This undated photo provided by Jeff Gillis shows his wife, Phan Phan-Gillis
Phan Phan-Gillis was visiting China last spring as part of an American trade delegation that included the Mayor Pro-Tem of Houston and others who were promoting business opportunities in the nation’s fourth-largest city.
However, after passing through security at the Gongbei border checkpoint, the 55-year-old Texas businesswoman mysteriously disappeared from her group. On Tuesday, her husband disclosed that she has been detained by the Chinese government for the last six months on suspicion of spying and stealing state secrets, as the Times reported.
According to the Associated Press, Houston Mayor Pro-Tem Ed Gonzalez said that he and Phan-Gillis were part of a five-member delegation that spent a week in China in March, speaking with Chinese entrepreneurs interested in the Houston area.
Phan-Gillis was a business consultant who traveled regularly to China and who also served as president of the Houston Shenzhen Sister City Organization, according to Gonzalez and Gillis. She often worked as an intermediary in ventures between U.S. and Chinese business interests.
Gonzalez said that members of the delegation were surprised when Phan-Gillis did not meet them after the group had passed through the checkpoint at Macau, across the Pearl River Delta from Hong Kong. She later contacted the delegation to say that she was attending to a “personal matter.”
“It’s just so bizarre,” Gonzalez said. “There was nothing out of the ordinary for a business development trip.”
Mr Gillis said that he has researched cases of more than a dozen foreigners detained in China in recent years for allegedly compromising state secrets. In about half the cases, the suspects were released within six months, he said, but the others were held for years.
“I’m very frightened,” he said, “that if we don’t get her out this week, then her chances are not very good.” MDT/Agencies
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