A Chinese-born American seismologist who has published U.S.-funded work on detecting North Korean nuclear tests has been detained in China for nearly two years and faces trial on spying charges, according to his wife, U.S. lawmakers and two hostage advocacy groups.
The case of Youlin Chen, reported here for the first time, adds an irritant to the tense relationship between the nuclear-armed rivals and comes as President Donald Trump seeks to keep the relationship steady following last year’s trade war.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio on March 19 designated Chen, 54, as “wrongfully detained,” making his release a top U.S. priority. The Trump administration has withheld a public announcement to allow space for high-level diplomacy aimed at securing his freedom, according to his wife, Yufang Rong.
A U.S. source familiar with Chen’s case said the administration was “focused on gaining his release from his unjustifiable detention.” The source spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic talks.
Chen, who became a U.S. citizen in 2011 and lives in Boston, Massachusetts, is the only American currently held in China designated as wrongfully detained, according to his wife and hostage advocates.
Rong said she has been told by the White House and the State Department that during a state visit to Beijing in May, Trump raised her husband’s detention with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who promised to look in to it. Xi’s government, however, has taken no action, she said.
The U.S. source did not directly confirm that Trump discussed Chen with Xi. But the source said the pair have a “very good personal relationship. This is one of many facets in the U.S.-China relationship. No one issue is defining.”
In a Reuters interview, Rong expressed concern that Beijing has decided even before putting Chen on trial to find him guilty of espionage, a crime that in China carries a possible sentence of up to life in prison or even the death penalty for cases deemed especially grave.
“I believe they will convict him no matter what and the trial will be behind closed doors,” said Rong, who is also a seismologist but does not collaborate on her husband’s work.
The Foley Foundation, a hostage advocacy organization that has been tracking Chen’s case, believes that Chen is among at least 12 Americans unjustly held in China, including people under exit bans, said Elizabeth Richards, the group’s director of hostage advocacy.
“President Trump has been clear that he wants every American detained abroad to return home, and he has reunited over 100 individuals with their families since taking office this term,” said deputy White House press secretary Anna Kelly.
The Office of the U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs and the Chinese embassy did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
INTERROGATED ABOUT NUCLEAR TEST STUDIES
U.S. embassy officials have visited Chen several times, but Chinese officials are always present, preventing him from speaking freely, said Rong. She retained a Chinese lawyer, but he was allowed to see Chen only after he had been detained for more than 13 months.
Chinese officials have interrogated her husband more than 100 times about his work on the seismographic signatures of North Korean nuclear tests, said Rong.
Eric Lebson, a former U.S. national security official whose hostage advocacy organization, Global Reach, is advising the family, said he believes China wants to use Chen’s expertise to improve its ability to conceal underground nuclear weapons tests through a technique called decoupling.
Lebson said a similar concern was expressed by experts on nuclear testing consulted by his group.
The Trump administration in February accused China of trying to mask a low-yield underground nuclear test blast on June 22, 2020, using the technique in which a device is detonated inside a large underground chamber to reduce the magnitude of the shock waves it produces.
China, which like the U.S. has signed but not ratified the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, denies conducting the test.
Lebson said that Chen is employed by a U.S. government contractor, and has never had a U.S. security clearance or performed classified work.
His research on North Korean test blast seismic waves has been funded by the State Department and the Air Force Research Laboratory, said Lebson. He added that it was done in collaboration with Chinese academics, it used publicly available Chinese data and is viewable on the internet.
A December 2020 paper by Chen reviewed by Reuters examined the magnitude of North Korea’s six known nuclear test blasts and ways to differentiate their seismic signatures from those of earthquakes.
The cover page states that the paper was written for the State Department’s arms control bureau and “approved for public release.”
Human-rights groups have argued that under China’s state-secrets law, Chinese authorities retain broad powers to retroactively classify public data, such as official statistics, as national security secrets, potentially implicating anyone who possessed or shared previously open-source information.
