A US geologist was sentenced to eight years in jail in China yesterday on state secrets charges related to the sale of a database about China's oil industry, a US official and a rights group said.
US Ambassador Jon Huntsman, who attended yesterday's sentencing in Beijing, expressed dismay over the punishment for Xue Feng and will continue to discuss the case with Chinese officials, US embassy spokesman Susan Stevenson said.
"The US government has concerns over Dr Xue's well-being. We remain concerned with his rights to due process under Chinese law," Ms Stevenson said.
"The protection of US citizens overseas is our highest priority... We will continue to visit him and discuss his case with the Chinese government."
US President Barack Obama discussed Dr Xue's case with Chinese President Hu Jintao during a visit to China in November, US diplomats said previously.
Dr Xue, a naturalised US citizen, was detained in November 2007 on charges of attempting to acquire and sell state secrets - a database related to China's oil industry, according to the Dui Hua Foundation, a rights group.
Dui Hua's Joshua Rosenzweig said that one of the group's many concerns was its suspicion that "some of Xue Feng's statements to the police might have been obtained under coercion including torture".
During meetings with US consular officials, Dr Xue showed them scars on his arms which he said were from cigarette burns inflicted by his interrogators during his initial period of detention, Mr Rosenzweig said.
At the time of his arrest, the 44-year-old Dr Xue was working for the US energy and engineering consulting firm IHS, Dui Hua said in a statement.
Both Dr Xue and IHS have stated that they believed that the database was a commercially available product. After Dr Xue purchased the database, it was subsequently classified as a state secret, the statement said.
Dr Xue's arrest and drawn-out trial has cast a spotlight on the pitfalls of doing business in China, especially for those born in China who have been educated abroad and taken on a foreign nationality.