The US embassy in Beijing is aware of these reports and “the Department of State has no greater priority than the safety and security of US citizens overseas”, a spokesman said.
When asked about further details, he said the department had no further comment due to “privacy considerations”.
There have been no statements regarding the case issued from the US embassy in Beijing or the US consulate in Hong Kong and Macau.
The statement from the court revealed Leung’s Hong Kong ID and US passport number, but did not give further details about his background.
According to a 2004 article in state-run People’s Daily, a person of the same name and born in Hong Kong on the same date was a US-based businessman with close ties to officials with local governments in both countries.
The article said Leung, who founded a friendship association between Oklahoma City in the US and the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou in 1985, “actively promoted and started China-US trade and cultural exchanges and has repeatedly invited and arranged visits for US local government officials and overseas businessmen to China for investment”.
Leung is seen posing for photos and attending events with senior officials present, according to photos circulating online.
When China imposed its sweeping national security law in Hong Kong in 2020, the US China Friendship Association – a now-defunct organisation based in Houston that Leung chaired from 2013 – stated support for the law.
He was also the director of the Texas Council for the Promotion of China’s Peaceful Reunification, which was active from 2008 to 2011.
A person who has met Leung in multiple cultural-exchange events told the South China Morning Post that the person convicted was likely the person in the article.
He said Leung had been absent from Chinese festival functions since 2021 and that the local community in Houston had not seen him for “quite a while”.
The verdict did not “bode well for Beijing’s stated desire to encourage foreign investment” given that there was no indication what the charges were or what evidence was presented in the closed-door trial, and if no further details were given, said James Zimmerman, a partner in the Beijing office of American law firm Perkins Coie LLP.
Since reopening after pandemic restrictions were scrapped, China has been making more friendly overtures to private and foreign companies while at the same time targeting “external interference” – recently conducting raids on foreign consulting firms such as Capvision Partners and Bain & Company for “national security” reasons.
Under the law, being convicted of espionage that is deemed a threat to national security could lead to a jail term ranging from 10 years to life.
02:04
‘Stop stealing’: China condemns US over Trojan horse cyberattacks on state-funded university
The law against spying activities took effect in 2014 and is regarded as Beijing’s most potent tool to crack down on external interference.
In the past decade, China has intensified its spy war with the US and its allies as tensions over science and national security intelligence build.
“With bilateral relations at an all-time low and so-called espionage activities perceived to be at an all-time high, we are bound to see an uptick in highly politicised cases,” Zimmerman said.
But Wang Jiangyu, a law professor at City University of Hong Kong, said that “at a time for Hong Kong to recuperate, it is unlikely that Beijing will use such matters to provoke Hong Kong”.
Wang added that it was “normal” for cases related to national security to be kept secret.
Recent espionage cases include a Chinese engineer in Chicago being convicted of gathering information on engineers and scientists in the US who could be recruited by a Chinese intelligence unit.
Another prominent case in recent months that shocked the business community was that of a Japanese employee of drug maker Astellas Pharma who was detained in China in March. The arrest prompted high-level Japanese government officials to protest and demand the man’s release.
Additional reporting by Sylvie Zhuang and William Zheng
