A veteran Chinese state media journalist has been sentenced by a Beijing court to seven years in prison on espionage charges, his family has said.

Dong Yuyu, a senior columnist at the Communist party newspaper Guangming Daily, was detained in February 2022 along with a Japanese diplomat at a Beijing restaurant.

The diplomat was released after a few hours of questioning, but Dong, 62, has been in custody ever since and was charged with spying last year.

Dong’s work has been published in the Chinese editions of the New York Times and Financial Times. He won the prestigious Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University in 2006-07 and was also a visiting fellow at Keio University in Japan in 2010 and a visiting professor at Hokkaido University in 2014.

According to the judgment, the Japanese diplomats Dong met, including then ambassador Hideo Tarumi and current Shanghai-based chief diplomat Masaru Okada, were named as agents of an “espionage organisation”, his family said in a statement.

“We are shocked that the Chinese authorities would blatantly deem a foreign embassy as an ‘espionage organisation’ and accuse the former Japanese ambassador and his fellow diplomats of being spies,” the statement added.

Beijing’s foreign ministry responded to Dong’s case by saying: “China is a country ruled by law.”

“Chinese judicial authorities strictly handle cases in accordance with the law, and those who violate the law and commit crimes will be investigated according to the law,” spokesperson Mao Ning said at a press conference on Friday.

The Japanese embassy said it would not comment about the case.

“In any case, the diplomatic activities of Japanese diplomatic missions abroad are carried out in a legitimate manner,” an embassy spokesperson said in an email.

Ian Johnson, a writer and friend of Dong, said the sentence “shows that the government is trying to send a message that normal contacts with the outside world are undesirable. The government presented no evidence that Mr Dong committed espionage. Instead, it made the dubious argument that meeting with diplomats is in itself suspicious behaviour.”

Under Chinese law, someone convicted of espionage can be jailed for three to 10 years for less severe cases or receive heavy punishment, including life imprisonment, for serious cases.

Civil liberties and freedom of expression have dramatically receded in China under President Xi Jinping’s decade-long tenure. The Communist party maintains tight restrictions on domestic media outlets, and Chinese nationals who work with foreign outlets are routinely harassed.

China is the worst country for jailing media workers, with 44 journalists behind bars as of December last year, according to a Committee to Protect Journalists ranking.

Beh Lih Yi, the Asia programme coordinator of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said: “Interacting with diplomats is part of a journalist’s job. Jailing journalists on bogus and unjust charges like espionage is a travesty of justice.

“We condemn this unjust verdict, and call on the Chinese authorities to protect the right of journalists to work freely and safely in China. Dong Yuyu should be reunited with his family immediately.”

In February, a Beijing court handed a suspended death sentence to the jailed dissident writer Yang Hengjun after finding the dual Chinese-Australian citizen guilty on espionage charges.