Journalist admits to espionage, China says

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June 01, 2005

From Jane Macartney in Beijing

BEIJING accused the chief China correspondent of Singapore’s The Straits Times of espionage yesterday and said that Ching Cheong had admitted to working for foreign intelligence organs.

But Mr Ching’s wife, Mary Lau, questioned the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s decision to release a statement on his activities before he had even been charged and said that she believed that her husband had been lured into a trap.

Mr Ching, 55, a Hong Kong citizen and thus a Chinese national, was arrested six weeks ago in southern China for trying to obtain a manuscript of interviews with Zhao Ziyang, a Communist Party leader purged for opposing the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown on student demonstrators.

He could face the death penalty if charged and convicted. While China has yet to impose such a harsh sentence against a journalist, the veteran reporter could spend several years in prison.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,172-1635463,00.html