The China allegations are aimed at Dong Yuyu, a well-known liberal commentator and editor at Guangming Daily, one of the five major Communist Party-affiliated newspapers in the country. Historically, according to his family, the newspaper served intellectuals, artists, teachers and others with a higher education, and for many years it was more liberal than others. Mr. Dong has long expressed support for liberal reforms in China, particularly in creating a legal system based on the rule of law. He participated in the 1989 Tiananmen student protests and was punished, sent to endure hard labor in a steel factory for a year, but kept his job at the newspaper. He eventually rose to become deputy head of the editorial department.
China’s current leader, Xi Jinping, has eliminated the public space for reformist and liberal views and demanded strict loyalty to the party line. But in earlier years, China was more open to reform ideas, and Mr. Dong co-edited a book in 1998 that contained essays from pro-reform scholars calling for a more transparent and independent judiciary, which he also advocated in the pages of Guangming Daily.
In a history journal in 2013, he wrote a review of Harvard professor Roderick MacFarquhar’s book, “The Origins of the Cultural Revolution,” arguing that the decade of upheaval and violence led by Mao Zedong was the responsibility of the Communist Party as a whole and not just individuals. By 2017, the political environment had changed. He was labeled “anti-socialist” and threatened with demotion. Mr. Dong was nevertheless in frequent contact with Japanese and American diplomats and journalists. According to his family, he met them in the open for working lunches, knowing he was being surveilled by Chinese state security, but believing such meetings were part of his job. The current Japanese ambassador to China, Hideo Tarumi, is a longtime friend of Mr. Dong.
It was at one such lunch on Feb. 21, 2022, in Beijing that he was arrested while meeting a Japanese diplomat in a hotel restaurant. The Japanese diplomat was also taken in for questioning but was released. Mr. Dong has been held for more than a year without being allowed to meet family members and with only limited access to a lawyer.
His family says that in the first months of detention he was “forced to write down in close detail what he did each day on his visits to Japan,” which occurred more than a decade earlier. The family said this is a form of coercive confession, but that the writings cannot “constitute enough evidence for espionage under Chinese criminal law.” They added that to prove espionage, the state must show Mr. Dong was an “agent of an espionage organization,” but he “never was an agent or worked for any foreign organization.” His family said they told investigators that his foreign ties were not suspicious, “but a normal part of his job and a normal interaction between peoples in most parts of the world.”
On March 23, Mr. Dong’s family was informed that his case is being sent to court for trial. It is not known when that will happen. The espionage charge normally carries a penalty of more than 10 years in prison.
A day longer in detention would be a severe injustice. Mr. Dong was a journalist doing what journalists do — collecting information, gaining understanding and expressing views for the betterment of all. This is not spying, and he should be released immediately.
