Friends and Enemies in High Places

Chinese authorities on Friday unexpectedly withdrew the state secrets case against [Zhào Yán 趙岩] a Chinese researcher for The New York Times, a surprise decision that may clear the way for his release and comes a month before President Hu Jintao is scheduled to visit the United States.

...The rare reversal by prosecutors and Beijing court officials comes less than three months after Mr. Zhao was indicted for disclosing state secrets to the Times and also on a lesser charge of fraud. Mr. Zhao has denied the allegations.

"The number of cases in which the prosecutors indict someone on state secrets charges and then withdraw their case is the rarest of the rare," said 莫少平 Mò Shǎopíng, the lawyer for Mr. Zhao, who noted that the lesser charge also is being withdrawn. He added, "To withdraw the case is the equivalent of a verdict of innocence."

..."[Prosecutors] are clearly looking for a reason to end the case," Mr. Mo said, adding that court officials told him by telephone that both charges would be dropped. "This is the reason they chose."

...The case against Mr. Zhao was politically sensitive because it involved the highest levels of the Chinese leadership, making the decision to drop the charges all the more remarkable. His arrest was tied to a Sept. 7, 2004, article in the Times, which disclosed that the former president, Jiang Zemin, had unexpectedly offered to give up his final leadership position as head of the military. The story later proved accurate when Mr. Jiang resigned.

Chinese media are forbidden from reporting on the inner-workings of the top leadership of the Communist Party. The Sept. 7 article in the Times prompted a high-level investigation to find the sources of the leak, according to a person familiar with the investigation.

...The key piece of evidence, later revealed in a confidential state security report, was a photocopy of a handwritten note that Mr. Zhao had written to the Times' Beijing bureau chief, Joseph Kahn, the author of the Sept. 7 article.

The note, written two months before the publication of the article, was unrelated to Mr. Jiang's resignation Plans. Instead, it described maneuvering between Mr. Hu and Mr. Jiang over military appointments. Mr. Kahn later referred to the political jockeying as background material included at the end of the Sept. 7 article. It is still uncertain how state security agents obtained the photocopy. Agents either entered the office without permission or enlisted someone to help them make a copy. Under Chinese law, the note should not have been admissible in court.

So the Chinese government arrested the wrong guy and was going to convict him without proper evidence and only dropped the charges because they wanted to cozy up to Bush.

Also, the researcher's name is Zhào Yán 趙岩, not to be confused with the unfortunate Zhào Yàn 趙燕.