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Reporter In China Charged As Spy
Ching Cheong was said to be trying to get a manuscript of talks with a critic of the Tiananmen massacre.
(AP)
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Lau said Lu also sought Ching's views on the mainland's policies toward Taiwan. She said Lu seemed excited when she and her husband submitted a paper urging that the Beijing government reach out to the island's opposition parties and invite their leaders to the mainland for talks.
State security agents detained Ching just days before the historic April visit to the mainland by Lien Chan, then chairman of Taiwan's Nationalist Party. The date of Lu's arrest is unknown, but colleagues said he stopped showing up at work in April, and Chen disappeared from view in May.
One mainland analyst said the arrests might have disrupted Hu's talks with Lien and with another Taiwanese opposition leader, James Soong, the following month, leading him to take a more cautious position and offer fewer concessions. Hong Kong media have suggested that Ching passed information about Hu's negotiating position to the Taiwanese.
Lau has repeatedly denied that her husband is a spy. But reached by phone on Friday, she declined to repeat the denial, saying she was worried that doing so might hurt her husband's case in court. She said she believed the government might yet release him.
"I hope this case is coming to a close, but it's difficult to anticipate what will happen next," she said. "I don't think it's going to be easy."
Detailing the charges against Ching for the first time, the official New China News Agency said Friday that he was recruited by Taiwan's National Security Bureau in early 2000 and "obtained through buying or other means a great deal of information about China's political, economic and especially military affairs, including some classified as 'top secret' or 'confidential.' "
In Taipei, Michael You, an official with Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council, which handles relations with Beijing, said he had no information about whether Ching was spying for his government, according to Reuters.
Neither Ching's lawyers nor his relatives have been permitted to see him since his detention.
