Journalist Ching Cheong accused of espionage

September 2005: Ching Cheong, a Hong Kong journalist working for Singapore’s Straits Times, has been formally charged with spying for Taiwan. He was detained April 22 in Guangzhou while trying to obtain materials related to the late Zhao Ziyang, who was purged as communist party chief during the1989 pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square. (Zhao was last sighted in public when he made a pre-dawn appearance before protesting students in the Square and lamented, “It’s too late.” The pro-democracy movement was violently suppressed.)

The FCCC protested the government’s handling of Ching Cheong’s case in a June 3 letter to the director-general of the Foreign Ministry’s Information Department. The club pointed out that Ching Cheong’s detention was not initially made public. He did not have permission to communicate with his family, nor the benefit of legal assistance, in a timely fashion. The handling of his case is counterproductive at a time when China is preparing to host the 2008 Olympic Games; the FCCC urged the government to proceed in all further actions related to the case in an honest, open, and transparent manner in keeping with international standards.