China sentenced a 78-year-old United States citizen to life in prison Monday on spying charges, in a case that could exacerbate the deterioration in ties between Beijing and Washington over recent years.
Details of the charges against John Shing-Wan Leung, who also holds permanent residency in Hong Kong, have not been publicly released.Leung was detained April 15, 2021, by the local bureau of China's counterintelligence agency in the southeastern city of Suzhou, according to a statement posted by the city's intermediate court on its social media site.
The sentencing comes as U.S. President Joe Biden is travelling to Hiroshima, Japan, for the Group of Seven major industrial nations summit, followed by a visit to Papua New Guinea, a Pacific island nation in a region where China has sought to increase its economic, military and diplomatic influence. After Beijing's gains in the area, the U.S. and its Asia-Pacific partners stepped up their regional presence, offering investments and financial support rivalling those furnished by China.
However, China's authoritarian political system and the ruling Communist Party's absolute control over legal matters, civil society and freedom of information forestalls demands for further information, as well as court appeals. When it was returned to China, Hong Kong was promised it would retain its financial, social and political liberties, but Beijing has essentially scuttled that commitment since cracking down on pro-democracy protesters and imposing a sweeping national security law in 2020.
Long pretrial detentions are not unusual in China and prosecutors have broad powers to hold people charged in national security cases, regardless of their citizenship status.
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