HONG KONG: Chinese prosecutors have formally arrested a Hong Kong journalist working for Singapore's Straits Times newspaper saying that he had spied for China's bitter rival, Taiwan.
Ching Cheong (55) has been detained since April without being formally charged. Theoretically he faces the death penalty if convicted, although a jail sentence or deportation is more likely.
This is the first time a Hong Kong reporter has been jailed for espionage since the territory reverted to Chinese rule in 1997.
Hong Kong was guaranteed a large degree of autonomy under the terms of the handover and Mr Ching's detention sparked fears Beijing was tightening its grip on media freedom in the former British colony.
The official Xinhua news agency quoted unidentified sources as saying Mr Ching confessed to spying for Taiwan during interrogation. Ching is accused of received millions of Hong Kong dollars from Taiwan's intelligence agency to buy information on China's political, economic and military affairs between 2000 and 2005.
Mr Ching passed on classified documents, some of them labelled "top secret" or "confidential", to Taiwan's National Security Bureau and worked under the code-name Chen Yuan-chun, Xinhua said.
The agency described his spy activities as "detrimental to national security". It did not say when the trial would start.
His wife, Mary Lau, has long insisted he is innocent.
Ms Lau said her husband had been in southern China trying to obtain unpublished interviews with late Communist Party chief Zhao Ziyang, a controversial and influential figure who was purged for opposing the 1989 Tiananmen massacre in which thousands of pro-democracy protesters were killed.
China has more journalists in prison than any other country, human rights organisations regularly attest, and Mr Ching is the second employee of a foreign news organisation to be arrested in the past year.
Zhao Yan, a researcher for the New York Times, was arrested for revealing state secrets last year - supposedly the news that former leader Jiang Zemin would step down as head of the army.
Mr Ching was born in China. He has been working for the Straits Times since 1996 and is now its chief China correspondent. He used to work for the Communist-leaning Wen Wei Po newspaper in Hong Kong but resigned in protest at the Tiananmen Square massacre.