Former journalist Gao Yu was on trial Friday in Beijing for "providing state secrets to an overseas organization." Western media and human rights organizations pointed their fingers at the Chinese authorities, accusing them of human rights violations and saying that Gao's case is against China's latest claim that it is pursuing the rule of law.

Gao denied the prosecution's allegations in court, and no ruling was given Friday, Reuters reported.

Gao used to be a journalist with the China News Service in the 1980s. She was jailed in 1989 and released the following year. In 1993, she was sentenced to six years in jail for leaking state secrets to overseas media. She was arrested again earlier this year for sending the full text of a classified document of the Communist Party of China's Central Committee to a foreign website.

Little criticism from the West pointed to the crime itself, but declared that Gao's sending the document is "freedom of speech." This is ridiculous from the angle of law.

Ask any ordinary Chinese people whether it is a crime to obtain a central government document through illegitimate means, key in the content to a computer, and send it to an overseas website. Most people will answer yes.

Would a normal Chinese people do this? Few would dare. But Gao did. She already experienced a jail term for leaking state secrets. She knew the legal consequences of her act.

The leaked file was about the Party leadership's latest policies concerning ideology. It was political content at the center of ideological disputes between China and the West.

The Western media argued that the document Gao sent out should not be classified as state secrets, and that China's definition of state secrets could become a trap of human rights violations. This argument is lame.

Unpublished documents made by the CPC Central Committee are state secrets as clearly defined in the country's Law on State Secrets Protection. The central committee drafts documents and policies, and decides whether it will pass the documents within the Party or to the whole public. It is China's way of running the country. Whether this practice needs any change or not, it is up to China.

The West has been paying much attention to Gao's case,. This seems to be a golden chance to smear China's image and spread the Western values in a perfect frame: a 70-year-old veteran journalist has been arrested for "practicing freedom of speech."

This case is another example of profound ideological conflicts between China and the West. But the hyping of Gao's case will not score much for the West. The Chinese public is clear about the motive behind the West's actions.