By Jerome A. Cohen
The media coverage of the conviction of John Shing-wan Leung contains similar accounts of the PRC sentencing an American national of Chinese descent to life in prison on espionage charges. This case is worthy of continuing media investigation since it raises many issues. What was the behavior that constituted “espionage”? The question here is unusually interesting since Mr. Leung was a very active player in the US in promoting Sino-American relations. Although it may be thought that the case is part of the new campaign against Western espionage reflected in the recent amendments to the PRC anti-espionage law, the severity of the sentence and the fact that Leung was detained more than two years ago suggest that more may be at stake.
Some speculation, fueled by the PRC’s recent indecent detention of the two Canadian Michaels, has also focused on possible hostage diplomacy. The Leung case has to be treated with caution in this respect since some previous PRC accusations of espionage have been shown to be true, going back at least to the Jack Downey/Richard Fecteau case of the 1952-54 era. I myself was deceived some years ago in the case of a woman scholar of sociology with permanent US residence whose research in the Mainland was secretly sponsored by Taiwan.
These cases are always shadowed in secrecy in the PRC but the Leung case is more opaque than most. The silence of the US Government is an important reason for this. US law requires the consent of the detained citizen before our government can reveal facts to the public. We are left to infer that Leung has denied his consent and are not even told whether the PRC has allowed the regular consular visits with him and the diplomatic attendance at the trial permitted by the US-PRC consular relations treaty. Leung, being ethnically Chinese and very savvy about the PRC, may believe that publicity, especially if authorized by him, would only worsen his prospects for sentencing or his mistreatment in captivity. He apparently was assigned local lawyers, but they too have been silenced.
Finally, there is the fascinating question of possible linkage between this case in China and the recent US prosecution in Massachusetts federal court of Mr. Liang Litang, who co-chaired the Boston branch of the same organization Mr. Leung headed in Texas. So much is going on behind the scenes!