China sentences dissident to five years

A Chinese court sentenced a US-based political activist to five years in prison today on charges of spying for rival Taiwan in a case that prompted protests by Washington.

Yang Jianli, who was detained in 2002, was also convicted of illegal border crossing after a trial in a Beijing court, the official Xinhua News Agency said. The one-sentence report did not give any other details.

Yang, a Chinese citizen with permanent US residency, was in China to meet with dissidents and protesting laid-off workers when he was stopped while boarding an airline flight using a false identity card.

Yang will decide within five days whether to appeal, once a written verdict is issued, said his lawyer, Mo Shaoping.

The verdict was announced by the official Xinhua News Agency, which said he was tried in a closed court in line with Chinese national security laws.

Yang is one of a series of foreign-based Chinese who have been convicted in recent years on charges of spying for Taiwan, which split with the mainland in 1949.

Yang’s sentence includes the two years he has been held since his April 26, 2002, detention in the southwestern city of Kunming, Mo said.

Yang, 40, lives in suburban Boston and runs the Foundation for China in the 21st Century, an advocacy group calling for political change in China. His family said he was using a friend’s identity card to travel because the Chinese government refused to renew his passport.

Last month, members of the US Congress issued a letter addressed to Chinese President Hu Jintao calling Yang’s detention “extraordinarily inhumane”. China has rejected US protests as an “interference in the judicial process of China”.