A chill descends on Chinese scholars in Japan. Yuan Keqin/Yuan Keqing, Nikkei Asian Review China says professor of Hokkaido university confessed to spying

A chill descends on Chinese scholars in Japan
The Japan Times
A permanent resident of Japan, Yuan studied postwar East Asian political history at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo in the 1980s and was active in ...





China professor of Hokkaido university confessed to spying: Beijing


KYODO NEWS - Mar 26, 2020 - 18:49 | All, Japan


hina said Thursday it has detained a prominent Chinese scholar at a Hokkaido university for suspected espionage, claiming he has confessed to the crime.

"The facts of the case are clear and the evidence is conclusive," Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said during a regular press briefing, stressing that Yuan Keqing, a professor of East Asian political history at the Hokkaido University of Education, is a Chinese citizen.

Details of the alleged espionage were not disclosed.

Yuan has not been in contact with the university since mid-June, after he left for China to attend the funeral of his mother, according to the university and his friends.

The university last heard from his wife in July that Yuan was being treated for an unspecified illness.

Fearing that he might have been detained by Chinese authorities, a group of Japanese researchers issued an emergency appeal late last year.

Later in January, a group of colleagues, friends and others delivered a petition to the Chinese consulate general in Sapporo, asking it to help bring him back to Japan.