Intelligence

DATE=08/02/01

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

NUMBER=2-278890

TITLE= CHINA/ACADEMIC CHARGED (L-Only)

BYLINE= LETA HONG FINCHER

DATELINE= BEIJING

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: The Chinese government is confirming that it has charged another Chinese-born, U-S academic with spying. As Beijing Correspondent Leta Hong Fincher reports, China says Wu Jianmin has confessed.

TEXT: China's Foreign Ministry says that American scholar Wu Jianmin has been formally arrested on charges of spying for Taiwan. In a statement faxed to reporters Thursday, the Foreign Ministry said there is irrefutable evidence that Mr. Wu accepted money from Taiwanese espionage groups, and that he entered China to gather intelligence.

The statement says Mr. Wu has confessed to his crime. It says Mr. Wu was detained April 10th on suspicion of spying, and formally arrested May 26th by the National Security Office in China's southern province, Guangdong. U-S officials say Mr. Wu was last visited by an American diplomat July 25th.

Human rights groups say Mr. Wu taught at a Communist Party school and was a state journalist in the 1980s, before he left China for the United States. Mr. Wu most recently lived in New York City.

Some groups say Chinese authorities suspected Mr. Wu of contributing to "The Tiananmen Papers," a book that claims to outline internal Communist Party debates about the 1989 bloody crackdown on pro-democracy

demonstrators.

Last week, China freed three other Chinese-born scholars with U-S connections ahead of a visit to Beijing by Secretary of State Colin Powell. All had been convicted of spying, but deny any wrongdoing. (signed).

NEB/LHF/TW