Japan's Astellas says employee indicted by China's prosecutors

TOKYO (Reuters) -Chinese authorities have indicted a Japanese employee of Astellas Pharma Inc detained since March 2023 on suspicion of espionage, the Japanese pharmaceutical company said on Wednesday.

Japan's Foreign Ministry said a man in his 50s who was detained in Beijing last year had been indicted in mid-August, without identifying the person. Astellas said he was an employee.

Officials at the Chinese Foreign Ministry were not immediately available for comment.

Neither Astellas nor the Japan's Foreign Ministry disclosed what charges the employee was indicted for. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said last year the employee had been detained on suspicion of espionage.

Following his detention, China formally arrested the man last October, further straining bilateral ties.

"We will keep on demanding the early release of this Japanese national," a Foreign Ministry official told Reuters.

(Reporting by Mariko Katsumura, Kaori Kaneko, Kiyoshi Takenaka, Liz Lee; editing by Jason Neely and Elaine Hardcastle)