U.S. Librarian Accused of Taking ‘Secret Documents’ Out of China

A U.S. college librarian harmed China’s national security by taking large batches of secret documents out of the country and has confessed, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said Tuesday.

Song Yongyi, who worked at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania and had planned to become a U.S. citizen last September, was on a summer trip to China to collect source material on the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution.

Police detained him and his wife in August but allowed her to return to the United States in November.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao said Song covered up titles to conceal that the items were “secret documents of the state and materials forbidden to be transferred abroad.”

He refused to describe them further except to say that together they weighed 700 pounds.

“At present, Song himself has already confessed everything concerning the facts of the crime,” Zhu said. He said Song had been purchasing the materials in China since 1996, funded by “overseas institutions.”

Song was formally charged Dec. 24 with “purchasing or illegally supplying intelligence for people outside the territory of China.”

Song’s wife, Helen Yao, has said that her husband told his accusers that the material he obtained had all been published in newspapers and other openly available sources.

Meanwhile, China today imposed new controls over the Internet, announcing that Web sites and their users would be held responsible for leaks of state secrets.

Separately, a Shanghai newspaper said restrictive rules on Internet news content would be announced this month, including a ban on reporters hired by Web sites.