Wife of jailed US scholar Min Zin asks Trump to raise case at Xi summit

State Department designates Min Zin ‘wrongfully detained’ alongside Chen Youlin

Sylvia Zin testified to a House subcommittee on Wednesday asking President Donald Trump to raise her husband’s detention when he meets Chinese President Xi Jinping at the White House next week. Xi is due to arrive in Washington for a state visit on Wednesday, after hosting Trump in Beijing in May. Ahead of the meeting, families of prisoners being held in China have travelled to the US capital to advocate for their release.

Min Zin directs the Myanmar Institute for Strategic and Policy Studies (ISP-Myanmar), a think tank that studies China’s role in Myanmar, including Chinese interests, relations, and regional influence. He was a student activist during Myanmar’s 1988 pro-democracy movement. He was arrested on 3 June after traveling to Kunming, China for an academic conference and has been charged with spying and endangering national security.

“I’m deeply hopeful that President Trump will raise my husband’s case with President Xi Jinping at the summit next week,” Sylvia Zin told the House Foreign Affairs Committee East Asia and Pacific Subcommittee. The hearing was titled “Lives, Not Leverage: The Long Arm of China and North Korea’s Repression.”

In her remarks, Sylvia Zin said she believed Trump would also be able to secure the release of Chen Youlin, a US seismologist who tracks nuclear tests that has been held in prison in China for two years. “Knowing the president’s historic record on bringing wrongfully detained Americans home has reassured me that he will also be able to secure the swift release of Min Zin and other wrongfully detained citizens,” she said.

Subcommittee chairwoman Young Kim opened the hearing by warning Americans: “If you travel to China, Beijing may take you hostage as leverage in diplomatic negotiation.” Kim added: “Beijing wanted to send a message to those whose research inconvenienced it, and detained Mr Zin ahead of the upcoming Trump-Xi summit.”

The son of Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai also appeared on Capitol Hill to call on Trump to secure his father’s release. Trump previously raised the Lai case with Xi, telling reporters that his Chinese counterpart “told me that would be a tough one.”

Last month, the US State Department said that two Americans — U Min Zin and Chen Youlin — were being “wrongfully detained” in China. The designation transfers cases to the office of the Special Envoy for Hostage Affairs, raising each case’s profile and allowing the US government to allocate more resources to securing the detainees’ release.

Sylvia Zin, who lives in Thailand, told the subcommittee she has not yet been able to speak to her husband in jail. “So every month, we anxiously await his consular visits because they reassure us that he is alive,” she said. Zin said US officials told her that Min Zin was being subjected to up to six hours of interrogations each day when he first arrived in jail.

“I’m trying to be strong for our daughter, but I’m constantly wondering if he’s OK and how to get him back home to us,” Sylvia Zin testified.

Asked for comment on Thursday, a senior White House official, speaking anonymously, told the BBC: “Resolving the wrongful detentions of US citizens is always a top priority for the President.”

At Trump’s last formal meeting with Xi, the US president pressed for the return of another American in Chinese custody. Underground church leader Jin Mingri was freed two months after Trump’s request.