He was imprisoned for a three-year period starting 17 September 2004, on charges of fraud, after originally being arrested for revealing state secrets.
[1] The accusation that he disclosed state secrets is related to an article in The New York Times on 7 September 2004, that correctly predicted the retirement of Jiang Zemin, former General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party.
[citation needed] Before joining The New York Times, Zhao was a well-known investigative journalist who reported on farmers' rights issues for the Beijing-based Zhongguo Gaige 中国改革 (China Reform) magazine.
[1] He had written extensively on the plight of some 20,000 peasants who had been relocated in the 1990s to make way for the Taolinkou reservoir in Hebei Province (see Tangshan protest).
He was sacked by China Reform after more than 11,000 farmers submitted a petition to the National People's Congress.