China’s Foreign Ministry acknowledged the incident publicly for the first time on Friday, announcing that a British businessman who disappeared from public view in China in 2018 has been sentenced to five years in prison in 2022.
Businessman Ian J. Stones has lived in China since the 1970s, working for companies such as General Motors and Pfizer. For years after his disappearance, there was no public information about his whereabouts, although some in the business community privately discussed his secret detention.
A Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Stones was found guilty in 2022 of “purchasing and unlawfully providing information on behalf of an organization or individual outside China”. Spokesman Wang Wenbin said Stones’ appeal against the ruling was dismissed in September 2023.
After the Wall Street Journal reported on the Stones incident on Thursday, Wang was answering questions from reporters at a regular press conference.
“The Chinese court heard the case strictly in accordance with the law,” Wang said, adding that China “protects the legitimate rights of Chinese and foreign parties.”
It is unclear when Stones will be released or whether he will be credited with time served before his conviction.
Mr. Stones’ daughter, Laura Stones, did not respond to a request for comment. However, she told the Wall Street Journal that Chinese authorities have not given her or British embassy staff access to legal documents in the case or allowed them to attend the trial.
The revelations are likely to deepen concerns among foreign companies about the risks of doing business in China amid an increasingly closed political climate led by Chinese leader Xi Jinping and the country’s powerful security apparatus. expensive.
China amended its already wide-ranging anti-espionage law last year to expand the definition of espionage, and has repeatedly warned in recent months about the dangers of interacting with foreigners. Authorities also raided the offices of several American companies last year and detained some Chinese employees.
Foreign governments sometimes arrest foreigners as political pawns, such as the arrest of two Canadians after Canada detained a prominent Chinese technology executive in 2018. I have criticized him. Australian businessman and author Yang Hengjun remains detained in China, and Australian journalist Cheng Lei was released in October. Both men have been charged with unrelated national security crimes and deny wrongdoing.
There is no official tally of the number of foreigners detained in China. Information regarding the charges against them is usually very limited. Governments and relatives of detained foreigners sometimes speak out about their cases, but others remain silent, perhaps hoping to negotiate behind the scenes with the Chinese government.
Stones, who is about 70 years old, was a senior manager at General Motors Asia, where he helped expand the company in China in the 1990s, and was also China manager at Pfizer Pharmaceuticals. At the time of his arrest, he had been working as a consultant advising investors on transactions, regulation and disputes in China for more than a decade, according to his LinkedIn page, which is no longer available online.
With decades of experience in the country and fluent Mandarin, he was well known among Western investors and executives in Beijing. Stones wrote on LinkedIn that his consulting firm, Navicino Partners, specializes in “finding solutions to tough problems, structuring deals, resolving solutions, and re-planning.” Told.
He also had connections with Chinese government agencies. He reported to China’s National Bureau of Statistics, according to the 2007 annual report of the Conference Board, a New York-based business research group where he was a senior adviser.
The circumstances surrounding Stones’ arrest remain unclear, and it is unclear what kind of communication took place between the British and Chinese governments. The British Foreign Office declined to comment.
Stones’ detention coincides with a period when the British government has taken a tougher stance on China, often supporting critical US positions. In 2020, it banned Chinese telecommunications equipment company Huawei from being involved in new high-speed wireless networks in the UK, a decision the Chinese government condemned.
Relations between London and China have also deteriorated over China’s continued crackdown on civil rights in Hong Kong, a former British colony. Britain has also criticized China over its crackdown on Muslims in Xinjiang, military pressure on Taiwan and continued cooperation with Russia despite the war in Ukraine.