Facts

• On Monday, a 78-year-old US citizen and permanent resident of Hong Kong was sentenced to life in prison on spying charges by a Chinese court in the southeastern city of Suzhou.
• Without elaborating on the charges, the Suzhou Intermediate People's Court announced that John Shing-wan Leung was found guilty of espionage and sentenced to life in prison, with his political rights revoked for life.
• A spokesman for the US Embassy in Beijing said the embassy was aware of reports of the case and referred to the safety of US citizens abroad as the State Department's primary concern, but declined to comment further for privacy reasons.
• The sentencing of Leung, who was arrested on April 15, 2021, by counterintelligence authorities in Suzhou, comes ahead of US Pres. Biden's trip to Hiroshima, Japan, for the Group of Seven (G7) summit of major industrialized nations.
• Prior to his conviction, Chinese authorities in March arrested a Japanese pharmaceutical executive on espionage charges, while last year, a senior editor of a Chinese Communist Party newspaper was detained for allegedly spying for Japan or the US.
• In April, China revised its anti-spying law, broadening its scope by widening the definition of spying and banning the transfer of any data related to what the authorities define as national security. If convicted of espionage, the sentence can range from 11.5 years to life in prison.