China detains U.S. citizen at airport on espionage charges

U.S. citizen U Min Zin on June 3 at Kunming Changshui International Airport in Yunnan Province, southwestern China. They accused him of espionage and endangering national security.

U Min Zin was traveling for academic purposes when taken into custody, according to a New York Times report. Details about the circumstances of the arrest remain unknown. The United States Consulate General in Guangzhou was notified of the arrest, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said at a press conference earlier this week.

U.S. citizen detained in China,” a State Department official told SFGATE. U.S. citizen is detained, we work to provide the appropriate consular assistance.

U Min Zin is a current doctoral student at the University of California, Berkeley, where he also earned a Master’s in Political Science and Government. His research focuses on Myanmar and Chinese foreign policy. He founded and directs ISP Myanmar, a Thailand-based think tank that examines Myanmar and regional policy questions.

He applied to UC Berkeley at age 35. The university stated that a registration check is underway and did not immediately respond to further requests for comment. U Min Zin was a student activist in Burma’s 1988 democracy movement.

His activism led to expulsion from high school and a period in hiding before he fled to Thailand in 1997. After arriving in Thailand he worked as a journalist for several years and later contributed to the New York Times and Foreign Policy. “If I could return home today, I would go.

I belong to Burma. My family is there. I want to dedicate myself to establish good journalism and education, because I realize that education is the key to developing Burma,” he told the Jakarta Post in 2008.