Spy trial looks set to add pressure on journalists

By Tom Mitchell in Hong Kong Published: August 18 2006 02:05 | Last updated: August 18 2006 02:05
Hong Kong journalists are anxiously awaiting the verdict of a Beijing
espionage trial that dramatically illustrates how uniquely vulnerable they
are when operating in China.Ching Cheong, a Hong Kong citizen and reporter for Singapore’s Straits
Times newspaper, had to wait 17 months for his one day in court.
Citing Mr Ching’s lawyer, a spokeswoman for The Straits Times said that
his trial opened – and closed – on Tuesday. Like all espionage trials in
China,Mr Ching’s was conducted behind closed doors. Officials at the Beijing No
2 Intermediate People’s Court denied any knowledge of the proceedings
inside,even as Hong Kong and overseas reporters loitered outside the building.
It is now just a matter of time before China’s official Xinhua News
Agency
issues a terse report announcing his fate. The only variable is whether
the
concern his arrest has aroused in Hong Kong, across a wide sector of the
community, will move the Chinese government to impose a relatively lenient
sentence.
Faced with meeting the demands of local media owners, editors and readers
for ever more China news, Hong Kong journalists play a dangerous game. The
rules are not clear, yet the penalties for breaking them are severe. “We
know that this is part of the job,” says Serenade Woo, who chairs the
Hong Kong Journalists Association. “We cannot refuse to go there.”
The charges against Mr Ching are vague. He was arrested in April 2005 in
the southern city of Guangzhou. His family believes he went there in
search of an exclusive concerning former premier Zhao Ziyang, who fell from power
in 1989 and spent the rest of his life under house arrest. Officially, the
Chinese government has said only that Mr Ching was acting for “overseas
intelligence organisations”.
That Mr Ching and other journalists run such risks is due in part to the
UK’s 1981 Nationality Act, which denied people from British “dependent
territories” – including the then colony of Hong Kong – full passports
and with these the right of abode in Britain.
Mr Ching holds a British National Overseas passport. Unlike proper UK
passports, BNO documents are not recognised by China. Mr Ching and other
BNO holders can travel to the mainland only on so-called “return-home
permits”, and once there are considered Chinese nationals with no right
to UK consular protection.
Since 2002 the Chinese government has allowed Hong Kong reporters to be
based in China, where they can work only for Hong Kong media
organisations.
Though a China reporter, Mr Ching got round this rule because he was based
in Hong Kong. The reporters posted to The Straits Times’ Beijing bureau,
by
contrast, are all Singapore citizens.
Because Beijing deems Hong Kong reporters to be Chinese nationals as soon
as they step foot in China, officials and even companies can threaten them
with the prospect of a national security or police investigation. “You’re
never sure whether it’s a real threat or not,” says one reporter who
crosses the border frequently. “It’s dangerous to be based there.”
According to one person familiar with Mr Ching’s case, the British
government made representations to Beijing on his behalf in November and
again in March, but has yet to receive a reply.
The Hong Kong government, meanwhile, does not like to make a fuss in such
situations. It even has difficulty securing information about routine
commercial disputes in which Hong Kong business people have been detained
on the mainland, let alone highly- charged cases such as Mr Ching’s.
Singapore, where Mr Ching has permanent resident status, has taken a
similarly low-key approach. “I know that they are trying – just not
through
normal political channels, because they know those won’t work,” says one
person close to the case. “It’s a cultural thing.”
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006