China jails journalist Dong Yuyu for 7 years for ‘spying’

A court in Beijing on Friday handed down a seven-year jail term to prominent journalist and columnist Dong Yuyu after finding him guilty of “espionage” in a trial behind closed doors that ended in July 2023, his family and press associations said.

The Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court announced the verdict and sentence in the trial of Dong, 62, on Friday, saying it was based on evidence of his “meetings with Japanese diplomats,” his family told Reuters in a statement.

The Japanese diplomat Dong met with was also detained by police, and China’s foreign ministry hit out at “foreign personnel engaged in activities inconsistent with their status in China.”

The U.S. National Press Club said Dong, the former deputy head of commentaries at ruling Communist Party newspaper the Guangming Daily, hasn’t been allowed to see or speak with his family since his arrest at Beijing restaurant in February 2022.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists condemned Dong’s sentence.

“CPJ condemns the sentencing of Chinese journalist Dong Yuyu to seven years in prison on espionage charges on Friday,” the group said via its X account. “The verdict is a travesty of justice and Dong Yuyu must be reunited with his family immediately.”

Security was tight near the court building on Friday, with several police cars parked nearby and officers asking journalists to leave the area, Reuters reported.

“Today’s verdict is a grave injustice not only to Yuyu and his family but also to every free-thinking Chinese journalist and every ordinary Chinese committed to friendly engagement with the world,” Dong’s family said in a statement sent to Reuters.

The sentence was based on no evidence and “declares to the world the bankruptcy of the justice system in China,” the statement said.

Commentator

Espionage convictions in Chinese courts can result in sentences of 3-10 years in less severe cases, or life imprisonment in cases deemed more serious by the authorities.

Tarumi made an immediate protest to the foreign ministry, meeting with Assistant Foreign Minister Wu Jianghao, who told him that the meeting was “irregular.”

Tarumi replied that Wu had misrepresented the meeting and objected strongly, with the support of the ambassadors of 13 other countries, according to his account. Eventually, the Japanese diplomat was released.

Targeting Japanese diplomats

A Beijing-based journalist who declined to be named said China intensified its surveillance of Japanese diplomatic missions following the incident, barring them from taking part in exchange activities as they normally would, and isolating them in their embassy and consulates.

More than 700 journalists, academics and NGO workers have signed an online petition on Change.org calling for Dong’s release.

Foreign diplomats, journalists and academics are now being scrutinized more closely by the Chinese authorities, and anyone who contacts them could potentially be accused of “espionage” in today’s political climate, the petition said.

It said Chinese nationalists had called for the investigation of all former Nieman Fellows from China.

Foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told a regular news briefing on Friday, when asked to comment on the sentence, that “Chinese judicial organs handle cases strictly in accordance with the law, and illegal and criminal activities will be investigated and prosecuted according to law.”

Edited by Malcolm Foster.