Chinese Researcher for New York Times to Be Let Out of Jail

A Chinese court said Friday that it would drop a high-profile case against a New York Times researcher, a move coming a few weeks before President Hu Jintao is to meet President Bush in Washington.

The decision on Zhao Yan fits China’s pattern of releasing token numbers of political or human rights prisoners before major summit meetings.

“I’m so happy,” said Zhao Kun, the researcher’s sister. “When I heard the news, I felt like a window had opened in my heart. Everything seemed so bright.”

Zhao Yan was detained in September 2004 and charged several months later with revealing state secrets. He faced 10 years in prison. The charge came on the heels of an exclusive story by the newspaper that former President Jiang Zemin planned to step down from a government military commission, surrendering his last major post.

China’s Communist Party does not view favorably the release of information on its internal workings, particularly by media beyond its direct control.

“The government doesn’t accept that journalists can have scoops,” said Vincent Brossel, director of the Asia desk of Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based advocacy group. “When a big decision is made inside the party, they won’t accept the liberal Chinese media or the foreign media releasing the news.”

Zhao’s lawyer, Mo Shaoping, said Friday that he hoped his client would be released within the next few days. It was unclear why Zhao was not released immediately, or whether he would face new charges in Beijing No. 2 Intermediate Court or some other court, Mo said.

But the news of the charges being dropped was viewed as a good sign.

“Of course I’m pleased,” Mo said.

Human rights groups, attorneys and legal scholars said it was difficult to draw a broader lesson from the case. Authorities might have acted because of the gradual strengthening of the legal system, because of lobbying, or some combination. Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other officials all have raised Zhao’s case with Chinese officials. Hu is to visit Washington the last week of April.

But on the same day Zhao’s case was reportedly dropped, a court sentenced a 27-year-old teacher, Ren Ziyuan, to 10 years in prison on charges of “subversion of state power” for publishing Internet essays critical of the Chinese government, according to the Reuters news service.

Ren, like most Chinese in trouble for criticizing the government, had no foreign leaders calling for his release.

“On one day there’s good news, and then there’s bad,” Brossel said. “In the long run, I really hope things are changing. But I can’t read the implications of Zhao’s case.”

Media watchdogs also wondered whether the Zhao decision augured well for a related case, that of Singapore reporter Ching Cheong, who was detained on spying charges last year.

For the seventh year in a row, China put more journalists in jail in 2005 than any other nation, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. Thirty-two were in prison as of Dec. 1.

Analysts said one result of the court’s decision to drop the Zhao case might be to ease the chill on Chinese reporters, some of whom push censorship boundaries at significant personal risk.

“Zhao is a senior reporter,” said Wu Ge, director of the Constitution and Human Rights Center at Qinghua University. “Chinese media will be encouraged by this decision.”

Zhao’s sister, who lives in the northeastern city of Harbin, said she planned to give her brother a big hug when she saw him.

“I’ve been very worried about him being in jail for the past 18 months,” she said. “At the same time, I always believed he’d be OK. He’s only a journalist, and I don’t think my brother would ever do anything to hurt the country.”

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Yin Lijin of The Times’ Beijing Bureau contributed to this report.