Chinese authorities have formally arrested a US citizen detained on suspicion of espionage but might delay his trial until before a visit by US President George W. Bush, a human rights group said yesterday.
Wu Jianmin (吳建民), detained in China since April, was formally arrested this week on charges of endangering state security, the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said.
The US Embassy in Beijing said it could not confirm the report. The Chinese Foreign Ministry had no immediate comment. Formally arresting Wu would bring the 46-year-old scholar and reporter closer to trial.
China's detention of Wu and other US-linked scholars over the past year strained ties with Washington and unsettled academics who regularly visit China for research.
To ease tensions, China last week freed three of the scholars, smoothing a visit by US Secretary of State Colin Powell to Beijing last weekend.
Wu, a US citizen, was detained on April 8 and was being investigated on suspicion that he spied for Taiwan, according to the US Embassy. China alleged that the scholars released last week also spied for Taiwan.
The Information Center said Wu's case was being handled by prosecutors in the southern province of Guangdong. The center said he is being held in the provincial capital, Guangzhou. A US consular official last visited Wu on July 25.
The Information Center said it did not expect China to try Wu until before Bush's expected visit in October.
The center speculated that China would then expel Wu to try to improve China-US relations and deflect criticism of its human rights record.
According to democracy activists, Wu is a former teacher at the ruling Communist Party's Central Party School as well as a reporter.
He reportedly left for the US in 1988, published a book about the Chinese government following pro-democracy protests in 1989 and lived in New York City.
Meanwhile, one of the scholars freed last week, Qin Guangguang (覃光廣), left China yesterday, said a friend who asked not to be identified.
He said Qin telephoned him to say he was leaving but did not say where he was headed.
A message on the telephone answering machine at Qin's home in the Chinese capital said simply, "We are not in Beijing."
Qin, a Chinese citizen with residency rights in the US, had remained in China after his release on medical grounds to visit family in the southwestern province of Sichuan.
The other two freed scholars, Gao Zhan (高瞻) and Li Shaomin (李少民), left China for the US last week.
Li, however, was allowed to return this week to Hong Kong, the largely autonomous Chinese territory where he teaches marketing and lives.
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