Detained U.S. scholar arrested for spying, wife says

Liu Yingli says her requests to talk to her husband, U.S. academic Li Shaomin, have been denied

By CNN Senior Asia Correspondent Mike Chinoy

HONG KONG -- A U.S. citizen detained without explanation in China since late February has been formally arrested on suspicion of spying for Taiwan, according to his wife.

Chinese police seized Li Shaomin, a professor of business at City University in Hong Kong, when he crossed the border from Hong Kong into China on February 25th.

His wife, Liu Yingli, tells CNN that she has received a phone call from the Chinese Ministry of State Security to advise her that Li Shaomin is now officially being investigated as a suspected spy for Taiwan.

"Somebody from China's State Security department called me and said 'Your husband has been formally arrested for spying'," she said.

"It is a big shock, because he has done nothing. They accuse him of spying, which is totally nonsense. He is an outstanding scholar."

VIDEO CNN's Mike Chinoy talks to Lin Yingli, wife of arrested scholar Dr. Li Shaomin Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)

No access

Liu said that the Chinese security official told her she would not be allowed to have any contact with her husband, and that his case would go through the standard legal process in China.

"I asked if I could talk to my husband, and he said no. I ask if I can call him on the phone, and he says no. I ask if they can tell me where my husband is being held, and he says no."

Liu vehemently denied any suggestion that her husband was a spy, insisting he was simply a scholar.

Li Shaomin has written six books and several newspaper articles on China and Taiwan. In 1988 he wrote an article for the Asian Wall Street Journal that discussed how China could learn from Taiwan's experience.

The article was recently re-published following Li's detention.

Prominent dissident

Li's father was a prominent dissident who served nearly a year in jail after the 1989 crackdown in Tiananmen Square.

Gao Zhan is another U.S. academic to have been formally charged with spying

Liu said there had been no warning that her husband would be arrested. She also said he had been denied immediate access to a lawyer.

"They said this needs to be approved first, so right now our lawyer is working to see him, but he was told it needs to go through many levels of China's government," she said.

Liu has contacted the U.S. consulate in Hong Kong, where she lives, and also the U.S. Embassy in Beijing.

She sent her husband a box full of personal items, which embassy officials handed over to Chinese officials. In return, she says, the U.S. officials received a formal notice of Li's arrest.

"The U.S. embassy officials have requested to meet my husband, but they are only allowed to see him once a month," she said.

Several academics detained

Li, who holds a PhD. from Princeton University, is one of five Chinese academics with overseas nationality or residence who have been detained in China in recent months.

One of them, U.S Green Card holder Gao Zhan, has been formally charged with spying.

No formal charges have yet been made against Xu Zerong, an associate research professor at the Guangdong Provincial Academy of Sociual Sciences, who holds a PhD. from Oxford University in Britain.