China's latest national security case involves an American academic. Beijing has detained U Min Zin, a Myanmar-born US scholar and PhD candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, accusing him of "engaging in espionage activities that endanger China's national security," a foreign ministry spokesperson said Friday. A Burmese activist speaking on condition of anonymity says Min vanished on June 3 after traveling to a conference in Kunming in southwest China, the Guardian reports. The activist says Min Zin has visited China many times before without incident.
Once a student activist in Myanmar's 1988 pro-democracy uprising, Min later received asylum in the US and is not currently involved in on-the-ground activism, the activist says. He founded ISP Myanmar, a research institute that has examined Chinese foreign policy and economic ties with Myanmar, including trade in rare earths, and has previously exchanged ideas with Chinese think tanks. Amnesty International called for his immediate release, with spokesman Joe Freeman saying the "circumstances around Min Zin's mysterious arrest are extremely concerning, as is the apparent charge of espionage," the AP reports.
It's rare for China to arrest an American on national security charges, though John Kamm, founder of the Dui Ha Foundation human rights group, tells the New York Times that around 200 US citizens are currently detained in China, some of them on drug charges. Min Zin was detained weeks after President Trump's visit to Beijing. Kamm doubts that Xi Jinping's reciprocal visit to Trump in September will lead to prisoner releases. "Human rights is not a priority for the US government now in its dealings with China," he says. "I hope I'm wrong, but I don't see any evidence to the contrary."
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