Chinese security officers have arrested an American citizen who studies politics in Myanmar, an authoritarian nation on China’s southwest border, and accused him of endangering national security, according to people with knowledge of the arrest.
The U.S. citizen, U Min Zin, was arrested in early June, the people said on the condition of anonymity because of sensitive diplomacy surrounding the previously unreported arrest. He disappeared on June 3 while in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province, which borders Myanmar. American diplomats are aware of the arrest.
It is rare for China to arrest a U.S. citizen on charges of a national security crime, and the action against Mr. Min Zin takes place as President Trump and Xi Jinping, China’s leader, are trying to establish a type of partnership between the two nations.
Mr. Min Zin is a political scientist and executive director of a policy research group originally based in Yangon, the former capital of Myanmar. The group has worked from different locations since a 2021 military coup in Myanmar. Over the years, he has spent time in both the United States and his home country of Myanmar, once known as Burma, and he now lives in Thailand.
He has written essays on Myanmar politics for the opinion section of The New York Times, Foreign Policy and other news organizations.
“We are aware of reports regarding a U.S. citizen detained in China,” the State Department said in a statement Thursday when asked about the arrest. “Whenever a U.S. citizen is detained, we work to provide the appropriate consular assistance.” It declined to give further details, citing federal privacy law.
Mr. Min Zin’s wife did not reply to an emailed request for comment. The Chinese embassy in Washington had no immediate comment, but sent a statement after this story was published on Thursday night, saying it was not familiar with the specific details of the case.
“China is a country under the rule of law,” the embassy said. “All foreigners living and traveling in China must observe Chinese laws, and those who violate the law and commit crimes will be held legally accountable.”
The arrest took place less than three weeks after President Trump attended a summit and state banquet in Beijing hosted by Mr. Xi. Mr. Trump praised Mr. Xi during the meetings and in interviews afterward, and he said he aimed to form a “G2” partnership with China, emphasizing cooperation rather than competition.
Mr. Trump has long admired Mr. Xi, and he moved to accommodate China after its government retaliated against the United States during a trade war that Mr. Trump started last year.
China’s arrest of another U.S. citizen and its use of a national security charge complicates that rapprochement. One American official said that although Chinese officials insist they are serious about trying to establish what the two governments call “constructive strategic stability,” this arrest undermines that effort.
China keeps about 200 American citizens under some form of detention, said John Kamm, the founder of the Dui Hua Foundation, which advocates for prisoner releases in China. Some Americans are imprisoned on drug charges, while others are prevented from leaving the country on “exit bans,” often because of commercial or financial disputes.
Mr. Kamm said he was unaware of any American currently held on a charge of endangering national security. Kai Li, who was convicted in 2016 of espionage, was among three Americans released by China in 2024 as part of a prisoner swap arranged by the Biden administration. Another American convicted of spying, Sandy Phan-Gillis, was expelled from the country in 2017 after having been detained for more than two years.
Mr. Kamm said he had heard of an American citizen detained two months ago on accusations of an economic crime.
It is unclear why Chinese security officers in Yunnan Province arrested Mr. Min Zin. There was once a sizable presence of people from Myanmar in Yunnan, but that has dwindled since the pandemic. China has at times provided aid to some armed groups from Myanmar that operate on both sides of the border. But it is unclear whether Mr. Min Zin was involved in research or activities involving those people.
The Chinese Communist Party and government have a close relationship with the military-linked government that rules Myanmar. Mr. Min Zin wrote extensively on China’s role in Myanmar.
A Nepali research group said in an online post in May that Mr. Min Zin was scheduled to be a speaker at a policy and geopolitics forum in Nepal later this month. The speaker biography says his research group founded in Yangon, the Institute for Strategy and Policy Myanmar, is “dedicated to promoting democratic leadership and strengthening civic participation in Myanmar.”
The biography also says he is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at the University of California at Berkeley, and his research interests include civil-military relations, democratization and ethnic conflicts. His LinkedIn page says he has a master’s degree in political science from Berkeley, which he attended from 2010 to 2016.
The handful of opinion pieces he has written for The New York Times have focused on those topics. Several were published soon after the Tatmadaw, the military of Myanmar, overthrew the elected government in early 2021.
In an essay in June 2021, he said that the military and the opposition appeared to be locked in an “intolerable stalemate,” and that the Tatmadaw “appears to believe it can force its way to and through a next election by way of brutal crackdowns, by dissolving the once-ruling National League for Democracy and by threatening to imprison Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the country’s former de facto leader, for the rest of her life.”
At the same time, he wrote, the anti-coup movement, which included Gen Z protesters and civil servants, “has been shifting tactics away from predominantly peaceful demonstrations to more violent kinds of resistance.”
What Mr. Min Zin observed and predicted then has unfolded with force, and Myanmar is now engulfed in a civil war. The Myanmar military carries out airstrikes on civilian areas using Chinese and Russian-made weapons.
In recent years, U.S. officials have pressed for the release of some American citizens held in China, as well as for the liberation of several prominent non-American prisoners: Jimmy Lai, a British citizen and newspaper founder imprisoned by the Hong Kong authorities; Jin Mingri, a Chinese pastor with the English name of Ezra; and Dong Yuyu, a Chinese journalist and former Harvard fellow convicted on espionage charges widely believed to be false.
Mr. Trump has said he plans to host Mr. Xi in Washington around Sept. 24 for a reciprocal visit.
Mr. Kamm said he was not hopeful that the summits would lead to prisoner releases by China.
“Human rights is not a priority for the U.S. government now in its dealings with China,” he said. “I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t see any evidence to the contrary.”
Hannah Beech contributed reporting from Okinawa, Japan.
