US geologist Xue Feng was sentenced to eight years in jail on Monday on charges related to the sale of a database relating to China’s oil industry.
US Ambassador Jon Huntsman, who attended the sentencing, had expressed dismay over the court’s decision and vowed to continue to follow up the case with Chinese authorities, US diplomats said.
“This case was handled by China’s judiciary, which judged it strictly in accordance with the law,” foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang told journalists. “This is an internal affair of China. China’s judicial sovereignty brooks no foreign interference.”
Xue, a naturalised US citizen, was detained in November 2007 on charges of attempting to acquire and sell the oil industry database, according to the Dui Hua Foundation, a rights group.
At the time of his arrest, the 44-year-old Xue was working for the US energy and engineering consulting firm IHS, the group said in a statement.
Both Xue and IHS have stated that they believed that the database was a commercially available product. After Xue purchased the database, it was subsequently classified as a state secret, the statement said.
Dui Hua’s Joshua Rosenzweig told AFP that one of the group’s many concerns was its suspicion that “some of Xue Feng’s statements to the police might have been obtained under coercion including torture”.
Xue’s arrest and drawn-out trial has cast a spotlight on the pitfalls of doing business in China, especially for those born in China who have been educated abroad and taken on a foreign nationality.
“You think we should release him without any charges and then people will say the judicial system is fair and transparent?” spokesman Qin asked journalists. “The rights of the defendant were fully guaranteed.”
Published in The Express Tribune, July 7th, 2010.
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