China has sentenced a 78-year-old US citizen to life in prison for espionage, a court said yesterday, but revealed few details about the case that had previously gone unreported.
Such heavy terms are relatively rare for foreign citizens in China, and the jailing of US passport holder John Shing-wan Leung (梁成運) is likely to further strain already damaged ties between Beijing and Washington.
Leung, who is a Hong Kong permanent resident, “was found guilty of espionage, sentenced to life imprisonment, deprived of political rights for life,” the Suzhou Intermediate People’s Court said in a statement.
Photo: AFP
Authorities in Suzhou, a city in eastern China, “took compulsory measures according to the law” against Leung in April 2021, it said, without specifying when he had been taken into custody.
It was unclear where Leung had been living at the time of his arrest.
A spokesperson for the US embassy in Beijing said they were aware of reports that a US citizen had been convicted and sentenced in Suzhou.
“The [US] Department of State has no greater priority than the safety and security of US citizens overseas,” the spokesperson said. “Due to privacy considerations, we have no further comment.”
The court statement provided no further details on the charges, and closed door trials are routine in China for sensitive cases.
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Wang Wenbin (汪文斌) declined to comment further on the case at a news conference yesterday.
The jailing is likely to damage relations with Washington, which are already severely strained over issues such as trade, human rights and Taiwan.
Washington and Beijing have ended an unofficial pause in high-level contacts over the US’ shooting down in February of a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon.
In an apparent breakthrough last week, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Chinese Central Foreign Affairs Commission Director Wang Yi (王毅) held eight hours of talks in Vienna, with both sides describing the meeting as “candid, substantive and constructive.”
On Friday, Washington issued a statement condemning the reported sentencing of a human rights activist for “inciting subversion of state power.”
Guo Feixiong (郭飛雄), also known as Yang Maodong (楊茂東), was jailed for eight years, according to rights groups. There has been no official confirmation from China of the sentencing.
In its statement, the US Department of State said its diplomats had been barred from attending the trial in southern China.
“We urge the PRC to live up to its international commitments, give its citizens due process, respect their human rights and fundamental freedoms including freedom of speech, and end the use of arbitrary detentions and exit bans,” US Department of State spokesman Matthew Miller said, referring to the People’s Republic of China.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to