Ching Cheong, 55, a Hong Kong citizen and the respected China correspondent for the Singapore Straits Times, had insisted on entering China even though he knew mainland agents could be targeting him, his wife Mary Lau alleged Monday. Lau said she had heard from both Hong Kong and mainland sources that Ching could soon be charged with "stealing national secrets,'' a charge frequently levelled against journalists in the mainland.

Ching, a one-time deputy editor-in-chief of the pro-Beijing Wen Wei Po newspaper, was arrested in a Guangzhou hotel on April 22 after receiving the Zhao interview manuscript, which he had been chasing for months.

The Straits Times confirmed the arrest.

``We have been told by a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Singapore that Ching Cheong is assisting security authorities in Beijing with an investigation into a matter not related to the Straits Times,'' the paper's spokesperson said in a statement.

It is not uncommon for arrested individuals to be described as ``assisting'' authorities before they are formally charged in the mainland. There was no comment from Chinese authorities.

The SAR's security bureau said it is offering ``practical help'' to Ching's family members.

The Singapore government could not be reached for comment Monday.

The arrest seems to underscore Beijing's determination to keep any remarks attributed to Zhao before he died in January after 15 years of house arrest out of circulation.

Former Party boss Zhao was stripped of his titles and his freedom strictly limited after he sided with students during the Tiananmen protests. He remains a powerful symbol of opposition to monolithic communist control in China.

Zhao opposed the violent crackdown on the 1989 student movement and was critical of the Communist Party for clamping down on democratic reforms.

Ching worked for Wen Wei Po, long seen as a mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party in Hong Kong, from 1974 to 1989. He quit along with other journalists to protest against the Tiananmen Massacre.

Ching was allegedly trying to obtain a new set of manuscripts compiled by Zhao's confidant Zong Fengmin, who maintained contact with Zhao during his long banishment and who quoted from the late deposed leader in his published memoirs last year.

According to the Washington Post, mainland intelligence agents had approached the publisher of that book, Xiang Chuxin, in Hong Kong, asking ``polite questions'' about the new manuscript. One of Xiang's employees was put under house arrest for weeks, according to the report.

Lau told The Standard that Ching was aware that publishers of the memoirs were being investigated previous to his mainland visit.

``We knew they were investigating the publishers. But they [security agents] did not come to us [before the arrest]. My husband did not realize they were serious this time,'' she said.

According to Lau, Ching visited Beijing in March on a business trip and covered the meeting of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. ``He felt he would not be arrested. He is stupid,'' Lau said.

Lau believes her husband's arrest was intended as a warning to other journalists trying to obtain sensitive material concerning Zhao.

``It [the arrest] is to tell others that you just shouldn't do it,'' she said.

Lau also theorized that her husband may have been lured to Guangzhou to prevent him getting the documents through e-mail.

Arrests and detention of journalists on the mainland is not a rarity. Zhao Yan, a New York Times researcher based in Beijing was arrested by mainland security authorities last September and accused of ``divulging state secrets.'' Hong Kong journalists working on the mainland are frequently harassed and questioned, said director of the Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor Law Yuk-kai.

In 1991, Ming Pao reporter Xi Yang was arrested and convicted of spying and stealing state secrets after a report on interest rate fluctuations in China.

Xi was given a 12-year sentence in 1994 but was released before the handover in 1997.

dennis.chong@singtaonewscorp.com