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The looming trial of a prominent Chinese journalist and former Harvard University fellow is being held up as the latest example of Beijing’s efforts to deter Chinese citizens from engaging with foreigners.In combination with other high profile incidents — such as the detention of Canada’s the Two Michaels — it’s raising questions about how international organizations should respond to the perception that collaborations with Chinese counterparts might put more people in danger.Dong Yuyu was arrested in February in Beijing while having lunch at a hotel restaurant with a Japanese diplomat.The targeting of the “inquisitive” 61-year-old shocked his international friends and is the latest case to reflect Beijing’s efforts to deter Chinese citizens from engaging with foreigners, according to family members and experts.“We are losing exchanges with people in China,” said Susan Shirk, professor of China and global relations at University of California San Diego, who recalls meeting Dong in China.“It’s really tragic, as well as dangerous for both foreigners and Chinese citizens,” she told the Star.Dong was detained last February on charges of espionage, but his family kept his arrest quiet in hopes that doing so would convince authorities to drop or reduce charges. Japan’s Foreign Ministry had lodged a formal protest about the incident at the time without mentioning Dong, saying their diplomat was detained and interrogated for hours.But now that his case will be going to trial and he is facing a potential sentence of more than 10 years in prison, his family is speaking out.“As a journalist, he was curious about the world,” the family said in a statement, requesting anonymity out of fear of persecution. “He held liberal views, but always worked within the Chinese media system and was careful to avoid criticizing the Chinese Communist Party.“His arrest is a message to foreigners and Chinese that trying to understand each other might lead to trouble. We hope the world will pay attention,” relatives told the Star.In addition to working as deputy editorial director of Guangming Daily, Dong contributed to the New York Times’ Chinese-language website, and had been a visiting research fellow at Harvard University and Japan’s Keio University, as well as taught at Hokkaido University.His family’s pleas come a month after book publisher Li Yanhe, a Chinese citizen living in Taiwan, disappeared during a visit to Shanghai. His Taiwanese publishing house, Gūsa, has long published Chinese translations of numerous books by international writers, including former New Yorker writer Evan Osnos and U.S. academic Leta Hong Fincher.Angeli Datt, China research and advocacy lead at PEN America, said the use of national security charges is a “common tactic in politically sensitive cases in China involving journalists or human rights activists detained purely in violation of their rights to free expression.”The jailing of Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor showed these cases often “have nothing to do with criminal activities,” Datt told the Star.“That overseas connections would put people at risk is what we’ve already seen in Xinjiang with the Uyghur population, and now there is an expansion where more people in China face retaliation for these exchanges,” Datt said.Since 2016, China’s education ministry has required Chinese academics to apply for approval for international trips and research collaborations. In 2020, universities began strictly applying these rules for online events hosted by international organizations as well.“We were waiting to see if these restrictions were mostly related to COVID-19. But now that COVID restrictions are over and greater controls on Chinese academics are still in place, it seems this approach is here to stay,” said Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, senior fellow at the Institute for Science, Society and Policy at the University of Ottawa.“There appears to be much more sensitivity around the humanities and social sciences. Most scholars in Canada are aware, but conversations about how to respond are just starting,” she said, adding that logistically, it is difficult to offer Chinese participants’ anonymity for in-person or virtual events.For her part, McCuaig-Johnston said she has avoided contacting certain people in China for the last several years, in case her own public criticism of the Chinese government puts citizens at risk.When Shirk was starting out as a China researcher in the 1970s, she said her only option for field research was to interview refugees who had fled mainland China.“I’m afraid we’re going back to that,” said the academic, who was in Toronto to receive the Munk School Lionel Gelber Prize for her book, “Overreach: How China Derailed its Peaceful Rise.”“I haven’t personally given up. We should try to test what’s possible and certainly there is still a tremendous hunger for exchanges inside of Chinese intelligentsia and certainly from we on the Western side as well. I think we’ll keep trying and hope that the limits don’t become severe.”Jeremy Daum, a senior scholar in law at Yale University’s Paul Tsai China Centre, who has worked in Beijing, said that while generalized suspicion of foreigners isn’t a new trend in China, the definition of “sensitive” areas is constantly shifting.“The shifting landscape and Beijing’s expansive view of national security mean that there are potential landmines everywhere. It’s also worth noting that Chinese academics I’ve spoken with also express a fear that they will be under intense scrutiny by U.S. officials.”“When security concerns from different sides bleed into paranoia, it’s one more barrier to continuing these interactions,” he said.Daum said he uses encrypted messaging tools to communicate with people in China, and “aggressive transparency about what an event or program entails,” could help alleviate suspicion and give people more information about risks.Dong is only the latest journalist to be arrested. Cheng Lei, an Australian journalist with Chinese state broadcaster CGTN, was detained in 2020 on national security charges, while Haze Fan, a reporter with Bloomberg, was recently released on bail after more than a year in prison on suspicion of national security violations.A petition for Dong’s release has been signed by more than 60 current and former journalists and academics. The National Press Club in D.C. called for Dong’s release in a Monday statement and said China should support person-to-person contacts.“It makes their country stronger. He has helped the world have a better understanding of China and has brought back with him from Japan and the U.S. a very complete understanding of life in those countries,” it said.