U.S. geologist held secretly in China

BEIJING

Sometime into his long detention by China’s feared state security agents, American geologist Xue Feng had something to show U.S. consular officials on their monthly visit. He rolled up his sleeve, revealing the burns where his interrogators pressed lit cigarettes into his arm.

Mr. Xue also had something to say: He wanted his previously unpublicized detention made public in hopes that the outcry would win his release.

But Mr. Xue did not get his wish. His wife balked, as did the U.S.-based consultancy that employed him until months before he was detained, both saying that going public might hurt rather than help his case. The U.S. Embassy, caught between his desire to go public and his wife’s wish for privacy, worked behind-the-scenes for his release.

So two years after disappearing into custody, the University of Chicago-trained Mr. Xue remains held at an unknown location in Beijing, charged with stealing state secrets over the purchase of a commercial database on the oil industry. His case has been batted inconclusively between prosecutors and the courts, which twice asked for more evidence, according to a summary of the case prepared by Mr. Xue’s wife and seen by the Associated Press.

On Tuesday, President Obama raised Mr. Xue’s case at his Beijing summit with Chinese President Hu Jintao, said a White House official on the trip, in the latest and highest-level intervention.

More than an instance of abusive, intransigent Chinese justice, Mr. Xue’s case raises disturbing questions about the quiet lobbying foreign governments, companies and the families of detainees often use, thinking it more effective with an authoritarian Chinese leadership.

“Under difficult and dangerous circumstances, Dr. Xue made it clear that he wanted the American people to learn of his ordeal. I have little doubt that had his wishes been respected, his case would have already been resolved,” said John Kamm, a human rights campaigner with a two-decade track record of getting prisoners released and whom the State Department turned to this month for help.

Beijing’s State Security Bureau and the Procuratorate, or prosecutor’s office, declined to comment. A spokesman for the city’s No. 1 Intermediate Court, a Mr. Niu, said Mr. Xue’s trial “is still in mid-process,” where, according to the case summary, it has been since July.

Mr. Xue’s wife, Nan Kang, who was born in China like her husband and who lives with their children outside Houston, Texas, has hired a lawyer. She said she wanted to keep her husband’s detention quiet for fear that going public would have repercussions for their parents in China and disturb their two children, especially their young son.

Mrs. Kang declined to comment further publicly. In the case summary she wrote: “My husband denies the charge against him, and he believes that he was helping China attract inward investment and to improve the Chinese economy.”

The U.S. Embassy in Beijing said that it has monitored Mr. Xue’s case since soon after his arrest, visiting him over 20 times, delivering messages from his family and pressing for his release. It declined to release further details and would only say that Mr. Xue asked for his detention to be made public “some time ago.”

U.S. governments have for years weighed whether jailed dissidents and American prisoners are better served by public pressure, closed-door diplomacy or a combination of the two. The Obama administration has tried to keep any likely disputes over human rights, a perennial irritant in relations, from damaging a broader agenda crowded with the economic crisis, climate change, nuclear proliferation and other global issues.

The AP learned of Mr. Xue’s case last week. The U.S. Embassy initially requested that publication be withheld, saying it may harm attempts under way to gain his release. But in recent days, the embassy has said it detects no progress on the case. Mr. Xue’s wife has asked the case not be made public out of concern for her family. Given Mr. Xue’s wishes to go public and the lack of progress, the AP decided to publish.

“I have been writing letters to members of Congress, the Senate, the Bush administration, the Obama administration, at least two ambassadors in Beijing - Huntsman and Randt - trying hard over time to raise his case and make sure everyone was aware of it,” said David Rowley, a geosciences professor at the University of Chicago who was Mr. Xue’s doctorate thesis adviser. “I have tried to be an advocate, but in the wishes of Dr. Xue’s wife, I have tried to keep this out of the public eye and tried to deal with this privately.”

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