Leung’s punishment was announced by the city’s intermediate court in a brief post on its social media page, but no information regarding the charges was provided. These inquiries and trials take place behind closed doors with little to no information released.
As a result of disagreements over trade, technology, human rights, and China’s increasingly assertive stance toward its territorial claims, relations between Washington and Beijing have reached an all-time low.
The sentencing occurs as US President Joe Biden is en route to Hiroshima, Japan, for the Group of Seven major industrial nations summit. He will then visit Papua New Guinea, an island nation in the Pacific where China has been attempting to expand its political, military, and economic influence.
Although the Suzhou court made no mention of a connection to general US-China relations, spying accusations are quite selective, and the supporting documentation is withheld. In most nations, doing so is common practice if one wants to secure one’s connections, networks, and information access.
However, the authoritarian political structure of China and the Communist Party’s total control over the judicial system, civil society, and information freedom exclude calls for more information as well as legal appeals.
