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BEIJING — A high-ranking editor at a Chinese language Communist Occasion newspaper who typically wrote liberal-leaning commentaries is predicted to face trial for espionage in Beijing, after he was arrested whereas consuming lunch with a Japanese diplomat.
The editor, Dong Yuyu, was a columnist and deputy editor of the editorial part at Guangming Each day, one of many get together’s main newspapers. For many years, he had routinely met with foreigners, together with diplomats and journalists, partly to tell his personal prolific writing. However now the authorities are eyeing these interactions as proof that he was working as a overseas agent, doubtlessly for Japan or the US, in accordance with Mr. Dong’s household.
Within the decade since China’s prime chief, Xi Jinping, took energy, he has inspired and at occasions outright exhorted suspicion of overseas and particularly Western nations, which he has forged as bent on undermining China. On the similar time, he has just about eradicated the area for liberal views like Mr. Dong’s — partly by depicting them as one other symptom of overseas meddling.
The comparatively liberal Chinese language publications the place Mr. Dong as soon as revealed, along with writing for his personal employer, have been gutted. Chinese language journalists have been barred from writing for abroad publications; beforehand, Mr. Dong had contributed a number of articles to The New York Occasions’s Chinese language web site.
It isn’t clear whether or not Mr. Dong, 61, was focused for his liberal views, his contacts with foreigners or each, in accordance with his relations, who requested anonymity for worry of retaliation. They stated the one proof introduced up to now has been his contacts with overseas diplomats and abroad educational fellowships he acquired.
“His overseas ties weren’t suspicious however a traditional a part of his job and a traditional interplay between peoples in most components of the world,” the household stated in an announcement. “The message appears to be that overseas contacts are taboo.”
Mr. Dong was detained on Feb. 21 final yr, whereas assembly a Japanese diplomat at a resort restaurant in central Beijing. The diplomat was additionally detained — an incident that prompted protests from the Japanese authorities, which accused China of violating worldwide requirements on diplomatic immunity. China stated, with out offering proof, that the diplomat had been engaged in actions “inconsistent” along with his work.
The diplomat was launched after a number of hours. Mr. Dong, nonetheless, was held for six months in a murky type of secret detention, then formally arrested. Final month, he was indicted.
It isn’t clear when he’ll stand trial. Expenses associated to nationwide safety are shrouded in secrecy, with trials held behind closed doorways. Espionage can carry a jail sentence of 10 years or extra.
Mr. Dong started working at Guangming Each day in 1987, after graduating from the celebrated Peking College regulation college.
He had lengthy been taken with selling the rule of regulation and an unbiased judiciary, his household stated — matters on which the federal government in earlier many years had allowed public debate.
He wrote a chunk encouraging the federal government to supply extra loans for poor college students, which received an award from the All-China Journalists Affiliation. In 2012, in a chunk for The Occasions, he fearful that the federal government was overly centered on financial development, overlooking air pollution and different points.
In a 2013 overview of the Harvard scholar Roderick MacFarquhar’s historical past of the Cultural Revolution, Mr. Dong criticized the get together’s portrayal of the last decade of chaos and bloodshed, which had been led by Mao Zedong, because the work of some unhealthy actors.
“It doesn’t matter what inside standards are used to divide a political get together into ‘good guys’ and ‘unhealthy guys,’ these individuals all signify your complete get together in formulating and implementing insurance policies,” he wrote in a liberal historical past journal. “Subsequently, this get together should additionally take political duty for the results of those insurance policies.”
Mr. Dong received a Nieman journalism fellowship at Harvard College in 2006. He additionally was a visiting fellow at Japan’s Keio College in 2010, and a visiting professor at Hokkaido College in 2014.
However the comparatively extra open setting on the time ended with Mr. Xi’s ascent. In 2017, an investigation of Guangming Each day by get together authorities labeled the 2013 e book overview “anti-socialist,” and he was threatened with demotion, Mr. Dong’s household stated. Mr. Dong was additionally not a celebration member, placing him within the minority on the paper.
Nonetheless, he continued to write down. In 2018, beneath a pen title, which is frequent for opinions writers at Chinese language publications to have, he wrote a extensively learn critique of native officers in Jiangxi Province for destroying coffins in a marketing campaign to advertise cremation.
And his viewers was not solely home, but in addition included a neighborhood of overseas students, journalists and diplomats looking forward to perception into China’s typically opaque political and social landscapes. In an open letter in assist of Mr. Dong, launched on Monday, a few of them stated he was an “glorious ambassador for China” who had at all times been clear about their engagements, scheduling conferences in public locations.
Ann Marie Lipinski, the curator of the Nieman fellowship, stated in an e-mail that “any hypothesis that his journalism fellowship provides proof of espionage is ill-founded.”
Mr. Dong’s function as an “interpreter” of China had grow to be much more essential — but in addition riskier — lately, stated John Kamm, the founding father of the U.S.-based Dui Hua Basis, which works to free political prisoners in China. “It is a loss for understanding between China and the skin world,” he stated.
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