MCLC: Japan expert being held

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: Japan expert being held
***********************************************************

Source: NYT (10/1/13):
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/02/world/asia/china-is-said-to-be-holding-pr
ofessor-over-his-activities-in-japan.html

China Is Said to Be Holding Professor Over His Activities in Japan
By JANE PERLEZ 

BEIJING — A Chinese professor who specializes in Japanese affairs appears
to have been detained by the Chinese government since late July and is
being questioned about his activities in Japan, according to Chinese
academics and Japanese media reports.

The apparent arrest of the professor, Zhu Jianrong, possibly on espionage
charges, after he returned to Shanghai from Japan comes as relations
between China and Japan have hit their lowest point in decades, and it has
sent tremors of fear through the small community of Japan experts in China
and other academics.

A group of Chinese scholars in Japan, the Society of Chinese Professors in
Japan, said Monday that they were almost certain Mr. Zhu was being held
and was “currently responding to questioning.” The society, which Mr. Zhu
helped found, described the professor as “very active” in his role as “a
bridge between China and Japan.”

The Chinese government declined to confirm the arrest but strongly hinted
that he had been taken into custody.

In a statement, the Foreign Ministry said: “Zhu Jianrong is a Chinese
citizen. China is a country ruled by law, and will protect the legitimate
rights and interests of Chinese citizens. While at the same time, all
Chinese citizens should abide by the law.”

There were some suggestions that Mr. Zhu met with Chinese military
officials this year, and that the Chinese authorities were suspicious of
these contacts and his subsequent use of the information.

The Japan Times wrote in a Sept. 29 editorial that China was looking into
these meetings and whether they constituted illegal collection of
information.

A professor of international relations in Beijing, who declined to be
named because of the sensitivity of the case, said he believed Mr. Zhu had
been detained on charges of espionage based on his interviews with Chinese
military officials.

The case of Mr. Zhu, who often appeared on Japanese television discussing
the soured relations between China and Japan, follows a pattern.

In 2009, a former deputy director of the Institute of Japanese Studies at
the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Jin Xide, was imprisoned for 14 years on
charges of selling Chinese state secrets to Japan and South Korea,
according to the Japan Times.

The newspaper also reported that Su Ling, chief editor of Xinhua Shibao, a
Chinese-language newspaper published in Japan, has been missing since he
came to Beijing from Japan in May.

The disappearance of Mr. Zhu would further fracture the “quasi cold war
relationship” between China and Japan, setting off fears among Chinese
academics and visitors to Japan that they could be susceptible to similar
treatment, said Willy Lam, adjunct professor at the Chinese University of
Hong Kong’s Center for Chinese Studies.

“These folks are not famous people,” said Mr. Lam, who has worked in
Japan. “Inevitably it will affect people-to-people exchanges, popular
diplomacy and people-level diplomacy between the two countries.”

A scholar on the diplomacy between China and Japan, Mr. Zhu often appeared
on Japanese television publicly presenting China’s position on the issues
that divided the two countries, academics in both countries said.

In those appearances, Mr. Zhu was quite resolute in defending China’s case
on the bitter dispute over tiny islands in the East China Sea, known as
the Diaoyu islands in China and as the Senkaku islands in Japan.

That dispute involves daily close-in patrols by naval vessels of China and
Japan, and air sorties sent by both sides. China most recently was
reported to have sent a drone over the area.

In his television arguments, Mr. Zhu did not appear to be deferential to
the Japanese point of view, said a Japanese academic who declined to be
named.

Mr. Zhu married a Japanese researcher in the 1980s, and moved to Japan in
1986, where he worked at the Toyo Gakuen University, not far from Tokyo.
The Society of Chinese Professors expressed concern for Mr. Zhu, saying it
hoped he would “return to normal life as soon as possible.” The group
praised him for trying to improve the relationship between the two
countries. Mr. Zhu was chairman of the group for nine years.

The case has frightened the Chinese academic community in Japan. A member
of the group, when contacted by telephone, said in worried tones that it
was impossible to talk about the matter.

Reporting was contributed by Martin Fackler in Tokyo and Jonathan Ansfield
in California.