China charges journalist with espionage, says media rights group

CHINESE authorities have formally charged a prominent journalist with spying, over a year after he was detained while having lunch with a Japanese diplomat, a media rights group said.

Dong Yuyu, a senior columnist at the Communist Party newspaper Guangming Daily, was detained in February 2022 along with the diplomat at a Beijing restaurant, according to a statement issued by his family yesterday and seen by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).