Source: NYT (10/17/19)
China Detains 2 Americans Amid Growing Scrutiny of Foreigners
Two Americans who ran an English-language teaching company are being held on charges of organizing illegal border crossings, a Chinese government spokesman said.
By Amy Qin
BEIJING — The authorities in southern China have detained two Americans who led an Idaho-based English-language teaching company, the latest sign of the Chinese government’s growing scrutiny of foreigners working and traveling in the country.
The two Americans, Jacob Harlan and Alyssa Petersen, were detained late last month and are being held in Zhenjiang, a town in Jiangsu Province, according to GoFundMe pages set up by friends and relatives.
Mr. Harlan, a father of five, is the owner of China Horizons, a company he founded in 2004 that arranges for Americans to teach English in China, according to the company’s website. Ms. Petersen, who has lived in China periodically for the past eight years, is the director of the company, according to a GoFundMe page set up to raise money for her legal fees.
The detentions are the latest in a series of prosecutions that add to a growing sense of unease among Americans and other Westerners in China. Among the most prominent of such cases is the ongoing detention of two Canadians on charges of espionage — a move that was made apparently in retaliation for Canada’s arrest of a prominent executive of Huawei, a Chinese technology giant.
“China has become a risky place,” Dan Harris, a lawyer at Harris Bricken, a firm that specializes in investment with China, said in an email. “If you are going to do business there you had better know what the laws are and you had better follow them, because China is not going to let anyone slide, especially not an American or a Canadian.”
Mr. Harlan, the founder of the language company, and his 8-year-old daughter were detained at a hotel in the eastern Chinese city of Weifang on Sept. 28, according to his GoFundMe page. The police confiscated Mr. Harlan’s phone and computer and held the pair for about 48 hours before allowing his daughter to make a brief phone call and later to fly back to the United States with a family friend.
Clark Petersen, Ms. Petersen’s father, told the East Idaho News that the family had contacted the State Department after they had not heard from Ms. Petersen for about a week. They were later told that she had been detained by the Chinese authorities.
At a regular news briefing on Thursday, Geng Shuang, a spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry, confirmed that Mr. Harlan and Ms. Petersen had been criminally detained. He said they were being investigated for “illegally moving people across borders,” a crime punishable by at least two years in prison and a fine.
Mr. Petersen said his daughter was allowed a 40-minute visit by American consulate officials last week under close supervision by the Chinese authorities, according to the East Idaho News. The family has not been able to contact Ms. Petersen directly.
“We received information that she is doing O.K.,” according to Ms. Petersen’s GoFundMe page. “She wakes up when told, she goes to sleep when told. She spends her day in a jail cell or walking in a circle counting steps.”
It is unclear when or where trials for Mr. Harlan and Ms. Petersen will be held. A spokesman for the United States Embassy in Beijing said United States officials were aware of the detentions and were “monitoring the situation.”
The police in Zhenjiang did not respond to multiple requests for comment on Thursday.
The detentions come as tensions grow between China and the United States over trade and other issues, but Mr. Geng, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, said on Thursday that he did not see a “specific correlation” between the two.
But recent detentions of Americans have raised concerns. In June, a Koch Industries executive was held in southern China and interrogated for several days before being allowed to leave the country. Last month, a FedEx pilot was detained on charges of weapons smuggling. Though he was quickly released on bail, he remains under investigation and has not been allowed to leave the country.
In January, the State Department issued a travel advisory for China, warning Americans, particularly those with dual Chinese-American citizenship, that they may be prevented from leaving China if they go there.
The large network of English teachers in China, long a mainstay of the expatriate scene, appears to have come under particular scrutiny. For years, many education companies operating in China were known to have dabbled in a legal gray area, as the authorities often looked the other way.
Reports were widespread of foreign teachers working in China without proper visas. According to official estimates, while China had around 400,000 foreign citizens working in its education industry in 2017, only one-third had a valid work permit. Some schools, in turn, exploited that vulnerability, in some instances by withholding wages.
But as the ruling Chinese Communist Party has placed more emphasis on standardized patriotic education, the once unbridled enthusiasm for learning English among Chinese has been overtaken by growing concerns about the presence of so-called foreign influence in China’s schools — a reflection of China’s increasingly complex, sometimes contradictory, love-hate relationship with America.
Some foreign teachers have described a growing paranoia at schools as police inspections of non-Chinese staff members have become more common. Many have been deported. Others are not so lucky. In July, 16 foreign teachers and students were arrested on drug charges in Xuzhou in eastern China. At least four of them were British teachers, according to the British Embassy in Beijing.
“Little things that were virtually ignored for years are leading to foreigners going to jail,” said Mr. Harris, the lawyer.
After the detentions of Mr. Harlan and Ms. Petersen late last month, China Horizons announced on its Facebook page that the company would be shutting down at the end of this month, prompting an outpouring of comments from former teachers who praised the program for giving them an opportunity to learn about Chinese culture.
“Unfortunately, because of increasing political and economic problems between the U.S. and China, we are no longer able to send teachers to China safely,” the company’s post said.
Keith Bradsher contributed reporting from Shanghai. Zoe Mou and Claire Fu contributed research from Beijing.