Researcher in New York Times’ Beijing Bureau Arrested

Chinese authorities have arrested a New York Times news assistant on charges of leaking state secrets and the newspaper has appealed to the “highest levels” of the U.S. government to help secure his release, a senior editor at the paper said Thursday.

Zhao Yen, 42, a researcher in the paper’s Beijing bureau, was arrested Sept. 17. Charges filed Tuesday accuse the journalist of “illegally providing state secrets to foreigners,” a charge that in the worst case would be considered treason and punishable by execution, said Mo Shaoping, his attorney.

Zhao’s arrest came less than two weeks after the newspaper broke a story that former President Jiang Zemin, 78, would step down from his post as the head of China’s military. He did so Sunday during a meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party.

New York Times Foreign Editor Susan Chira said Thursday in a telephone interview that the Chinese government hadn’t indicated what information Zhao allegedly leaked or whether it had anything to do with the article about Jiang.

“But we can assure you that Zhao Yen has never been a conduit for state secrets” to the newspaper, she said.

A source familiar with the case said that although Zhao was aware of the article and might have discussed it with people outside the newspaper, he was not the origin and did not have any role in preparing it for publication.

However, he was contacted by Chinese officials afterward and asked to talk to security personnel about potential sources for the leak.

Fearing that he might be arrested, the source added, Zhao took a vacation and went to Shanghai, where police picked him up shortly after he turned on his cellphone to retrieve messages. He was later transferred to Beijing.

Chira said New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller had been in contact with the White House and State Department seeking help with the case.

Besides Zhao’s welfare, Chira said, the newspaper is concerned about the potential “chilling effect” the arrest would have on news gathering in China.

“We don’t want to see anything happen that could prevent any news agency from performing its job, which is reporting on China,” she said.

As a news assistant, Zhao’s duties include helping the bureau’s two correspondents research their articles. He does not write for the paper.

Before he was hired in May, Zhao had a reputation as an aggressive reporter, primarily for his work uncovering government abuses of farmers for the magazine China Reform. Through his reporting and activism, he accused local officials of stealing millions of dollars meant to compensate farmers for land taken by the state.

But Mo, his attorney, said that “possibly it doesn’t have anything to do with his former employment.”

The attorney said he had not yet seen his client. He filed papers Thursday requesting permission to visit.

A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Beijing would not comment on the case. Attempts to reach an official at China’s Foreign Ministry early today were not successful.

The arrest followed a move early this month by the official Beijing Communications Administration to shut down a popular online bulletin board at Peking University that reportedly played host to more than 700 discussion forums.

More recently, the government closed a bimonthly journal on diplomacy called Strategy and Management, allegedly for publishing an article critical of the North Korean government.