Japan’s foreign affairs minister is seeking to free 17 Japanese nationals detained in China under the law.
Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Iwaya Takeshi said on March 22 that Beijing’s Counter-Espionage Law lacks transparency and called for the release of Japanese individuals detained under the law.
During the Sixth China-Japan High-Level Economic Dialogue in Tokyo on March 22, attended by eight officials from each country, including Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Takeshi
said the law, implemented in 2014, discourages Japanese citizens from visiting and doing business in China.
Among them is a prominent businessman and former senior official of the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry who was serving as a senior employee at China-based Astellas Pharma when he was detained on suspicion of espionage shortly before he was scheduled to return to Japan, according to a Nov. 28, 2023,
report by local media outlet Kyodo News.
The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a
statement on the March 22 talks that Japan “once again” called on China to release the detained Japanese citizens to ensure “their safety and security.”
“Having said that,” the statement reads, “the Japanese side called for the establishment of a fair, predictable and transparent business environment.”
The Epoch Times has reached out to the Japanese ministry for additional comment.
Japan’s Efforts to Release Its Citizens
A Japanese government
readout of an April 2, 2023, foreign ministers’ meeting between China and Japan in Beijing noted that Japan’s foreign minister at the time, Yoshimasa Hayashi, also broached the topic of China’s arrest of an unnamed Japanese businessman, protesting his detention and asking for his release.
On Nov. 16, 2023, the Japanese Foreign Ministry
reported that then-Prime Minister Fumio Kishida confronted his Chinese counterpart, Chinese leader Xi Jinping, on the matter at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit but to no avail.
China not only conveyed its determination to enforce its counterespionage laws but went further by revising the legislation on July 1, 2023, broadening its terminology to encompass what the U.S. Library of Congress, in a Sept. 22, 2023,
article, called an “expanded concept of espionage.”
According to an analysis by
Japan Forward, Japan’s failure to secure the return of its nationals is due to its lack of legislation on counterespionage, as noted in a 2006
column by Kotani Ken, a research fellow in military history at Japan’s National Institute for Defense Studies, and in a CIA
assessment published a decade later.
US Citizens Detained in China
The U.S. National Security Council
confirmed to The Epoch Times after the release of Mark Swidan, Kai Li, and John Leung in November 2024 that “all of the wrongfully detained Americans in the PRC [People’s Republic of China] are home.”
Swidan was incarcerated in China on drug-related charges and handed a death sentence in 2019, while Li, accused of espionage, faced a secret trial and was sentenced to a decade behind bars.
Leung, on the other hand, had been known for disseminating pro-China rhetoric in the United States and was revered in China—until he was arrested by the communist state for espionage and handed a life sentence in May 2023.
Although the White House refrained from commenting,
The Financial Times,
The New York Times, and
Politico reported that unnamed government officials indicated that the release of Swidan, Li, and Leung were part of a prisoner swap.
Earlier, in September 2024, the State Department had also secured the release of Pastor David Lin.
Beijing freed Lin, who was arrested in 2006 and sentenced to life in prison in 2009 while on a missionary trip to China and helping a group of house Christians.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) requires Christian groups to register and worship in state-controlled churches. Christians who do not follow CCP doctrines are subjected to religious persecution. They are also known as house Christians because they gather instead in private homes.
The United States has also criticized China’s counterespionage law.
The U.S. National Counterintelligence and Security Center said in an Aug. 25, 2023,
assessment that China’s July 2023 modifications create “legal risks or uncertainty for foreign companies, journalists, academics, and researchers.”
It went on to say that “any documents, data, materials, or items could be considered relevant to PRC national security due to ambiguities in the law.”
Catherine Yang contributed to this report.
