Missing Chinese professor returns to Japan: university

Hu Shiyun, a Chinese literature and linguistics professor at Kobe Gakuin University in western Japan, disappeared while visiting his homeland in summer 2023, raising concerns about his safety.

The university was first notified in September 2023 by Hu's family in Japan that he had been unreachable since travelling to China sometime in or after August, the school's spokesman Yoichi Takamura told AFP.

"Then he told us he returned to Japan on January 24," he said.

The university "asked what he was doing during his stay in China, but there was no answer from him," Takamura added.

Hu taught Chinese language, culture and society in the faculty of global communication from 2015, according to the university's website.

"We are coordinating his role for the next academic year" starting in April, Takamura said.

Hu, 64, is one of a string of Chinese academics in Japan to disappear in their home country in recent years, as Beijing sharpens its focus on its nationals abroad.

Japan's government said in April 2024 that it was monitoring reports that Chinese professor Fan Yuntao, who taught international law and politics in Tokyo, had been missing since he travelled home the previous year.

In 2019, Yuan Keqin from Japan's Hokkaido University of Education vanished after visiting China for a family funeral, with Beijing's foreign ministry later saying he had confessed to spying and was in custody.