China’s foreign ministry has confirmed the arrest of a US scholar, accusing him of spying and endangering Chinese national security.
U Min Zin, a director at a think tank focused on Myanmar, was arrested in early June, sources had earlier told the New York Times.
He allegedly disappeared while in the Chinese city of Kunming, which borders Myanmar, said the report.
Further details about the arrest – which is unusual, as it is uncommon for China to arrest US citizens on national security charges – are not known.
The detention comes just weeks after US President Donald Trump’s visit to Beijing with Chinese President Xi Jinping, where the US leader received a grand welcome.
It also comes as Myanmar’s President Min Aung Hlaing is set to pay a visit to Beijing later next week.
Beijing is known to have a close relationship with Myanmar’s junta, the country’s military government that seized power in a coup in 2021.
Known to be a student activist during Myanmar’s 1988 pro-democracy movement, Min Zin fled to Thailand to escape arrest by the military government. He later went to the US to study and also returned to Myanmar in 2010.
According to the New York Times, he currently lives in Thailand, but spends time in both the US and Myanmar.
Min Zin is currently an executive director at the Myanmar Institute for Strategic and Policy Studies (ISP-Myanmar), a think tank based in Thailand that studies China’s role in Myanmar, including Chinese interests, relations, and regional influence.
According to the Centre for Social Innovation and Foreign Policy, he is also currently a PhD student at the University of California, Berkeley.
Min Zin was in Kunming attending a meeting on 3 June when he was arrested at the airport, according to news agency AFP, which quoted several sources.
One source, speaking to AFP, said his family was “worried” and that they were “following up” with the US consulate in China’s Guangzhou.
Min Zin was due to speak at a conference in Kathmandu later this month.