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September 24, 2004

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Not how to win friends

The SCMP is reporting that China has arrested a researcher for the New York Times whom, it is alleged, broke the story of Jiang Zemin's retirement and this trafficked in state secrets:


Outspoken journalist Zhao Yan has been detained for leaking state secrets to foreigners, just days after his employer The New York Times broke the story of Jiang Zemin's retirement, sources say. Zhao, 42, joined The New York Times as a researcher three months ago after quitting his job at China Reform magazine. He was detained in Shanghai last Friday and is being held in Beijing, his family says.

A New York Times colleague said Zhao told his supervisor he had been "invited by the secret police for tea" three days after the newspaper ran a front-page story, on September 7, on Mr Jiang's plan to resign from the Central Military Commission. The resignation was officially announced on Sunday. But Zhao turned off his mobile phone and went to Shanghai instead, with some friends, according to a colleague. He switched on his phone again a few days later and within about an hour the secret police had tracked him down at a restaurant and detained him.

New York Times foreign editor Susan Chira confirmed that Zhao had been working for the newspaper, but stressed he was not the source of the information.

It is a well known Chinese police tactic to use mobile phones to track down locations of wanted people. The ubiquitious device is not as innocuous as it seems. Despite taking a battering the NYT, for better or worse, is still considered one of America's and the world's major newspapers. Breaking the news of Jiang's retirement, which had been much speculated about prior to the meeting last week, was a good story but not a ground breaking state secret. It was made public knowledge only two days later. Arresting a staff member is not going to help with China's PR in America nor with the NYT. China has made a mistake.

 posted by Simon on 09.24.04 at 10:37 AM in the




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Comments:

China has not only made "a mistake". China has shown its usual contempt for freedom. It's no mistake, it's government policy.

Regards.

 posted by: ben on 09.25.04 at 08:49 PM [permalink]




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