Wife asks Trump to raise detained scholar's case at Xi summit — SkimNews
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- Sylvia Zin testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee East Asia and Pacific Subcommittee on Wednesday, asking Trump to raise her husband U Min Zin's imprisonment when he meets Xi Jinping at the White House next week.
- U Min Zin, director of the Myanmar Institute for Strategic and Policy Studies, was arrested on June 3 in Kunming after traveling for an academic conference and is charged with spying and endangering national security.
- The State Department designated U Min Zin and seismologist Chen Youlin as "wrongfully detained" last month, transferring their cases to the Special Envoy for Hostage Affairs for greater resources and visibility.
- Sylvia Zin told the committee she has not yet spoken to her husband in jail and that US officials reported he endured up to six hours of interrogations daily upon arrival.
- Subcommittee chairwoman Young Kim warned that "if you travel to China, Beijing may take you hostage as leverage in diplomatic negotiation," saying Zin's detention was timed ahead of the Trump-Xi summit to "send a message" to researchers whose work inconveniences Beijing.
- Jimmy Lai's son also appeared at the hearing seeking his father's release; Trump previously raised the Hong Kong media mogul's case with Xi, who called it "a tough one."
- Trump's prior track record includes pressing for underground church leader Jin Mingri's release during his last formal meeting with Xi — Mingri was freed two months later.
Why it matters: The "wrongful detention" designation routes both cases to the Special Envoy for Hostage Affairs, while subcommittee chair Young Kim explicitly framed Zin's arrest as pre-summit leverage — making prisoner releases a concrete diplomatic deliverable Trump can press Xi for during next week's state visit.
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