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       China Acknowledges Imprisoning a British Man on Spy Charges

       A businessman who had worked in China for decades vanished from view in 2018, but his fate had been unknown, and publicly unremarked upon, until now.

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       British and Chinese national flags on display in front of the Tiananmen Gate in Beijing. Credit...Andy Wong/Associated Press

       By Vivian Wang, Chris Buckley and Keith Bradsher

       Published Jan. 26, 2024Updated Jan. 27, 2024, 2:40 a.m. ET

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       A British businessman who disappeared from public view in China in 2018 was sentenced to five years in prison in 2022, China’s foreign ministry said on Friday, in its first public acknowledgment of the case.

       The businessman, Ian J. Stones, had lived in China since the 1970s, working for companies such as General Motors and Pfizer. For years after he vanished, there was no public information about his whereabouts, though some in the business community privately discussed his secret detention.

       A spokesman for the foreign ministry said that Mr. Stones had been convicted in 2022 of “buying and unlawfully supplying intelligence for an organization or individual outside China.” Mr. Stones’s appeal of the verdict was rejected in September 2023, the spokesman, Wang Wenbin, said.

       Mr. Wang was responding to reporters’ questions at a regularly scheduled news conference, after The Wall Street Journal reported Mr. Stones’s case on Thursday.

       “The Chinese courts heard the trial strictly in accordance with the law,” Mr. Wang said, adding that China “protects the lawful rights of Chinese and foreign parties.”

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       It is unclear when Mr. Stones will be released and whether he will be given credit for time served before his conviction.

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       Vivian Wang is a China correspondent based in Beijing, where she writes about how the country’s global rise and ambitions are shaping the daily lives of its people. More about Vivian Wang

       Chris Buckley, the chief China correspondent for The Times, reports on China and Taiwan from Taipei, focused on politics, social change and security and military issues. More about Chris Buckley

       Keith Bradsher is the Beijing bureau chief for The Times. He previously served as bureau chief in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Detroit and as a Washington correspondent. He has lived and reported in mainland China through the pandemic. More about Keith Bradsher

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