Media Advocates See Journalist's Sentence as Warning From China

With reference to the treatment of Ching Cheong, a Hong Kong-based correspondent for the Straits Times newspaper of Singapore; of Lu Jianhua, a sociologist at a government think tank who shared with Ching confidential discussions between China's leaders; of New York Times researcher Zhao Yan; and of Chen Guangcheng, a blind lawyer who had exposed forced abortions and other abuses by family planning officials:

"Certainly these phenomena demonstrate the Chinese leadership has no intention of giving up on their monopoly on political power and is ready to suppress any challenge to their rule," said Joseph Cheng, a professor at the City University of Hong Kong.