China charges another U.S. academic

By staff and wire reports

BEIJING, China -- China has formally charged U.S. academic Wu Jianmin with endangering national security, a Hong Kong-based rights group said.

The Information Center for Human Rights & Democracy said on Wednesday that Wu Jianmin, detained in the southern city of Shenzhen on April 8, would probably go on trial before a visit to Beijing by U.S. President George W. Bush.

Bush is scheduled to travel to China in October.

Wu's indictment comes after two other China-born academics -- U.S. citizen Li Shaomin and U.S. permanent resident Gao Zhan -- were convicted of spying for Taiwan in July and expelled from of China.

The center's Frank Lu told CNN the Chinese Foreign Ministry did not say whether Wu's charges is related to Taiwan.

A lawyer in China is handling Wu's case. U.S. consulate staff last visited him on July 25.

The rights group said Wu was suspected of contributing to "The Tiananmen Papers," a book purporting to reveal the internal debates that led to the bloody 1989 massacre of pro-democracy protesters around Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

Former teacher and journalist

Wu, 46, taught at a Communist Party school and was a journalist for a state newspaper in southern China from 1986 to 1988. He worked as an editor for a Hong Kong newspaper from 1996 to 1997.

He later wrote a book about the Tiananmen crackdown, in which hundreds, perhaps thousands, of civilians were killed.

Wu is among a handful of academics and writers with Western links accused by Chinese authorities of conducting espionage in the past several months.

Observers believe China is trying to fast track the cases of foreigners suspected of spying to ensure there is little to distract discussion between Bush and China's President Jiang Zemin.

A Western diplomat in Beijing told Reuters that progress on Wu's case had been expected and China had indicated the charges would be linked to espionage.

But he said diplomats were unaware of any direct relation to the "The Tiananmen Papers."

Another academic waits

Meanwhile, Xu Zerong, a China-born academic resident in Hong Kong, had yet to face formal charges after being held in China for almost a year, the group said.

The rights center told CNN the one-year detention itself has already violated a Chinese criminal law, which stipulates that "home surveillance" shall not exceed 6 months. China should either release him or issue a formal arrest document.

Xu, who holds a PhD from Oxford University, was detained in Guangzhou in mid-August 2000.

Xu moved from mainland China to Hong Kong where he gained permanent residency before becoming a researcher at Zhongshan University in Guangzhou.

Reuters contributed to this report.