China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang has announced that a Chinese scholar at a university on the Japanese island of Hokkaido has been detained by Beijing for spying and has confessed to his crimes, the Japanese Kyodo News agency reported on Thursday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 26th March, 2020) China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang has announced that a Chinese scholar at a university on the Japanese island of Hokkaido has been detained by Beijing for spying and has confessed to his crimes, the Japanese Kyodo news agency reported on Thursday.
According to the agency, Yuan Keqin, a professor of history at the Hokkaido University of education, has not been in contact with his employers since June after returning to China for his mother's funeral. After numerous appeals by colleagues and friends in Japan to the Chinese authorities, Geng confirmed his arrest during a daily press briefing, the agency reported.
"The facts of the case are clear and the evidence is conclusive," the agency quoted Geng as saying.
According to the agency, Yuan is a permanent resident of Japan. His detention follows in the wake of the September arrest and subsequent release in November of Hokkaido University professor Nobu Iwatani, the agency reported.
At least 15 Japanese citizens have been arrested in China on several charges, among them espionage, since 2015.
