A Chinese court sentenced a high-ranking editor and columnist for a major Communist Party newspaper to seven years in prison on espionage charges on Friday. His family said it was punishment for past writings that were critical of the government, as well as a warning to Chinese citizens against engaging with foreigners.
The journalist, Dong Yuyu, 62, was arrested in Beijing in 2022 while having lunch with a Japanese diplomat, who was also briefly detained.
As part of his job, Mr. Dong had met regularly with foreign diplomats and journalists. He was also a prolific writer, often expressing support for the rule of law and constitutional democracy, ideas that the ruling Communist Party says it supports but in reality has suppressed. Some of his writing criticized the party’s selective version of Chinese history, which downplays its role in dark periods like the Cultural Revolution.
Such critiques were once common among Chinese intellectuals. But since China’s current leader, Xi Jinping, took power in 2012, the party has eliminated virtually all space for dissenting views and urged citizens to be suspicious of foreign influence, in the name of national security.
Purported foreign espionage has become a particular fixation for the government. Last year, China broadened its already expansive definition of espionage, and the state security agency called for a “whole-of-society mobilization” against spies.
Members of Mr. Dong’s family released a statement on Friday calling his conviction and sentence a “grave injustice,” not only to Mr. Dong but “to every freethinking Chinese journalist and every ordinary Chinese committed to friendly engagement with the world.”
“Yuyu is being persecuted for the independence he has demonstrated during a lifetime spent as a journalist,” the statement continued. “Yuyu will now be known as a traitor in his own country, instead of being recognized as someone who always fought for a better Chinese society.”
After Mr. Dong was detained in 2022, he was held incommunicado for six months before being formally arrested, and he did not stand trial until July 2023, according to his family. The court then repeatedly delayed his verdict and sentencing.
Charges related to national security are shrouded in secrecy, and trials are held behind closed doors. The family’s statement said that the judgment, which was read in court but not shared with Mr. Dong’s lawyers, cited his contacts with a former Japanese ambassador to China, Hideo Tarumi, and another Japanese diplomat as proof that he had met with agents of an espionage organization.
The Japanese Embassy in Beijing did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Dong’s family said the authorities had also scrutinized fellowships and exchanges in which Mr. Dong had participated in Japan and the United States.
The accusations “put tens of thousands of Chinese scholars and professionals who have been on exchanges abroad in danger,” the family said.
Mr. Dong’s career blossomed during a time when interactions with the outside world were not only accepted but encouraged by the Chinese authorities, as the country opened its economy. He joined Guangming Daily, the Communist Party’s No. 2 paper, in 1987, after graduating from Peking University’s prestigious law school.
He rose through the ranks and won journalism awards for stories he wrote or edited about corrupt officials, loans for poor students and other topics.
Outside his work for Guangming Daily, he contributed to liberal-leaning Chinese publications, which have since been shut down. He wrote articles for The New York Times’s Chinese-language website about the government’s prioritization of economic growth over issues like pollution and his desire to send his son overseas for his education.
Starting in 2006, Mr. Dong spent a year at Harvard University on a Nieman journalism fellowship; in later years, he was a visiting scholar at two Japanese universities.
After Mr. Xi took power, the space for individual expression in China quickly shrank, and he demanded that news outlets serve the party. Chinese journalists are no longer allowed to write for foreign publications, and many academics must seek permission from superiors before meeting with foreigners, even privately.
In 2017, party officials at Guangming Daily labeled some of Mr. Dong’s work “anti-socialist,” his family said. (Mr. Dong, unlike most of the paper’s employees, is not a party member.) He continued writing, but he often used a pen name.
On Feb. 21, 2022, Mr. Dong and the Japanese diplomat with whom he was dining were detained at a hotel restaurant. The diplomat was released following protests from the Japanese government.
The family said Mr. Dong had been doing 200 push-ups and 200 leg raises a day in jail. He planned to appeal the verdict and sentence.
Dozens of academics, journalists and media freedom advocates overseas have also called for his release.
Other Chinese citizens have recently been targeted by the authorities after engaging with foreign diplomats. Two human rights activists, Yu Wensheng and Xu Yan, who are married, were arrested in 2023 while on their way to meet European Union diplomats. Last month, they were sentenced to prison terms of three years and a year and nine months, respectively, on charges of inciting subversion of state power.
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