in China.

Son Jun-ho, a 31-year-old who plays in China’s top-tier soccer league and has appeared for the South Korean national team, was detained on Friday while trying to leave China via an airport in Shanghai, according to a report Tuesday by the semiofficial South Korean news agency Yonhap.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said at a briefing that public-security authorities in the northeastern province of Liaoning had detained a South Korean national on suspicion of accepting bribes. Mr. Wang didn’t elaborate on the allegations.

Liaoning police have informed the South Korean consulate in the provincial capital of Shenyang about the case and will facilitate South Korean efforts to provide consular support, said Mr. Wang, who didn’t identify Mr. Son by name.

South Korea’s Foreign Ministry is aware of the situation and is providing consular assistance, a spokesman said. He declined to comment further, citing privacy regulations.

Mr. Son, who plays midfield for Chinese soccer club Shandong Taishan F.C., made three substitute appearances for South Korea at the 2022 World Cup. He couldn’t be reached for comment.

Shandong Taishan, a Chinese Super League team that most recently won the competition in 2021, didn’t respond to queries sent to its official social-media accounts. The club wished Mr. Son a happy birthday in a social-media post Friday. Mr. Son most recently appeared for Shandong Taishan in a league match on May 10, but wasn’t named when the team played Sunday.

Hours after China’s Foreign Ministry commented on Mr. Son’s case, Shandong Taishan announced that it has appointed a South Korean citizen—and former national team coach—as the club’s new head coach.

Chinese anticorruption inspectors have conducted sweeping probes of the domestic soccer business in recent months, detaining some of its most prominent personalities. Those targeted include a former head coach of the Chinese men’s national team, as well as several top soccer administrators, including the president and the Communist Party secretary of the Chinese Football Association.

In separate actions, authorities recently have conducted a number of raids of foreign companies and their employees.

In March, Chinese authorities detained an employee of Japanese drugmaker Astellas Pharma Inc., citing suspicions that the man, a Japanese national, had engaged in espionage. The same month, authorities in Beijing raided the local offices of New York-based due diligence firm Mintz Group, detaining all five of the company’s staff members in mainland China on suspicion of engaging in unlawful business operations.

This month, Chinese state media publicized law-enforcement raids that Chinese authorities conducted against Capvision, an international consulting firm based in Shanghai and New York, over alleged activity that contravened national-security regulations.

Meanwhile, Chinese and South Korean diplomats have traded barbs in recent weeks over South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s comments on the self-ruled democracy of Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its territory.

In an April interview with Reuters, Mr. Yoon described Taiwan as a global issue and said South Korea opposed unilateral attempts to change the status quo around the island, remarks that China denounced as interference in its internal affairs.

Dasl Yoon in Seoul contributed to this article.

Write to Chun Han Wong at chunhan.wong@wsj.com