In Beijing, a court sentenced former deputy director of the Commentary Department of the “Guangming Daily” newspaper, Dong Yuyu, to seven years in prison on November 29 on charges of espionage. On December 3, three Japanese scholars issued a statement demanding immediate release of Dong Yuyu by the Chinese authorities.
Dong Yuyu is known for frequently writing commentaries with a liberal inclination and for his keen observations of Chinese society. Over the years, he has often engaged in face-to-face exchanges with diplomats and journalists from various countries.
One of the initiators of the statement, Professor Akutomoko from the University of Tokyo in Japan, has met Dong Yuyu several times. She told Taiwan’s Central News Agency that Dong Yuyu is a rational and professional scholar, and it is very normal for scholars or foreign diplomats to engage in discussions about China with Chinese scholars. The lack of a public written verdict in this case, with only verbal notifications, is highly unusual.
She mentioned that according to information from Dong Yuyu’s family, photos of landscapes and menus from dinner gatherings given to him by the former Japanese ambassador to China, Hideo Shu, have been considered as “evidence” of his alleged espionage activities, which is quite absurd.
The statement demanding Dong Yuyu’s release was jointly written and released by Professor Akutomoko, Professor Endo Inui of the University of Tokyo, former diplomat and retired university professor Susumu Hosoi.
The statement noted that Dong Yuyu served as a Nieman fellow at Harvard University in the United States from 2006 to 2007, as a visiting researcher at Keio University in Japan in 2010, and as a visiting professor at Hokkaido University in 2014. He is described as an outstanding journalist and advocate for freedom of speech, as well as a patriotic intellectual concerned about China’s future, and unequivocally not a spy.
The statement criticized the Chinese government for intensifying suppression of dissidents under the pretext of “national security” since 2012. Since the implementation of the “Anti-Espionage Law” in 2014, as many as 17 Japanese nationals have been arrested on suspicion of espionage, and some Chinese nationals who had worked in Japan for many years have been detained or gone missing upon their return to China.
Although China reinstated the visa-free policy for short-term visits by Japanese nationals on November 30, the statement pointed out that the vague definition of “spying” and the lack of transparency in the reasons for espionage charges have left many people wary of visiting China. The verdict on Dong Yuyu could potentially create a chilling effect, making interactions between people, journalists, and scholars from China and other countries even more challenging.
The three Japanese scholars asserted in their statement, “We firmly believe they are not spies,” and urged the Chinese authorities to immediately release Dong Yuyu.
Further reading:
Former state media editor Dong Yuyu sentenced to seven years on espionage charges by the Chinese Communist Party.