Late at night, a senior police officer guided Liu Wanyong, then a budding investigative journalist, through the inner sanctum of one of the scariest domains in China, the Ministry of Public Security. The rooms were empty. Mr. Liu was directed to a locked filing cabinet. The officer pulled out a dossier, laid the documents on a desk and — this being the era before cellphone cameras — gave Mr. Liu 30 minutes to scratch down the contents.
The documents laid out the story of an innocent businessman who had been jailed for the crimes of a corrupt politician. That’s news in most places, but not of the stop-the-presses variety. But in China in 2005, a leak like that was rare, and Mr. Liu’s account of how a party official had used his power to arrest an innocent man created a sensation.
The documents laid out the story of an innocent businessman who had been jailed for the crimes of a corrupt politician. That’s news in most places, but not of the stop-the-presses variety. But in China in 2005, a leak like that was rare, and Mr. Liu’s account of how a party official had used his power to arrest an innocent man created a sensation.
