China detains Myanmar policy expert on espionage allegations

Min Zin, the executive director of the Institute for Strategy and Policy-Myanmar, was taken into custody in Kunming on June 3. While Beijing claims the scholar is being held for suspected espionage, his organization maintains he was simply traveling to attend an academic workshop and demands his immediate release.

Editorial·June 17, 2026·reads: 3,574

China detains Myanmar policy expert on espionage allegations

The detention of the prominent academic occurred just weeks before a high-level state visit to China by Myanmar’s junta leader, Min Aung Hlaing. China’s foreign ministry has signaled it will proceed with the case under domestic law, rejecting claims that the arrest was politically motivated. The U.S. State Department confirmed that consular officers have visited the scholar and are actively engaged with Chinese officials regarding the situation.

Min Zin, a former student activist in the 1988 democracy movement and a University of California, Berkeley alumnus, founded the ISP-Myanmar to analyze the political and economic fallout of the 2021 coup. Since the military takeover, the organization has operated from abroad, producing research on the country's armed uprising and evolving bilateral ties with Beijing. His colleagues emphasize that his work is strictly academic and have condemned the national security allegations as groundless.