Beijing Court Rejects Ching Cheong's Appeal, Affirms Five-Year Sentence

The Beijing High People's Court (HPC) rejected Hong Kong journalist Ching Cheong's appeal and upheld a lower court's guilty verdict for espionage on November 24, according to a Xinhua report (via the China Daily) published the same day. The report cited a Beijing HPC judge as saying that, in affirming Ching's conviction and sentence of five years' imprisonment and one year's deprivation of political rights for passing state secrets and military intelligence to Taiwan's Foundation on International and Cross-Strait Studies, the Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People's Court's August 31 judgment was "a correct application of the law and provided appropriate punishment." The Beijing HPC issued its decision without holding a hearing. According to an October 30 South China Morning Post report (subscription required), the Supreme People's Court notified Ching's lawyer on October 14 that it would not conduct a hearing, citing as one reason that Ching "had failed to provide evidence to prove the foundation was not a spy organization." Under Article 187 of China's Criminal Procedure Law, courts of second instance are not required to hold a hearing in a criminal appeal if a collegial panel makes a determination that the "facts are clear."

Both the verdict and procedures in Ching's case have been the target of severe criticism in news media and legal circles, particularly in Hong Kong:

• Margaret Ng, Hong Kong Legislator: "The material evidence on which he was convicted by the Beijing court was a 'confession statement' taken during his long incarceration, when he was denied access to a lawyer or his family. It would not have been admitted as a voluntary confession in a Hong Kong court. In any event, it contained nothing like an admission of guilt," Margaret Ng, member of Hong Kong's Legislative Council and a practicing barrister in Hong Kong, wrote in an opinion piece (subscription required) in the South China Morning Post on November 3.
• Johannes Chan, Hong Kong University Law Professor: Chan published an analysis (via Reporters Without Borders) of the Intermediate People's Court judgment, saying it "is full of rash statements with loopholes everywhere. Many aspects are unconvincing, and one simply cannot find sufficient proof to support a conviction."
• Hong Kong Journalists' Association: In a November 24 press release, the Hong Kong Journalists' Association stated:
  

  The whole appeal process lacked transparency. The whole process was, once again, a violation of the fair, just, and open principles for trial as stipulated in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. . . . Ching Cheong’s case will have a chilling effect on journalists and increase self-censorship. It damages freedom of press and deprives the public of its rights to information.

• Foreign Correspondents' Club Hong Kong: The Chinese government's extended detention of Ching was "an unacceptable state of affairs and impinges on press freedom," according to letters dated December 10, 2005, which it sent to China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and State Council, and Hong Kong's Chief Executive.
• Ming Pao: In a September 10, 2006, editorial (in Chinese), a reporter wrote in the Ming Pao: "Considering the two items of 'evidence' the court indicated, in fact there has never been anyone who confirmed to Ching Cheong that the foundation was an intelligence organ of Taiwan. Quite the opposite, Xue clearly denied this was the case. With respect to the pictures of naval ships, the People's Liberation Army visit to Hong Kong was a public event, and the pictures were not top secret materials."
• South China Morning Post: In a September 1, 2006, editorial (subscription required), the South China Morning Post wrote "The trial of journalist Ching Cheong on spying charges is a sad day for those who want to believe China's pledges that it is moving toward a society based on the rule of law."

In April 2005, agents from China's Ministry of State Security detained Ching, then the Hong Kong-based chief China correspondent for the Straits Times of Singapore, in Guangzhou city, Guangdong province, when he traveled there from Hong Kong to meet with a source. The following month Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Kong Quan said Ching had confessed that "on the basis of the request of a foreign intelligence agency, he carried out intelligence-gathering activities in China, and collected large spying fees." In June 2005, Kong said "Ching Cheong has been gathering intelligence in China's mainland under the order and direction of an overseas intelligence agency." The Beijing State Security Bureau arrested Ching in August 2005.

The Chinese government's interpretation of what constitutes a state secret is so broad as to include essentially all matters of public concern. Jerome A. Cohen, Professor of Law at the New York University School of Law, told a CECC hearing on September 20, 2006, that it is easy "for someone who has contacts with foreign reporters to be convicted of illegally transmitting 'state secrets' or mere 'intelligence' to a foreign entity. What constitutes a 'state secret' or 'intelligence' remains a fluid concept in the PRC and is subject to arbitrary, even retroactive, interpretation by the authorities." The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention identified the government's use of state secrets exceptions as an area of concern in the report on its September 2004 mission to China. Article 8 of the State Secrets Law and Article 4 of the Measures for the Implementation of the Law on the Protection of State Secrets also define state secrets to include information ranging from that which "concern[s] major policy decisions on state affairs" to that which "weakens the nation's economy or technological strength." In addition, the Chinese government has determined that it has the authority to classify documents as state secrets, even if the documents are publicly available, after Chinese citizens have provided them to foreigners. Officials have used this authority to imprison people such as housing rights activist Zheng Enchong. In recent years, 70 percent of all cases of criminal disclosure of state secrets were the result of a "faulty understanding of state secrets," according to a May 1, 2005, Chengdu Daily report (via Xinhua, in Chinese). In remarks to the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Hong Kong on February 21, 2006, John Kamm, Executive Director of The Dui Hua Foundation, said that, "99 percent of all people tried for endangering state security are found guilty. In 2004, only five people were acquitted. This is the highest conviction rate of all crimes tried by Chinese courts." The unauthorized disclosure of state secrets is one of the many crimes characterized as "endangering state security" crimes, under Part II, Chapter I, of China's Criminal Law.

For more information on Ching Cheong's case, see the CECC's Political Prisoner Database.