MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
China's detention of a U.S. citizen could be on the agenda when President Trump hosts Chinese President Xi Jinping this week. Min Zin heads the think tank, the Institute for Strategy and Policy, Myanmar. Last month, the State Department declared him, quote, "wrongfully detained." Michael Sullivan reports.
MICHAEL SULLIVAN, BYLINE: Sylvia Zin remembers June 3 as a typical Wednesday morning. She was scrambling to get her daughter off to high school. Her husband, Min, was heading out the door for a quick flight from their home in Chiang Mai, Thailand, to a conference in China's nearby Yunnan province. He even texted her when he landed a few hours later, then silence.
SYLVIA ZIN: I thought he got carried away in the meeting. He just lost track of time. But then, when his office called the hotel to see if he had checked in, and they said no, that's when we started to worry.
SULLIVAN: She called the embassy the next day to report him missing.
ZIN: On June 5, the embassy was able to confirm that he has been detained. So I didn't know what happened to him for two days.
SULLIVAN: China's foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian confirmed his detention in a statement a week later.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
LIN JIAN: (Speaking Mandarin).
SULLIVAN: He said Min Zin was being held on suspicion of engaging in espionage and endangering China's national security, allegations the U.S. and Min Zin's institute emphatically reject. Sylvia says the news hit her teenage daughter hard.
ZIN: She looked up endangering national security on Google, and she came to me crying, and she's like, you know, is Dad going to be OK?
SULLIVAN: She's doing better now. We're a practical family, Sylvia says. The couple met in California when Sylvia was working in the semiconductor industry. She doesn't quite remember the details of their first date. But...
ZIN: I think I must have taken him to a bookstore. It must be one of those used bookstores in Berkeley. You know, every used bookstore in any city that we've been to, we visited.
SULLIVAN: They lived in Fremont while he pursued his Ph.D. at Berkeley and started their family in 2012. Four years later, they moved to Thailand during Myanmar's brief democratic opening. Since their daughter was born, they've made it a point to spend every family birthday together. On his daughter Su's (ph) ninth birthday, though, there was a snag.
ZIN: It was during COVID, and he was on his way back to Chiang Mai, but he was in quarantine hotel.
SULLIVAN: So they found a workaround, and she and Su flew to Bangkok from Chiang Mai to stand outside his hotel, then called him.
ZIN: We asked him, can you open the window and show us the view? And he was really annoyed. He's saying, why? Why do you want to see the view from my window all of a sudden? And he opened the window, and we were across the street. My daughter claimed she saw him cry, but I didn't see it.
SULLIVAN: Earlier this month, their streak was broken, with Min Zin marking his birthday in detention, denied access to his family and kept at an undisclosed location. They can only pass notes through U.S. consular officials who have met with him four times since his detention. They've told Sylvia her husband is staying strong, and she's staying hopeful President Trump can help win his release when he meets with President Xi this week. Until then...
ZIN: I want him to know that our daughter, Su, and I love him, and we are waiting for him to come home. And I have faith that we're going to be together again.
SULLIVAN: For NPR News, I'm Michael Sullivan in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE SEVEN UPS' "DIMMED LIGHTS") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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