Photo/Illutration A security officer stands guard near the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on March 10. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Hideji Suzuki, a senior director of a Japan-China friendship group, was in Beijing in 2016 when he was suspected of being a spy.

Blindfolded, he was taken to an old room where two guards were permanently stationed. He was forbidden to open the drapes to see the sun. He ended up in that room for seven months, according to his book “Chugoku Kosoku 2279-nichi” (Detained in China for 2,279 days).

During an interrogation, Suzuki was told he had broken the law when he dined with a Chinese official and asked the latter about recent trends in North Korea.

But all Suzuki had done was chat about what he’d seen in a Japanese media report.

When he asked the interrogator how that could be deemed illegal, the answer was, “Unless it's something that has been reported by the state-run Xinhua News Agency, it’s against the law (to talk about it).”

China’s revised anti-espionage law took effect on July 1. Its provisions are so opaque, it is difficult to know what is illegal. China’s ominous fog has become even denser, so to speak.

I understand that one can be accused of spying just for trying to find “information concerning national security and national interest.”

I was dumbstruck by an expert’s advice in The Asahi Shimbun that anyone visiting China on business “should be aware they are under constant surveillance and that someone is always eavesdropping.” For the world’s No. 2 economic superpower, this is beyond unacceptable.

If fear drives businesses and researchers away from China, the already precarious Japan-China relationship will grow even less stable. But is Beijing set to prioritize surveillance? Authorities are now said to even be targeting their own citizens who associate with foreigners.

There is a joke that goes to the effect: A senior Chinese Communist Party official decided to commission an exceptionally international-minded author to write his autobiography, but his aides were taking a long time choosing a candidate.

When he summoned them and told them to hurry up, one of the aides explained, “We are doing our utmost to locate the prison where the author you want is being held.”

That is not funny.

--The Asahi Shimbun, July 6

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

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