The family of a prominent Chinese journalist confirmed that he has been sentenced to seven years in prison for espionage by a Beijing court.
Dong Yuyu, a commentator and editor, was arrested in February 2022 while meeting a Japanese diplomat at a restaurant, as reported by The Associated Press, and has been in police custody since then.
According to his family, the verdict on Friday implicated then-Japanese ambassador Hideo Tarumi and Shanghai-based chief diplomat Masaru Okada as members of an espionage group.
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Chinese journalist Dong Yuyu stands at the gates of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., in May 2017. (Dong Family via AP)
Dong previously held a position as the deputy head of the editorial department at Guangming Daily, a government-owned newspaper in China, and had contributed to the Chinese edition of the New York Times.
His writings advocating for constitutional democracy and political reform eventually clashed with the views of China’s Communist Party, leading to his arrest.
Throughout his career, Dong had built relationships with foreign diplomats, scholars, and fellow journalists. He considered Tarumi a friend.
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Dong Yuyu, a commentator and editor, was detained by police in February 2022 while he was meeting a Japanese diplomat at a restaurant. (iStock)
Dong’s family disclosed that he was aware of being monitored by state security and aimed to be transparent in his interactions with Japanese and American contacts.
“With Yuyu’s conviction, every Chinese citizen engaging with the Japanese embassy — or any foreign embassy and diplomat — should understand that the Chinese government could view them as ‘espionage organizations,'” the family asserted. “All rational Chinese citizens should be disturbed by this rationale.”
Dong had contacts with foreign diplomats, scholars, and other journalists throughout his lengthy journalism career. (iStock)
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The U.S. Ambassador to China, Nicholas Burns, condemned Dong’s sentencing, stating, “Punishing Dong for exercising his freedom of speech and press, as guaranteed by the PRC’s constitution for all citizens, is unjust.”
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
