China detains US scientist who studied North Korea nuclear tests — SkimNews
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- Chen Youlin, a 54-year-old US seismologist who specializes in detecting nuclear tests, was arrested in November 2024 during a Beijing family visit and has now been held more than 600 days; he is the only US citizen currently designated as "wrongfully detained."
- Chen's wife Rong Yufang, also a seismologist, said Chinese authorities interrogated her husband more than 100 times and barred him from seeing a lawyer for the first 13 months; foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian said "judicial authorities handle cases in accordance with the law" and denied any wrongful detention.
- Global Reach said US government suspicions link Chen's arrest to China's suspected conduct of secret nuclear tests in violation of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, arguing his expertise could help Beijing develop countermeasures against US seismic detection.
- Chen, who was born in China and became a US citizen in 2011, published research on North Korea's nuclear program and a December 2020 study analyzing seismic data across Asia — including China — to improve nuclear-test monitoring and yield estimation.
- The Foley Foundation raised health concerns, noting Chen suffers from diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol and lacks reliable access to treatment while incarcerated.
- Senator Edward Markey (D-Massachusetts) said Beijing's treatment of Chen undermines the US-China partnership and may deter other academics from engaging with Chinese colleagues, calling the detention "people-to-people engagement" Beijing claims to want.
- China confirmed the arrest of another US scholar, Min Zin, director of a Myanmar-focused think tank, on espionage charges a month before Chen's family went public — the second such case disclosed in recent months.
Why it matters: Chen's detention chills the academic collaboration Beijing publicly champions — his wife noted he was doing exactly the "people-to-people engagement" China says it wants — while the espionage charges, potentially linked to suspected Chinese nuclear testing at Lop Nur (which Beijing denies), push this beyond a standard hostage case into arms-control territory, especially as China simultaneously holds a second US scholar, Min Zin, on similar charges.
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