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China has sentenced a Japanese pharmaceutical executive to three and a half years in prison for espionage, a decision that will raise concerns among foreign businesses and which drew warnings from Japan that opaque judicial processes were deterring travel to the country.
The court in Beijing on Wednesday handed down the sentence to a local senior executive with Astellas Pharma, who had been arrested and indicted on charges of espionage two years ago, according to the Japanese embassy in Beijing.
The embassy said the sentence was “deeply regrettable”, and called for the early release of the Astellas employee and other Japanese nationals detained in China.
“The detention of Japanese nationals in China is one of the biggest obstacles to improving people-to-people exchanges and public sentiment between Japan and China,” the embassy said.
The sentence will heighten concerns among Japanese business and the broader international community in China over the transparency of the country’s judicial system, given that few details of the allegations against the executive have been disclosed.
“The Japanese government will continue to strongly urge China at various levels to improve the transparency of its judicial procedures,” the embassy said.
The sentencing comes as Sino-Japanese ties have been strained by US pressure on its allies to decouple from China that has dragged in Tokyo as a major player in semiconductor technology.
Relations were also tested this month after a Chinese fighter jet flew close to a Japanese surveillance aircraft over the East China Sea, drawing protest from Tokyo.
Japanese businesses have been withdrawing from China, which features low among their preferred future investment destinations because of sluggish economic growth and concerns about lack of legal protections.
The Astellas employee, who was a senior executive at the pharma company’s local subsidiary, had spent more than 20 years in China and was involved in the Japanese Chamber of Commerce in China. He was arrested in March 2023 as he was about to board a flight back to Japan.
His detention sent shockwaves through the Japanese expatriate community and a broader chill through international business circles in Beijing.
At the time, foreign executives were looking to return to China following the relaxation of Beijing’s stringent Covid-19 control measures. But the arrest, which coincided with a crackdown on foreign consultancies, raised concerns about Beijing’s anti-espionage campaigns targeting international businesses.
Tokyo has repeatedly urged Beijing to free the man, including at a summit between Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Peru last November, according to news agency Kyodo.
Under China’s counter-espionage law, which was passed in 2014 and updated in 2023, scores of Japanese nationals have been arrested, of whom several remain in custody.
Astellas said it was aware of the sentence but declined to comment further.
