U.S. designates Min Zin as wrongfully detained in China

The United States has formally designated American citizen Min Zin as wrongfully detained by China, escalating a dispute over the Myanmar scholar’s arrest after he traveled to southwestern China for an academic event at the Chinese government’s invitation.

Dylan Johnson, the State Department’s assistant secretary for global public affairs, announced the decision Thursday on X. “Secretary Rubio has formally designated U.S. citizen Min Zin as wrongfully detained,” Johnson said. “We call on Beijing to release all U.S. citizens arbitrarily detained or exit banned in China. The safety and security of U.S. citizens is the State Department’s top priority.”

The State Department said the designation followed “an extensive review of the circumstances” surrounding Min Zin’s June 3 detention in Yunnan province. The department said he had been invited to China for an academic conference. Al Jazeera reported that the designation requires Washington to make securing his release a priority.

China rejected the U.S. claim Friday. Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said Min Zin was suspected of activities that endangered national security.

“I want to reiterate that China is a country governed by the rule of law, and there is no so-called ‘wrongful detention,’” Lin said. “It is understood that the relevant U.S. personnel are suspected of engaging in activities that endanger China’s national security, violating Chinese law. Chinese judicial authorities have handled the case in accordance with the law.”

Lin had said in June that Min Zin was being held on suspicion “of engaging in espionage and endangering China’s national security,” without providing further details. Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for China’s embassy in Washington, told CBS News in June that Min Zin’s “legitimate rights have been fully guaranteed.”

Min Zin’s brother, Aung Maw Zin, denied the allegations. “The accusations of the local security services in Yunnan that Min Zin was engaged in espionage could not be further from the truth,” he said in a statement Thursday.

Min Zin is the founder and executive director of the Institute for Strategy and Policy-Myanmar, which studies Myanmar’s politics, resources and economy, including the civil war that followed the military’s 2021 coup. The institute said he was detained while traveling to Kunming for an academic workshop and called for his “immediate and unconditional release.”

“Academic and research organizations such as ISP-Myanmar should be able to conduct research freely and without fear of intimidation,” the group said.

According to the institute, Min Zin is also a Ph.D. candidate in the Travers Department of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. His brother said he became a U.S. citizen in 2012, has a teenage daughter and was accepted into a Berkeley Ph.D. program despite not completing high school.

Aung Maw Zin said his brother fled Burma, also known as Myanmar, after leading student protests in 1988 and spent seven years in hiding before going to the United States. He said Min Zin traveled to China “at the invitation of a professor that he had known for a number of years from the Yunnan Academy of Social Science.”

“He believes that China plays a critical role in ending the civil war in Burma and valued the opportunity to engage in peer to peer learning with colleagues,” Aung Maw Zin said. He said the family is grateful to President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio “for moving swiftly to designate Min Zin as wrongfully detained.”

Min Zin is the second American academic in recent months to receive the designation while held in China. The other is Dr. Youlin Chen, a Chinese American seismologist from Boston who, according to Al Jazeera, was arrested by Chinese authorities in 2024.

“I am glad to see that Secretary Rubio has designated Min Zin as a wrongful detainee,” Chen’s wife, Dr. Yufang Rong, said. “It meant a great deal to me when my husband, Youlin Chen, was designated because it means that his freedom is a priority for the Trump Administration. I hope it gives the same comfort to Min Zin and his family.”

The dispute comes ahead of a planned U.S. visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping. Al Jazeera reported Xi is expected at the White House on Sept. 24, following Trump’s May summit in Beijing.