China sentences journalist to seven years jail on spy charges

BEIJING: A Beijing court on Friday sentenced veteran Chinese state media journalist Dong Yuyu to seven years in prison on espionage charges, his family said.

Dong Yuyu, a senior columnist at the Communist Party newspaper Guangming Daily, was detained in February 2022 along with a Japanese diplomat at a Beijing restaurant.

The diplomat was released after a few hours of questioning, but Dong, 62, has been in custody since and was charged with spying last year.

“The Beijing No 2 Intermediate People´s Court convicted Yuyu of espionage, a crime that requires that the prosecution prove that the defendant knowingly acted on behalf of ´espionage organisations´ and their agents,” a statement shared with AFP by his family said.

According to the judgement, the Japanese diplomats Dong met with, including then-ambassador Hideo Tarumi and current Shanghai-based chief diplomat Masaru Okada, were named as agents of an “espionage organisation”, the statement added.

“We are shocked that the Chinese authorities would blatantly deem a foreign embassy as an ´espionage organisation´ and accuse the former Japanese ambassador and his fellow diplomats of being spies.”

On Friday, Beijing´s foreign ministry responded to Dong´s case by saying “China is a country ruled by law”.