US seismologist who studied North Korean nukes detained in China, wife fights unjust charges

An American seismologist who spent his career studying North Korean nuclear tests has been locked up in China for years and is expected to be hauled in front of a court over spying charges, his wife and advocates said. Youlin Chen, 54, was cuffed by Chinese authorities on Nov.5, 2024 at Beijing International Airport while attempting to fly home to Boston after visiting his family and lecturing on seismology. He was then hit with espionage charges on Mar.

1, 2025. While Chen was born in China, he became a US citizen in 2011.He’s being held unjustly in a country that’s not his own – with trial for espionage looming over his head, his wife Yufang Rong and a team of advocates told Reuters. “I believe they will convict him no matter what and the trial will be behind closed doors,” Rong told the outlet. US embassy officials have visited Chen, but his wife said that Chinese officials are always present when they do, preventing her husband from speaking freely. Rong and advocates say Chen’s wrongful detention is based around his scientific work as a seismologist, studying earthquakes and other seismic waves in the Earth’s ground. Family and advocates said Chen’s scientific research into secret North Korean nuclear tests is what ended up drawing the ire of Chinese authorities. They cite a December 2020 paper Chen published – written while he was a US government contractor for the State Department – using open source data available in China to examine the earth-shaking differences between earthquakes and secret underground nuclear weapons being tested by China’s ally North Korea. Human rights orgs said that they’re worried that part of China’s prosecution of Chen may involve the use of a law that retroactively criminalizes the use of what was once publicly available data.  Chen has been interrogated nearly one hundred times for his seismological research, his wife said. Eric Lebson, who leads the hostage advocacy organization Global Rea...