Chinese scholar's husband now an American

Xue Donghua maintains Gao is innocent

In this story: Spy charges Second detention Scholarly ties Tough stance RELATED STORIES, SITES

By Rose Tang
CNN Correspondent

HONG KONG, China -- The United States has granted citizenship to the husband of a detained Chinese-born scholar in a bid to pressure Beijing to release her.

At least five members of the Congress attended a special ceremony for Xue Donghua on Capitol Hill Friday morning.

Xue was sworn in as a U.S. citizen after the U.S. government, the Congress and human rights groups called on China to free Xue's wife Gao Zhan, a fellow at the American University at Washington D.C.

The move came amid news that a second Chinese-born scholar with U.S. ties has been detained by China.

Spy charges

Beijing has been holding Gao for nearly seven weeks in an unknown location in China, accusing her of spying for overseas intelligent agencies.

State security agents arrested Gao, Xue and their five-year-old son Andrew in Beijing when they were about to return to the U.S. after a family visit.

Republican Congressman Frank Wolf organized the ceremony for Xue on Friday due to "extraordinary circumstances", his chief of staff Dan Scandling told CNN.

Scandling said Xue at the ceremony thanked the effort by the U.S. Congress.

Xue, who lives in Wolf's constituency of McLean in Virginia, approached Wolf on Wednesday to speed up his naturalization process.

Meanwhile, Senator George Allen has said he's planning to introduce a private bill to grant Gao U.S. citizenship.

Gao and Xue had completed all procedures for the naturalization before they were arrested on February 11.

Second detention

Xue's ceremony came just one day after the detention of another Chinese-born scholar became public.

On February 25, just two weeks after Gao's arrest, Chinese agents picked up American passport-holder Li Shaomin, a business professor at the City University in Hong Kong, as he traveled to the border city of Shenzhen.

Li's family was told by the U.S. Embassy in Beijing that Li had been detained at an unknown location for unspecified reasons.

The U.S. Consulate in Hong Kong confirmed an American citizen had been held in China since late February.

A consulate spokeswoman said a consulate official had visited the detainee and had been in frequent contact with his family, but she declined to name the detainee due to privacy laws.

Chinese Foreign Ministry and security officials in Beijing and Shenzhen have so far refused to comment on why he is being detained and where he is being held.

But Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy has confirmed Li's detention.

Scholarly ties

U.S. citizen Li Shaomin was detained two weeks after Gao's arrest

Li, a Beijing native, received a PhD from Princeton University in 1988. He and his wife became U.S. citizens in 1995.

According to his home page on City University's website, Li has served as a U.N. advisor and lectured for the Chinese government.

He has been teaching in Hong Kong since 1996, after working for AT&T in the U.S. for nine years.

Li's father, Li Hongli, is a prominent scholar and a reformer close to late communist party secretary Hu Yaobang and ousted leader Zhao Ziyang.

Li senior was jailed for 10 months after the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre for supporting student protestors.

Li Shaomin's friends in Hong Kong describe him as a supporter of the pro-democracy movement but say he's been focusing on economic issues in China in recent years.

Tough stance

News of Li's detention is adding further pressure to strained Sino-U.S. relations.

Beijing has so far ignored pressure from U.S. President George W. Bush after he raised Gao's case when Chinese Vice Premier Qian Qichen visited Washington last week.

The U.S. Embassy in Beijing has also criticized Beijing for failing to notify them about the detention of Gao's son Andrew, a U.S. citizen.

China analysts say detentions of Gao and Li signal a "turning point" in Sino-U.S. relations as Beijing takes a tougher approach on the U.S.

"There will be more cases like these in the future," said Lu Siqing, director of Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy.

"In general, China sees U.S. as the biggest enemy, especially after the 1999 Nato bombing of Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia," Lu told CNN.

"This (Li's) case is more serious than that of Gao Zhan, because Li Shaomin is a U.S. citizen while Gao Zhan is still a Chinese national. So you can see that after pressure from the U.S., China is adopting an ever harsher attitude," Lu said.

The Associated Press & Reuters contributed to this report.

China detains another U.S. scholar
March 30, 2001

U.S. House of Representatives
U.S. Senate
Li Shaomin's home page

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.