Associated Press honours journalist executed in 1951 by Chinese officials
- YC Jao’s nephew wrote to the news agency last year to highlight Chinese court’s rejection of family’s 1983 request for posthumous pardon
- Labelled a spy because of his work, Jao was one of hundreds seized by secret police during a purge of supposed counter-revolutionaries
A family man in his late 40s, tall and erudite with liberal views, Jao was an intellectual deeply committed to news, and to modernising journalism in China. He had studied at the University of Missouri’s journalism school in the 1920s, before returning after 10 years to teach journalism and to start an English-language paper.
He was recommended to Associated Press (AP) as a local correspondent by the then US ambassador to China, and worked under the supervision of Seymour Topping, the head of the AP bureau in Nanking, the capital city of the Nationalist Chinese government.
Jao’s passion for journalism led to his death. The new authorities ordered his execution in April 1951. They accused Jao of spying and of counter-revolutionary activities, all owing to his work for AP.
Sixty-eight years later, AP on Wednesday recognised his sacrifice by installing Jao’s name on its memorial Wall of Honour for journalists who have fallen because of their work for AP. Two of Jao’s children, Rao Jian and Rao Jiping, travelled from China to attend the ceremony. Also honoured on Wednesday was Mohamed Ben Khalifa, a freelance photographer and video journalist killed in Tripoli, Libya, in January covering fighting for AP.