Two more Japanese citizens are being held by the Chinese government on suspicion of espionage, bringing the total to four, the Mainichi newspaper reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
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The Asahi Shimbun said the woman arrested in Shanghai was formerly a Chinese national, who Chinese authorities believe has been working for Japanese intelligence after taking Japanese citizenship. She was arrested while in Shanghai in June.
The two earlier cases were the only ones linked to spying allegations that the Japanese government was informed of, said Kazunari Kotake, an official at the ministry’s department in charge of the safety of overseas Japanese.
One of the men was detained in Dandong, Liaoning province, near China’s border with North Korea.
The other man is a resident of Aichi Prefecture and was detained near a military facility in the Nanji Islands of Zhejiang province. The man is retired from a large company, it said.
Separately, another Japanese national in his 60s has been detained in Beijing on similar charges, the Mainichi said. The Public Security Intelligence Agency had asked the man, who has connections with Communist Party executives in China, to gauge the political climate there, the source said.
According to another source, the woman is involved in operating a Japanese-language school in Tokyo.
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Sino-Japanese relations are already strained by revived war memories and tensions over the South China Sea.
