BEIJING – China has sentenced a 78-year-old American passport holder to life in prison on spying charges, as the world’s No. 2 economy prioritises eliminating national security risks.
John Leung, who is also a Hong Kong permanent resident, was sentenced in the eastern Chinese city of Suzhou on Monday, according to the court’s official WeChat page.
In addition, some 500,000 yuan (S$96,300) of Leung’s property was confiscated, the report added.
Leung was arrested on suspicion of espionage in April 2021, said the statement. No details of his crime were provided.
A spokesman for the United States Embassy in Beijing said in an e-mailed statement that it was aware of the reports.
“Given the opacity of the charges, and evidence against the defendant, the verdict further erodes the foreign business community’s confidence in the environment,” said Mr James Zimmerman, a Beijing-based lawyer with law firm Perkins Coie.
“This is not a welcomed development.”
Perkins Coie, which has its headquarters in Seattle, also provides legal services to Bloomberg.
According to the Chinese Communist Party’s mouthpiece, People’s Daily newspaper, a Hong Kong-born man of the same name and age moved to the US at age 16. After working at the United Nations, Leung began facilitating exchanges between government officials and businessmen in China and the US, according to the article published in the newspaper’s overseas edition in 2004. He also founded a friendship association between Oklahoma City and Guangzhou, in southern China, the report said.
In April, China passed new counter-espionage legislation expanding the list of activities that can be considered spying, as President Xi Jinping increasingly puts security concerns over development.
The expanded law bans the possession of state secrets, including all documents, data, materials and articles concerning national security.
Beijing has also launched a nationwide anti-espionage crackdown targeting consulting firms.
One global expert network, Capvision, has been accused of leaking state secrets and having ties with foreign intelligence agencies.
The company has since vowed to follow China’s national security laws and set up a committee to manage compliance issues.
The US has similarly announced efforts to crack down on Chinese spying and harassment of dissidents in the US.
There have been 224 publicly reported instances of Chinese espionage directed at the US between 2000 and last December, according to data collected by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies based on open-source material.
In April, the Department of Justice charged two Chinese nationals with seeking to set up an overseas police station in the US on behalf of the Fuzhou branch of China’s Ministry of Public Security.
In January, a US court sentenced a 31-year-old Chinese national to eight years in prison for spying for the Chinese government. BLOOMBERG
