China sentences journalist detained at meal with Japanese diplomat to 7 years for espionage

BANGKOK (AP) — A court in Beijing on Friday sentenced a prominent Chinese journalist to seven in years in prison for espionage, his family said.

Dong Yuyu, a commentator and editor, was taken away by police while meeting a Japanese diplomat at a restaurant in February 2022. He has been in police custody since then.

The Beijing Number 2 Intermediate People’s Court read the verdict but did not share a copy with Dong’s lawyers or family. No announcement was available on the court’s website or its Weibo account.

The verdict named then-Japanese ambassador Hideo Tarumi and Shanghai-based chief diplomat Masaru Okada as agents belonging to an espionage organization, according the family’s statement.

Dong had served as the deputy head of the editorial department at Guangming Daily, one of the five major state-owned papers in China. The paper was once considered more liberal than other state-backed papers. Dong also contributed to the Chinese edition of the New York Times.

In his published writings, including essays as well as opinion articles, Dong had voiced his support for constitutional democracy and political reform, which later were considered to be against the stance of the Communist Party.

He had contacts with foreign diplomats, scholars and other journalists as part of his decades-long career and counted Tarumi, the ambassador, as a friend.

Still, his family said he knew he was always watched by state security, and therefore sought to be as open as possible while meeting his Japanese or American contacts.

“With Yuyu’s conviction, every Chinese citizen, when dealing with the Japanese embassy — or perhaps any other foreign embassy and diplomat — will be expected to know that the Chinese government may consider those embassies to be ‘espionage organizations,’” said the family in a statement. “Every sensible Chinese citizen should be appalled by this reasoning.”

The U.S. Ambassador to China, Nicholas Burns, condemned Dong’s conviction. “Punishing Dong for exercising his freedom of speech and the press, guaranteed by the PRC’s constitution for all its citizens, is unjust.”

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