China detained toddler: U.S. embassy

Vice Premier Qian to be urged to release the boy's mother

In this story: U.S. aware of the case One of many cases RELATED STORIES, SITES

By Rose Tang
CNN.com Writer

HONG KONG, China -- Chinese police detained a five-year-old American boy for 26 days without notifying United States authorities, the U.S. embassy has confirmed.

The New York-based Human Rights in China (HRIC) says the boy, Andrew Xue, and his parents were separated following their arrests at Beijing's international airport on Febuary 11.

Chinese state security agents whisked away Xue and his parents, Gao Zhan and Xue Donghua, both Chinese citizens with permanent American residency as they were about to board a flight to the U.S., HRIC said.

The family was returning to the U.S. after visiting relatives in China.

HRIC quoted the boy's father Xue Donghua as saying police had ignored his numerous requests to send his son, who was kept in a kindergarten, to be with him or his grandparents.

U.S. aware of the case

The Chinese authorities also refused Xue's requests to notify the U.S. embassy or their family about the detention, the rights group said.

A U.S. Embassy spokesman in Beijing told CNN.com: "We are aware of the case. The Human Rights in China's report is consistent with our understanding of the case."

"The bilateral consulate agreement requires China to notify the United States within four days of any arrests," he said.

"We take that requirement seriously. When it is not honored, we are very vocal about it," he added.

But he declined to say whether the embassy had lodged a complaint with Beijing or taken any action to lobby for Gao's release, saying details of the case are protected under a privacy law.

Xue was released in early March to be reunited with his son and they have since returned to the U.S., but he said he had no information about his wife, Gao Zhan who is a fellow with the American University in Washington, D.C.

In a statement released from HRIC, Xue said that during his detention police did not allow him to contact a lawyer and repeatedly questioned him about his wife Gao's publications and two visits she made to Taiwan in 1995 and 1999.

"They (the police) told me, the only way to see my son was to tell them more about my wife. In fact, they were using my son as hostage to force me to say something against my wife," Xue said.

Police forced him to sign a document to pledge not to tell anyone about the detention otherwise his wife could face "severe and negative" consequences, he said.

One of many cases

HRIC on Tuesday sent letters to U.S. president George W. Bush and state secretary Colin Powell urging them to raise the case with Chinese Vice Premier Qian Qichen, who is visiting the United States.

Sophia Woodman, HRIC's Hong Kong research director, told CNN.com that the detention was one of a series of cases involving overseas-based Chinese academics.

In 1999, Song Yongyi, a librarian with Dickinson College in Pennsylvania was detained for five months while he was in China doing research on the Cultural Revolution.

And in two separate cases, a Yale scholar and a Chinese-born American journalist were recently secretly detained.

Woodman said that the detention of Xue's family shows China has completely ignored the U.N. International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights that the National People's Congress passed in late February, just two weeks after the arrests.

The covenant protects an academic's rights to do research.

"This is an indication of a broad effort to intimidate scholars to conform with official viewpoints," Woodman said.

Librarian returns to U.S. after 5 months in Chinese jail
January 29, 2000

Human Rights in China
U.S. Embassy in Beijing

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