A court in China has sent 78-year-old US citizen John Shing-Wan Leung to life imprisonment on suspicion of spying. He is a permanent resident in Hong Kong and was sent to jail on Monday.
In its verdict, the court, situated in the south-eastern city of Suzhou told no further than this about the exact accusations on Wan Leung. A local bureau of China’s counterintelligence agency arrested him from Suzhou city two years back, according to a news release from the court.
The statement read that John Shing-Wan Leung “was found guilty of espionage, sentenced to life imprisonment [and] deprived of political rights for life.” The Intermediate People’s Court posted the statement on the WeChat, a social media application.
As per a spokesperson for the US embassy in Beijing, the United States was aware of the reports. “The Department of State has no greater priority than the safety and security of US citizens overseas,” the embassy said.
In China, closed-door trials are typical, and for delicate cases like those involving espionage charges, not much information is typically made available to the public.
A new rule that broadens the application of China’s anti-espionage regulations will go into force in July. Any information that the authorities believe to be relevant to national security will be prohibited from being disclosed.
The incident would likely spoil relations between China and the US. Before this, China was provoked by the US when former US President Donald Trump started a trade war against China in 2018. The clash between the two superpowers continues on various issues, including Taiwan, China’s militarisation of the South China Sea and the origins of Covid. As recent as February this year, the US destroyed an alleged spy balloon said to have belonged to China which the latter called a weather monitoring device.
