China sentences journalist for espionage after he was detained while eating with Japanese diplomat

A prominent Chinese journalist was sentenced in a Beijing court to seven years in prison for espionage, according to his family.

Dong Yuyu, a commentator and editor, was detained by police in February 2022 while he was meeting a Japanese diplomat at a restaurant, according to The Associated Press, and has been in police custody since.

The verdict on Friday named then-Japanese ambassador Hideo Tarumi and Shanghai-based chief diplomat Masaru Okada as agents belonging to an espionage organization, Dong's family said.

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Dong had served as the deputy head of the editorial department at Guangming Daily, a state-owned newspaper in China. He also contributed to the Chinese edition of the New York Times.

His published work includes his support for constitutional democracy and political reform, which were later deemed to be against the position of China's Communist Party.

Dong had contacts with foreign diplomats, scholars and other journalists through his decades-long career as a journalist. He also considered Tarumi as a friend.

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His family said he knew he was always watched by state security, so he wanted 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,'" the family said in a statement. "Every sensible Chinese citizen should be appalled by this reasoning."

The U.S. Ambassador to China, Nicholas Burns, criticized 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," Burns said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.