China says treated detained U.S. professor fairly
2004-08-14

Category China Diplomacy U.S. Diplomacy Event China-U.S. Profession Scholars

BEIJING - China handled the case of a Chinese-American academic, accused of illegally obtaining state secrets, according to bilateral agreements, the official Xinhua news agency said quoting the Foreign Ministry.

Washington protested over the mistreatment of Fei-ling Wang, an associate professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, who was detained on July 25 in the eastern city of Shanghai.

The case comes at a time of tension in Sino-U.S. relations, largely over close U.S. ties with Taiwan, which Beijing considers part of China's sovereign territory and hopes will eventually be returned to the mainland.

"The action was in complete accordance with bilateral consulate agreement," Xinhua quoted ministry spokesman Kong Quan as saying late on Friday.

"Chinese security authorities interrogated Wang according to law on July 25, and reported to the US consulate in Shanghai twice afterwards," it said.

The U.S. Consulate in Shanghai had protested, saying it had taken China 10 days to notify the United States of Wang's detention, violating a 1980 agreement to give notice of such arrests within four days.

Wang, a naturalised U.S. citizen who was born in China, was released on August 8 and deported to the United States. He has been barred from returning to China for five years.

He had told diplomats who had visited him during his detention that he had been held in solitary confinement for four days and deprived of sleep and water.

Xinhua quoted Kong as saying Wang confessed to stealing state secrets, but did not specify what he had admitted to taking. Beijing regularly accuses foreigners of stealing state secrets.

China's definition of "state secrets" is wider than most countries. They can include economic figures such as gross domestic product (GDP), inflation and interest rate rises, before such figures are released to state media.

Wang's university said he was in Shanghai to visit family and conduct research into China's labour management and household registration system.

His arrest is the latest in a string of detentions in China of U.S. citizens and U.S. permanent residents on charges of stealing state secrets, many accused of spying for Taiwan. Reuters