A U.S. citizen has been arrested in China just before the arrival of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Washington for an official state visit, the New York Times reports.
Chinese authorities secretly detained Sandy Phan-Gillis, an American businesswoman, six months ago during a trip to help promote relations between Houston and its sister city Shenzhen, a manufacturing city in southern China. According to her husband Jeff Gillis, she was formally arrested in recent days on apparent charges of espionage.
The Times reports:
The arrest gives the investigators the power to hold Ms. Phan for two months while they examine the charges and decide whether to seek prosecution. Much longer extensions are possible under China’s broad policing powers.
Mr. Gillis said he did not know the details of the accusations against his wife, but he said the assertion that she had been involved in espionage was ludicrous. She made a living as a consultant, helping broker business ventures and investments between China and the United States, including programs to train Chinese nurses, he said.
"Sandy is not a spy," he said. "Sandy is a hard-working businesswoman who has spent years doing nonprofit-type work to build Houston-China relations."
Simon Tang, a lawyer based in Houston who has helped the couple, confirmed on Tuesday that Ms. Phan-Gillis had been "formally arrested a few days ago" after months in secretive detention in Nanning, the capital of the Guangxi region in southern China. He said her lawyers in China had yet to see the charges in writing but had been told previously that she had been accused of stealing state secrets.
It remains unclear whether President Obama and U.S. officials will raise Phan-Gillis’ case during meetings with Xi. Her husband added that, "It is the most stupid politics in the world to arrest a U.S. citizen the week that Xi Jinping is coming to the United States for a state visit on political charges of spying."
In another case of China’s aggressive push to prosecute anyone it suspects of espionage, a U.S. geologist was released earlier this year after serving more than seven years in a Chinese jail for allegedly trading state secrets.