China's President Xi Jinping attends a joint press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron (not pictured) in Beijing on April 6, 2023. (Ludovic Marin/AFP/Getty Images/TNS)

China has sentenced a 78-year-old American to life in prison on spying charges, as the world’s No. 2 economy prioritizes eliminating national security risks.

John Leung, who is also a Hong Kong permanent resident, was sentenced in the eastern Chinese city of Suzhou on Monday, according to the court’s official WeChat page. In addition, some 500,000 yuan ($71,808) of Leung’s property was confiscated, the report added.

Leung was arrested on suspicion of espionage in April 2021, according to the statement. No details of his crime were provided. A U.S. Embassy spokesperson in Beijing said in an emailed statement that they were aware of the reports.

“Given the opacity of the charges, and evidence against the defendant, the verdict further erodes the foreign business community’s confidence in the environment,” said James Zimmerman, a Beijing-based lawyer with law firm Perkins Coie. “This is not a welcomed development.”

Perkins Coie, which has its headquarters in Seattle, also provides legal services to Bloomberg LP.

According to the Chinese Communist Party’s mouthpiece, People’s Daily newspaper, a Hong Kong-born man of the same name and age moved to the U.S. age 16. After working at the United Nations, Leung began facilitating exchanges between government officials and business people in China and the U.S., according to the article published in the newspaper’s overseas edition in 2004. He also founded a friendship association between Oklahoma City and Guangzhou, in southern China, the report said.

Last month, China passed new counter-espionage legislation expanding the list of activities that can be considered spying, as President Xi Jinping increasingly puts security concerns over development. The expanded law bans the possession of state secrets including all documents, data, materials and articles concerning national security.

Beijing has also launched a nationwide anti-espionage crackdown targeting consulting firms. One global expert network, Capvision, has been accused of leaking state secrets and having ties with foreign intelligence agencies. The company has since vowed to follow China’s national security laws and set up a committee to manage compliance issues.

The U.S. has similarly announced efforts to crack down on Chinese spying and harassment of dissidents in the U.S.

There have been 224 publicly reported instances of Chinese espionage directed at the U.S. between 2000 and last December, according to data collected by the Center for Strategic and International Studies based on open-source material.

Last month, the Department of Justice charged two Chinese nationals with seeking to set up an overseas police station in the U.S. on behalf of the Fuzhou branch of China’s Ministry of Public Security. In January, a U.S. court sentenced a 31-year old Chinese national to eight years in prison for spying for the Chinese government.

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(With assistance from Phila Siu and Jing Li.)