The World - News from July 22, 1986

The executive editor of the New York Times, A. M. Rosenthal, said that China’s detention of the newspaper’s Peking correspondent is damaging China’s image and is detrimental to U.S.-Chinese relations. John F. Burns, 41, has been in police custody in Peking since Thursday. Chinese officials say he is being investigated on suspicion of spying in restricted areas while on a motorcycle trip. After meeting with Burns, Rosenthal said the detention “is not only bad for John Burns, but it is not good for relations between China and the United States, and the longer it goes on the worse it will become.”