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The State Department has designated Min Zin, an American scholar held in China since June, as wrongfully detained on Thursday.

Some shit you should know before you dig in: Min Zin was a student activist in Myanmar’s 1988 pro-democracy uprising, spent seven years in hiding afterward, and came to the US as an asylum seeker. He wound up at UC Berkeley in a political science PhD program, married there, and then became a naturalized citizen in 2012. He went back to Myanmar in 2016 and founded the Institute for Strategy and Policy, a think tank that relocated after the 2021 coup that removed Aung San Suu Kyi’s government. He and his family have been living in Thailand since. His research is on Myanmar, not China, and his brother says he is not anti-China and has wanted Beijing to help resolve the crisis at home. He was arrested on June 3 inside the Kunming airport terminal, minutes after landing for an academic conference at Kunming University that the Chinese government had invited him to attend.

What’s going on now: Secretary of State Marco Rubio signed off on the designation after what the department called an extensive review of the case. “The safety and security of U.S. citizens is the State Department’s top priority,” said Assistant Secretary Dylan Johnson. “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.” The label puts more of the government’s weight behind getting him out.

A senior State Department official speaking to reuters described what the arrest looked like from the outside. “One minute his colleagues and family were engaging with him on the phone – exchanging updates on his arrival time and plans in China – and the next minute communication was lost,” the official said. Yunnan authorities eventually gave the US embassy a reason: a criminal probe into endangering national security. China’s foreign ministry confirmed the arrest in June and said he is suspected of spying.

He has been in custody nearly 11 weeks, through repeated interrogations and isolation. US diplomats have seen him. His wife, daughter, and brother have not been able to speak with him at all, and his brother says he has been held in solitary.

His brother Aung Maw Zin told CNN he teared up at the news, thanked Trump and Rubio for moving fast.

This all comes as A Chinese Embassy spokesperson said the country is governed by the rule of law, that its judicial authorities handle cases accordingly, and that there is no such thing as wrongful detention. Min Zin is the second American academic to get the designation, joining Boston seismologist Youlin Chen, detained since November 2024.