Hong Kong –

In a further push for what it calls efforts to safeguard national security, China has recently pressed charges against a prominent Chinese journalist from a state-run newspaper as well as a Taiwanese political activist for allegedly inciting secession.

Dong Yuyu, a liberal-leaning journalist from the Guangming Daily, will face trial for espionage after being arrested in February 2022, according to his family’s statement, seen by media rights group the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on Monday.

The 61-year-old is a columnist and former deputy editor at the paper, one of China’s major state-run newspapers, and had been working there for more than 35 years.

He was arrested last year after having lunch with a Japanese diplomat in Beijing. The columnist is acquainted with numerous Japanese and American journalists, scholars and diplomats.

Dong’s case highlights Beijing’s tightening grip over connections between Chinese citizens and foreign nationals, which has strengthened under the leadership of Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

The diplomat who had met with Dong was also detained while on duty and held for several hours before being released.

Beijing attributed its action to the diplomat’s engagement in activities that were "inappropriate" for his work, without providing evidence. The detention prompted Tokyo to lodge a strong protest and demand an apology. But Dong remains in secret detention, having been held for over a year, said the CPJ.

In the hopes that the charges would be reduced or dropped, his family had kept the public in the dark about Dong’s arrest. But they decided to go public after being notified in March that his case would go to trial.

“Through his work, Yuyu has helped the world have a better understanding of China and has brought back with him from Japan and the U.S. an understanding of life in those countries,” the U.S. National Press Club said in a statement.

One day after the charge against Dong was made public, China’s Supreme People’s Procuratorate announced that Yang Chih-yuan, a pro-Taiwan independence politician, has been formally arrested on secession charges and that his case will be handed to prosecutors for “review and prosecution.”

This is the first case in which a Taiwanese citizen will face secession charges in a court in mainland China.

Yang, 33, was detained in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang last August as former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi concluded her high-stakes trip to Taipei.

He was accused of being a long-time outspoken advocate of “Taiwan independence” and of founding the Taiwanese National Party, which is illegal according to Chinese laws.

The goal of Yang’s party was advocating Taiwan to become an independent, sovereign country and a member of the United Nations, as well as pushing a referendum on independence and forming a state, according to a statement from the procuratorate last August.

Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council called for Yang’s swift release on Tuesday, underlining the case’s potential damage to regular cross-strait interactions, local media reported.

“With people on the two sides looking forward to the resumption of normal exchanges following the easing of the COVID-19 pandemic ... the random arrests of Taiwanese people by the mainland side have not only seriously violated the human rights of our people (but) also alarmed people in Taiwan,” it said.

Beijing has been stepping up its crackdown on “Taiwanese separatists,” creating a blacklist of “diehard Taiwanese separatists” in 2020.

Taiwanese Premier Su Tseng-chang, Legislative Yuan President Yu Shyi-kun and Foreign Minister Joseph Wu are some of the names on the blacklist, which continues to expand. Beijing also said pro-independence forces will face criminal charges and will be banned from entering the mainland, Hong Kong and Macao.

Although Yang’s secession-related indictment is a first, Beijing has imprisoned Taiwanese citizens in the past for allegedly undermining national security.

Shih Cheng-ping, a former professor at a Taiwanese university, is currently serving his four-year prison term for espionage in China.

According to mainland authorities, Lee Meng-chu, a Taiwanese businessman, was detained in 2019 for spying after he was accused by Chinese authorities of photographing paramilitary armed police in Shenzhen.

Another activist from Taiwan, Lee Ming-che, was released last April after serving a five-year term on subversion charges in the mainland.

Dong’s case marks another in a long line of journalists to be arrested by Chinese authorities. Haze Fan, a reporter from Bloomberg News who spent more than a year in detention for alleged national security offenses, was released on bail last year. Cheng Lei, a Chinese-born Australian journalist with CGTN, the international version of China’s state broadcaster, has been detained since 2020 on national security charges.

It is not known when Yang and Dong will appear in court.