U.S. woman held in China for 6 months for stealing state secrets

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei confirmed the investigation in a regular briefing on Tuesday.

“She has done so much for U.S. China relations, it astounds me to think that China would act this way to a really good friend”, Gillis said of his wife.

After returning to Houston several days after, Sandy’s husband, Jeff Gillis told them that he had been advised by the US consulate she was detained, accused of stealing state secrets. Gillis said he wants to go public with his wife’s imprisonment to try and get the attention of President Barack Obama, who will be meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping this week. “She is a hardworking businesswoman who spends huge amounts of time on nonprofit activities in Houston and China”.

“I have absolutely no clue whatsoever why she was taken into custody”, he said.

According to the SaveSandy website bio, Phan-Gillis braved an arduous journey as a teenager to emigrate from Vietnam, where she was born to Chinese parents, to Malaysia, and eventually the United States, where she launched a career and sponsored her family’s immigration. Sandy Phan-Gillis was accompanying a business delegation from her hometown of Houston to China when she was detained on March 19.

The woman, Phan Phan-Gillis-who also goes by the name Sandy Phan-Gillis-has been detained in China for about six months. She often worked as an intermediary in ventures between US and Chinese business interests. She has been hospitalized repeatedly while in detention, it said.

The arrest comes less than a week before Chinese President Xi Jinping comes to the United States for his first official visit, and could throw a diplomatic monkey-wrench into the entire affair. In April, a US geologist jailed in China for more than seven years after being convicted of trading in Chinese state secrets was released and deported to the U.S. That case underscored Beijing’s deep sensitivities about information it considers secret, and the limits of foreign diplomacy in influencing such cases.

Phan-Gillis’s husband didn’t instantly reply to messages looking for remark. Her family’s origins are in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, the website said.

Over the weekend, she was officially arrested and moved into a prison.

Digger a little deeper into official records, the Financial Times points out that Phan-Gillis has owned or represented a number of firms ranging from communications and finance to furniture making and other manufacturing businesses.

Gillis said he does not know of anything illegal his wife did while in China. She did not mention her detention and he said that he believes she was coerced.