China Detains Employee of Japanese Drugmaker Astellas

Chinese authorities have detained an employee of Japanese drugmaker Astellas Pharma Inc., with the island nation urging the government to release the man.

(Bloomberg) — Chinese authorities have detained an employee of Japanese drugmaker Astellas Pharma Inc., with the island nation urging the government to release the man.

The company is working with Japan’s foreign ministry to gather more information, a spokesman for Astellas said. Details on why the person was detained are still unknown. The government has urged China to release the man and requested a consular visit, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said in a briefing Monday.

More than a dozen Japanese nationals have been detained in China since 2015, according to Kyodo News and other Japanese media. Eight people have returned to Japan, seven are still in China facing trial or serving time, while one has died, the Mainichi newspaper reported last month. Five of them have been found guilty by China of endangering national security, the paper said.

NHK and other Japanese media reported over the weekend that the Astellas employee was in his 50s. He had worked for more than 20 years in China and was planning to return at the end of the month, FNN reported. He was detained in March for violating local law, according to the reports.

In 2020, a Japanese man was released from detention in China after completing a five-year prison sentence. The man moved to North Korea in the 1960s, later defected and returned to Japan, according to Kyodo News. He was detained in 2015 close to the Chinese border with North Korea and sentenced to five years in 2018, it said.

In 2021, a male employee of a trading house Itochu Corp. was released after serving three years in jail in China, according to the Asahi newspaper. He was imprisoned for espionage in October 2019, it said.

Read more: China Releases Japanese Man Held For Five Years on Spying Charge

–With assistance from Yuki Hagiwara.

(Updates with comments from the Japanese government in second paragraph.)

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com