Release U.S. Citizen & Scholar Min Zin

Scholars at Risk sent the below letter to Chinese authorities, urging them to secure the immediate release of Min Zin. Take action by signing a letter here.

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Via email

President Xi Jinping
The State Council General Office
People’s Republic of China

September 9, 2026

RE: Release U.S. Citizen & Scholar Min Zin

Your Excellency: 

I write on behalf of the Scholars at Risk Network to express our concern for Min Zin, a United States citizen and scholar of political science, who has been designated by Secretary of State Marco Rubio as wrongfully detained in China and whose whereabouts are unknown. Scholars at Risk (SAR) respectfully urges you to secure the immediate and unconditional release of Min Zin. 

Scholars at Risk (SAR) is an international network of more than 600 universities and colleges in over 40 countries dedicated to protecting the human rights of scholars around the world, and raising awareness, understanding of, and respect for the principles of academic freedom and its constituent freedoms of expression, opinion, thought, association, and travel.

Min Zin, an American citizen and a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, is the co-founder and executive director of the Institute for Strategy and Policy-Myanmar (ISP-Myanmar), a well-regarded, independent think tank which conducts open-source research on Burma’s socio-economic, political and conflict landscape as well as China’s influence in Burma’s domestic affairs. Min Zin’s writings and commentary on Burma have been featured across international publications and scholarly journals. 

On June 3, 2026, he was detained upon arrival at the Kunming airport in Yunnan Province while traveling on a valid visa to attend an academic workshop at the invitation of a Chinese university. After being held incommunicado for over one week, Chinese authorities publicly accused him of “espionage and endangering national security” but have not disclosed credible evidence to support that charge. Publicly-available reporting indicates that while U.S. diplomatic personnel have had minimal consular access to Min Zin since his detention more than three months ago, his wife and teenage daughter, also U.S. citizens, have not been able to speak with him, and he has been denied access to his lawyer. He has been held in solitary confinement in an undeclared facility, under the system of Residential Surveillance at a Designated Location (RSDL). The United Nations Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearance has concluded RSDL results in the systematic denial of due process, and is likely to result in ill treatment and coerced confessions. He is reportedly subjected to extensive daily interrogation without counsel or other fundamental protections, and held in conditions that do not meet minimum international standards.

We welcome any additional information that may clarify our understanding of these events. Absent this, indications are that Min Zin’s detention has been detained in connection with his peaceful exercise of the rights to academic freedom and freedom of expression—conduct that is expressly protected under international human rights instruments including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which China is a signatory. The nature of his arrest, lack of information about his whereabouts, and ongoing detention raise grave concerns about whether Min Zin has been afforded due process, and about his treatment and well-being going forward. 

We remain not only deeply concerned about Min Zin, but the signal his detention sends to U.S. scholars of China, including many in our network, who view an open exchange of ideas as critical to independent academic inquiry. Furthermore, we firmly believe that all scholars, including Min Zin and his colleagues at the Institute of Strategy & Policy – Myanmar, should be able to conduct their research without fear of intimidation or arbitrary detention. 

We, therefore, respectfully urge Min Zin’s immediate and unconditional release.

We appreciate your attention to this important matter and look forward to your reply.

Sincerely, 

Robert Quinn
Executive Director

CC:

H.E. Mr. Wang Yi
Minister of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China

H.E. Mr. Xie Feng
Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to the United States

The Honorable David Perdue
United States Ambassador to the People’s Republic of China

The Honorable Marco Rubio
Secretary of State
U.S. Department of State

The Honorable António Guterres
Secretary-General of the United Nations

The Honorable Volker Türk
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

The Honorable Andrea Bolaños Vargas
United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders

The Honorable Stephen Jackson
United Nations Resident Coordinator in China