Scholar Held by Beijing Is in Limbo

HONG KONG — Liu Yingli struggles for composure as she admits that she's mystified by her husband's fate.

But then, so is everyone else.

Liu's husband, Li Shaomin, 44, is a respected Chinese American scholar with a resume that includes six books, a doctorate from Princeton, a teaching post at City University of Hong Kong and groundbreaking research on mainland China's reform process.

But on the night of Feb. 25, during what his wife called a routine trip to mainland China, the associate professor known for his sharp mind and quick wit was detained by Chinese authorities. Nearly three months later, Li, a U.S. citizen, was charged with espionage.

Today he reportedly sits in the State Security Detention Center in Beijing, held without access either to family or to legal representation, his fate in apparent limbo, linked in part to the sudden downward spiral of U.S.-China relations. On Wednesday, Liu reported that Beijing authorities had formally rejected a request to grant Li legal help on grounds that the affair was a state secret.

Li is the latest in a string of academics of Chinese origins with links to the West who have been detained in China amid vague, unsubstantiated accusations. The crackdown by Communist authorities has baffled China watchers, but its effect on fellow academics has already been chilling.

In a small seventh-floor office in the business department where she and her husband teach, Liu looks up at drawings on the wall from her 9-year-old daughter, Diana, and talks quietly of pain that has dominated her life during the last three months.

"I can only pray to God at this moment," she said. "The [U.S.] government says it is going to press for due process, but how can this happen if my husband is denied legal representation?"

Some observers see the crackdown as a simple campaign of intimidation against China scholars. If so, it has been effective.

Liu said one City University professor just this month canceled a research project in Taiwan out of fear of being branded a spy. And she said she had heard indirectly of a U.S.-based Chinese scholar who canceled a planned summer visit to China because he feared possible arrest. Few of Li's faculty colleagues wanted to talk with a visiting reporter, and when one did, he requested anonymity.

"You can see the impact, the damage being done," Liu said. "People come to me and say they support me, but they are too afraid to sign a petition. I say I understand. I don't blame them."