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BEIJING — A high-ranking editor at a Chinese language Communist Social gathering newspaper who usually 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 Day by 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 international agent, doubtlessly for Japan or america, in line with Mr. Dong’s household.
Within the decade since China’s high chief, Xi Jinping, took energy, he has inspired and at instances outright exhorted suspicion of international and particularly Western nations, which he has solid as bent on undermining China. On the similar time, he has nearly eradicated the area for liberal views like Mr. Dong’s — partly by depicting them as one other symptom of international 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 line with his relations, who requested anonymity for worry of retaliation. They stated the one proof offered up to now has been his contacts with international diplomats and abroad tutorial fellowships he obtained.
“His international ties weren’t suspicious however a traditional a part of his job and a traditional interplay between peoples in most elements of the world,” the household stated in a press release. “The message appears to be that international contacts are taboo.”
Mr. Dong was detained on Feb. 21 final 12 months, 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” together 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 Day by day in 1987, after graduating from the celebrated Peking College legislation faculty.
He had lengthy been occupied with selling the rule of legislation and an impartial 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 targeted on financial progress, 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 characterize your complete get together in formulating and implementing insurance policies,” he wrote in a liberal historical past journal. “Due to this fact, this get together should additionally take political accountability for the implications 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 atmosphere on the time ended with Mr. Xi’s ascent. In 2017, an investigation of Guangming Day by 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 put in writing. In 2018, beneath a pen title, which is widespread 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 international students, journalists and diplomats looking forward to perception into China’s usually 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 affords proof of espionage is ill-founded.”
Mr. Dong’s function as an “interpreter” of China had develop into much more vital — but in addition riskier — in recent times, stated John Kamm, the founding father of the U.S.-based Dui Hua Basis, which works to free political prisoners in China. “This can be a loss for understanding between China and the surface world,” he stated.
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