Japan PM demands release of businessman detained in China

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on Monday the government would continue to strongly demand that Beijing releases an Astellas Pharma employee detained in China, as fears remain over the safety of China’s business environment.

The government also requested consular visits with the detained man and would provide support, including contacting his family, Kishida told an Upper House budget committee meeting.

Kishida’s comments came after the country’s foreign minister Yoshimasa Hayashi met his Chinese counterpart on Sunday and urged China to promptly release the detained Japanese man, who was in his 50s.

Tokyo has not heard an explanation for the detention from Beijing, according to Japan’s foreign ministry.

The lack of clarity over what prompted the detainment has left other Japanese business people on edge, a Japanese expatriate in China told Reuters.

“There’s a general sense of anxiety … everyone understands that they could be detained at any point,” he said, describing a rollercoaster of emotions experienced by fellow expatriates. He declined to be named for this article.

Beijing has said it would “handle (the case) according to the law” in response to Hayashi’s request for the man’s release.

“Unless we know how and why this person was detained, there’s a possibility the authorities could say that whatever we’re doing on a daily basis is illegal,” the Japanese expatriate said.

He said that in recent years, Japanese businesses in China have struggled to navigate transfers of data, including production data from their own factories, across borders under the National Security Law, saying it was a legal grey area.

The detained Astellas employee has worked in China for over 20 years, according to the Nikkei daily. The Yomiuri newspaper described him as an “Astellas executive.”

Astellas confirmed to Reuters that its employee had been in detained in China but declined to give further details of the man or the circumstances of his detainment.

(Reporting by Sakura Murakami and Mariko Katsumura; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Bernadette Baum)