(CNN) — The brother of an American scholar detained in China welcomed the news Thursday that he was declared wrongfully detained, saying he hopes that it will help lead to his release.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio made the wrongful detention determination after an “extensive review of the circumstances” around Min Zin’s detention, Assistant Secretary of State Dylan Johnson announced Thursday. Min Zin has been jailed since early June.
The designation comes ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s expected meeting with President Donald Trump in the United States next month.
“When I heard the news, I teared up a little bit,” Aung Maw Zin told CNN Thursday, saying it gives the message to Beijing that his older brother’s case is a priority.
Min Zin went to Yunnan earlier this summer, at the invitation of a professor he has known since 2018, to attend a conference at Kunming University, his brother said. He had traveled to China in the past without incident, including for a conference in 2025.
However, this time, Min Zin was detained immediately upon arrival in the country. The Chinese government said he is “suspected of spying and endangering Chinese national security.”
Min Zin is an expert on his native Myanmar, where he had been a student activist in the pro-democracy movement in his youth. He was forced into hiding for seven years there before eventually immigrating to the US. He enrolled in a PhD program at UC Berkeley, met his wife, and became a US citizen. The two have a teenage daughter.
“2012 was an incredibly important year in Min Zin’s life. He became both a naturalized US citizen and a father. That moment carried deep meaning for him. America had given him asylum when there was no safe space for him in his home country, Burma,” Aung Maw told CNN, using another name for Myanmar.
Min Zin returned to Myanmar in 2016 and set up a think tank – the Institute for Strategy and Policy-Myanmar. Following the coup in 2021, he and his family moved to Thailand, where they have been living since.
Aung Maw Zin said his brother’s research has been “solely” on Myanmar, not China.
“He’s not anti-China. He wants China to help resolve the crisis in Burma,” he told CNN.
US diplomatic personnel have been able to see Min Zin since his detention more than two months ago, but his brother, wife and daughter have not been able to speak with him. He has been held in solitary confinement, Aung Maw Zin said.
Min Zin is now one of two Americans designated as wrongfully detained in China, along with Youlin Chen, a seismologist who has been detained since early November 2024.
“The safety and security of U.S. citizens is the State Department’s top priority,” Johnson said in a statement. “We will continue to advocate for Mr. Zin and call for the release of all US citizens who are arbitrarily detained or exit banned in China.”
CNN has reached out to the Chinese Embassy in Washington, DC, for comment on Min Zin’s designation.
Aung Maw Zin said the family is “deeply grateful to President Trump and Secretary Rubio for moving swiftly to designate Min Zin as wrongfully detained.”
“We know how seriously the President takes bringing Americans home, and I am confident in his ability to help secure my brother’s release,” he said.
He also said the designation helps Min Zin’s daughter know that her father is not a criminal.
Asked what he would tell his brother, Aung Maw Zin said he would urge Min Zin to lean into his meditation, a lifelong practice.
“Please stay strong,” he added. “We are doing everything we can to bring you back home with the family.”
The-CNN-Wire
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