China detains U.S. writer in crackdown
Associated Press
BEIJING — China has detained an American writer and former teacher, the U.S. embassy said today, the fifth Chinese-born intellectual with foreign ties to be held in a sweeping anti-espionage campaign.
Wu Jianmin, a New Yorker with U.S. citizenship, was detained April 8 and is suspected of espionage, the U.S. Embassy here said. Police informed embassy officials of Wu's detention on April 14, saying he was under investigation for spying on behalf of Taiwan.
Authorities suspect that Wu was involved in the publication of "The Tiananmen Papers," a book about the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators, said Frank Lu, a former dissident who runs a human rights monitoring group in Hong Kong. The book, which depicts Chinese leaders at odds over how to handle the protests, is said to be based on Communist Party records smuggled out of China by a disaffected official.
The report comes one day after the U.S. State Department issued a warning to travelers linked to Taiwan or dissident writings. It in particular cautions Americans originally from China. Travel to Taiwan, which China regards as a rebel province, or involvement with Taiwan media organizations, "has apparently also been regarded as the equivalent of espionage," the warning said.
Wu, 46, is a former instructor at the Communist Party's Central Party School who left that job in 1986 to become a reporter, Lu said. Wu left for the United States in 1988. His wife is currently in New York.
Wu is the author of numerous articles on Chinese politics and other matters for Hong Kong current affairs magazines.
After the 1989 student protests, a Taiwan publishing house produced a book written by Wu titled: "Zhongnanhai has played all its trump cards," Lu said. Zhongnanhai is the Chinese name for the Communist Party leadership's residential and administrative compound in Beijing.
An official in the government's Foreign Affairs Office in Guangdong province confirmed Wu had been detained, but would provide no further information.
Earlier this week, more than 350 prominent China scholars warned that the crackdown threatened to set back thriving academic exchanges. They issued an open appeal to President Jiang Zemin to release the imprisoned scholars or at least to provide them fair legal protection.
Wu is the second U.S. citizen known to be detained recently in China. The other is Li Shaomin, an American citizen and business professor in Hong Kong who disappeared Feb. 25 after going to China to see a friend.
Washington also has voiced concern over three other detentions:
American University researcher and U.S. permanent resident Gao Zhan, who was detained Feb. 11 and faces espionage charges. Gao's husband and 5-year-old son, who is a U.S. citizen, were detained with her and held for 26 days before being released.
Tan Guangguang, a Chinese intellectual and permanent U.S. resident who has taught at top U.S. universities and worked for a U.S. medical group in Beijing, was detained in December.
Xu Zerong, a historian who works in Hong Kong, was detained in August in Guangdong. Xu, a permanent resident of Hong Kong, reportedly had published articles containing sensitive information about Chinese support for communist insurgents in Malaysia in the 1950s.
