Yang, who’s also a blogger and an online journalist, was detained by Chinese authorities in January this year in the southern city of Guangzhou. He was on his way to Shanghai, after flying in from New York.
Beijing's pressure to unify Taiwan with mainland China is something more serious than mere displeasure.
Ma Jian, once a vice minister at the Ministry of State Security, is one of the most senior security officials to be jailed since the former domestic security tsar Zhou Yongkang was ensnared in a graft scandal and jailed for life in 2015.
Unnamed officials say France has launched an investigation into the disappearance of Meng Hongwei, who is Interpol's president and a vice minister for public safety in China.
Edward Leung, 27, was convicted in May of rioting over the 2016 running battles with police, when demonstrators hurled bricks torn up from pavements and set rubbish alight.
Critics on social media attacked the move and drew parallels to North Korea or suggested a Mao Zedong-type of personality cult was forming.
Chinese President Xi Jinping was unknown to many people five years ago and is now becoming one of the world's most influential people. He widely viewed as China's strongest leader since Mao Zedong.
Western leaders, rights groups and the Nobel Peace Prize committee expressed sorrow at the death of Liu Xiaobo, but reaction was muted in his homeland, where strict censorship made him less well-known than abroad.
Liu Xiaobo was convicted in 2009 of engaging in activities designed to overthrow the government. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize the following year.
All forms of religious activity were banned in China between 1966 and 1976, during then-President Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution. Religion is not banned anymore – on paper. But persecution is rife.
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