The wife of a US scholar imprisoned in China on charges of spying and endangering national security has asked President Donald Trump to secure his release when he meets Chinese President Xi Jinping at the White House next week.

U Min Zin, the director at a think tank focused on Myanmar, was arrested on 3 June after travelling to the Chinese city of Kunming for an academic conference.

"I'm deeply hopeful that President Trump will raise my husband's case with President Xi Jinping at the summit next week," his wife, Sylvia Zin, testified to Congress on Wednesday.

Xi is due to arrive for a state visit to Washington DC on Wednesday. It comes after Xi hosted Trump for a visit to Beijing in May.

Ahead of the meeting, families of prisoners being held in China have travelled to the US capital to advocate for their release.

Sylvia Zin appeared before the House Foreign Affairs Committee East Asia and Pacific Subcommittee on Wednesday for a hearing titled Lives, Not Leverage: The Long Arm of China and North Korea's Repression.

In her remarks, Zin said she believed Trump would also be able to secure the release of Chen Youlin, a US seismologist who tracks nuclear tests that has been held in prison in China for two years.

"Knowing the president's historic record on bringing wrongfully detained Americans home has reassured me that he will also be able to secure the swift release of Min Zin and other wrongfully detained citizens," she said.

Congresswoman Young Kim, the chairwoman of the subcommittee, opened the hearing by warning Americans: "If you travel to China, Beijing may take you hostage as leverage in diplomatic negotiation."

Speaking about Zin's arrest, she added: "Beijing wanted to send a message to those whose research inconvenienced it, and detained Mr Zin ahead of the upcoming Trump-Xi summit."

Min Zin, a student activist during Myanmar's 1988 pro-democracy movement, directs the Myanmar Institute for Strategic and Policy Studies (ISP-Myanmar), a think tank that studies China's role in Myanmar, including Chinese interests, relations, and regional influence.

The son of Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai also appeared on Capitol Hill to call on Trump to secure his father's release. The US president previously raised the case with Xi, telling reporters that his Chinese counterpart "told me that would be a tough one".

Asked for comment on Thursday, a senior White House official, speaking anonymously, told the BBC: "Resolving the wrongful detentions of US citizens is always a top priority for the President."

Last month, the US State Department said that two Americans - U Min Zin and Chen Youlin - were being "wrongfully detained" in China.

This designation in the US allows the cases to be transferred to the office of the Special Envoy for Hostage Affairs - raising the profile of each case and allowing the US government to allocate more resources to securing their release.

Zin, who lives in Thailand, told the committee on Wednesday that she has not yet been able to speak to her husband in jail, "so every month, we anxiously await his consular visits because they reassure us that he is alive".

Zin said US officials had told her that Min Zin was being subjected to up to six hours of interrogations each day when he first arrived in jail.

"I'm trying to be strong for our daughter, but I'm constantly wondering if he's OK and how to get him back home to us," she said.

Last time Trump and Xi formally met, Trump pressed for the return of another American in jail. Underground church leader Jin Mingri was freed two months after Trump's request.

 

SOURCE/AUTHOR : BBC NEWS/Max Matza