Chinese-American scholar Li Shaomin (
A US official welcomed the decision to release Li, whose case was a major irritant in Sino-American relations and had been raised with the Chinese by US President George W. Bush.
The Xinhua report did not say when or to where Li, a US citizen who had been living in Hong Kong, would be deported. It did not refer to any jail sentence for the management professor.
But legal sources said that under China's law, the expulsion would likely come after the Beijing First People's Intermediate Court confirmed its verdict in writing -- a process that required five days.
His trial and expulsion comes five months after he disappeared into the hands of Chinese secret police during a visit to Shenzhen, across the border from Hong Kong.
"Large number of evidences [sic] produced at the court show that Li accepted tasks from a Taiwan spy organization and collected information for it, which harmed state security of China," Xinhua said.
Li, one of several US-linked Chinese scholars arrested by Chinese police on spying charges this year, was convicted on the morning after Olympic officials set aside concerns about China's human rights record and awarded Beijing the 2008 Games.
Many observers had expected a swift trial and expulsion to lift a major stumbling block in US-China ties two weeks before a July 28 to 29 fence-mending visit to China by US Secretary of State Colin Powell.
There has been no word from China about trial dates for other US-linked Chinese academics over whom Washington has raised concern since their detention on spying charges. They include US citizen Wu Jianmin (吳建民) and permanent US residents Gao Zhan (高瞻) and Qin Guangguang (覃光廣).
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