I do not know why the detention of a New York Times staffer in their Beijing bureau has not been widely reported in the Living in China community--or perhaps it has and the new format of the blogzine has kept it from my wiew. Apparently it happened over a week ago; I just learned of it in Romanesko's column in Poynter Online. I find it particularly distressing because it seems that the background is a concern by authorities that The Times' inside sources were too good--a notion that I have noted frequently in these pages in words of praise, especially for Joseph Kahn. Below is the story from The New York Times:
The research assistant, Zhao Yan, was detained on Sept. 17 while in Shanghai on personal business. His family received formal notice on Sept. 21, from the Beijing State Security Bureau, that Mr. Zhao was "in criminal detention under suspicion of illegally providing state secrets to foreigners."
"We are deeply, deeply concerned about the detention of Zhao Yan," said Susan Chira, foreign editor of The Times. "We are doing everything we can to assure his safety and we are helping his family get legal assistance."
"We can state categorically that Mr. Zhao has not provided any state secrets to our newspaper," Ms. Chira said.
Bill Keller, executive editor of The Times, has contacted the White House, the State Department and the Chinese government on Mr. Zhao's behalf.
Some Beijing journalists have speculated that the detention is linked to an article in The Times on Sept. 7 reporting the unexpected news that the former Communist Party chairman, Jiang Zemin, planned to resign his last position of power, as chairman of the Central Military Commission. The article cited unnamed sources with ties to the leadership.
Deliberations among party leaders are highly secretive in China, and leaks are considered a crime. In this case, the accuracy of the article was confirmed last Sunday, when Mr. Jiang relinquished his military post.
The Chinese authorities have not notified The Times about Mr. Zhao's detention and have not said what secret information he allegedly revealed, or to whom, Ms. Chira said.
Most foreign bureaus in China employ local people to help scour official sources, newspapers and the Internet for information, and to assist in translations. Some Chinese assistants have had trouble with the authorities over the years when the newspapers they worked for wrote on subjects considered politically sensitive.
But the criminal laws on leaking state secrets, while vague about the definition of a secret, are unusually severe, with lengthy prison terms possible for those convicted.
"We are eager to ensure that no local employee of The Times be held responsible for news coverage by our correspondents," Ms. Chira said.
Ms. Chira stressed that Mr. Zhao was employed as a researcher, to assist correspondents in gathering information, and that he had not functioned as a reporter or writer.
The Times's Beijing bureau hired Mr. Zhao in May of this year. He previously worked for China Reform, a magazine known for its articles on farmers' and labor rights, and he was known for aggressive reporting on government abuses of power.
