China claims HK reporter a spy
Tuesday, May 31, 2005 Posted: 0545 GMT (1345 HKT)
BEIJING, China (Reuters) -- China has accused a Hong Kong-based
reporter for Singapore's The Straits Times newspaper of spying for
foreign agencies, but his wife said it was a set-up.
If charged and convicted, Ching Cheong,
55, a Hong Kong citizen and permanent resident of Singapore, could
face the death penalty. He was detained by agents of the state
security apparatus in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou on
April 22.
"Ching admitted that in recent years he engaged in intelligence
gathering activities on the mainland on instructions from foreign
intelligence agencies and accepted huge amounts of spying fees,"
the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
"Currently, relevant departments are investigating his spying
activities," the statement said without elaborating on which
country or countries were alleged to be his paymaster.
Ching is the second employee of a foreign news organization taken
into custody by President Hu Jintao's government in a year.
New York Times researcher Zhao Yan was formally arrested last
October for revealing state secrets -- believed to be news that
then military chief Jiang Zemin was retiring from politics. Zhao
has yet to go on trial.
Ching's wife was adamant he was innocent.
"He was wrongly accused," Mary Lau told Reuters by telephone.
"I don't understand. He was in Beijing all of March (to cover the
annual session of parliament), but they didn't arrest him
then."
Lau said on Monday her husband had been accused of stealing state
secrets -- obtaining unpublished interviews with late Communist
Party chief Zhao Ziyang, who was purged for opposing the 1989
Tiananmen massacre in which hundreds, perhaps thousands, of
pro-democracy protesters were killed.
Zhao Ziyang died in Beijing in January but his political ghost
still haunts the party's leaders.
A source close to Zhao's family said the authorities were
determined to prevent publication of books that would contain the
interviews -- conducted secretly by close associate Zong Fengming
over 15 years while Zhao lived under house arrest -- because the
interviews could be seen to undermine the legitimacy of the current
leadership.
"It was a set-up. When they handed him the books, they arrested him
immediately. They arranged to meet him to pass him the books," Lau
said, referring to purported draft copies.
The Straits Times' publisher, Singapore Press Holdings Ltd., said
Ching was assisting security authorities in Beijing with an
investigation into a matter not related to the newspaper, which is
indirectly linked to the Singapore government.
China-born Ching has been working for The Straits Times since 1996
and is the paper's chief China correspondent.
He quit as Beijing bureau chief of Hong Kong's leftist Wen Wei Po
newspaper in 1989 in protest against the army crushing the
student-led demonstrations in and around Tiananmen Square.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said recently
China had the most journalists in prison of any country.
Hong Kong, a former British colony, reverted to Chinese rule in
1997 but was promised a high degree of autonomy, including freedom
of the press. Nevertheless, Hong Kong journalist Xi Yang was
sentenced to 12 years in prison in 1994 for stealing secrets. He
was paroled three years later.
