Xiyue Wang (; born December 31, 1980) is a

Chinese-American Chinese Americans are Americans of Chinese ancestry. Chinese Americans constitute a subgroup of East Asian Americans which also constitute a subgroup of Asian Americans. Many Chinese Americans have ancestors from mainland China, Hong Kong ...

academic who was imprisoned in

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

from 2016 to 2019 after being accused of

espionage Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering, as a subfield of the intelligence field, is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information ( intelligence). A person who commits espionage on a mission-specific contract is called an ...

. Iran released Wang in a prisoner swap between the two countries, with the U.S. freeing Iranian scientist Massoud Soleimani. U.S. law enforcement arrested the Iranian stem cell scientist in Fall 2018 upon his landing in Chicago for violating the sanctions against Iran. A

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

candidate in the Department of

History History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

, Wang was arrested in Iran on 8 August 2016 on charges of espionage while he was conducting research on the

Qajar dynasty The Qajar family (; 1789–1925) was an Iranian royal family founded by Mohammad Khan (), a member of the Qoyunlu clan of the Turkoman-descended Qajar tribe. The dynasty's effective rule in Iran ended in 1925 when Iran's '' Majlis'', conven ...

. It was alleged that he had sought access to confidential areas of

Tehran Tehran (; , ''Tehrân'') is the capital and largest city of Iran. It is the capital of Tehran province, and the administrative center for Tehran County and its Central District (Tehran County), Central District. With a population of around 9. ...

libraries, paid thousands of dollars for access, and recorded 4,500 pages of digital documents. In July 2017, he was sentenced to ten years in prison by

. In response to the sentencing, the

United States Department of State The United States Department of State (DOS), or simply the State Department, is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy of the United State ...

released a press statement saying "The Iranian regime continues to detain US citizens and other foreigners on fabricated national-security related charges." In January 2021, Wang joined the

American Enterprise Institute The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, known simply as the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), is a center-right think tank based in Washington, D.C., that researches government, politics, economics, and social welfare ...

as a

Jeane Kirkpatrick Jeane Duane Kirkpatrick (née Jordan; November 19, 1926December 7, 2006) was an American diplomat and political scientist who played a major role in the foreign policy of the Ronald Reagan administration. An ardent anticommunist, she was a lon ...

Fellow.

Early life

Wang was born on December 31, 1980, in

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

, China. He earned a BA in

South Asia South Asia is the southern Subregion#Asia, subregion of Asia that is defined in both geographical and Ethnicity, ethnic-Culture, cultural terms. South Asia, with a population of 2.04 billion, contains a quarter (25%) of the world's populatio ...

n studies from the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...

, attended

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

from 2006 to 2008, then later worked for the

International Committee of the Red Cross The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is a humanitarian organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, and is a three-time Nobel Prize laureate. The organization has played an instrumental role in the development of rules of war and ...

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...

. At Princeton, his thesis adviser was historian

Stephen Kotkin Stephen Mark Kotkin (born February 17, 1959) is an American historian, academic, and author. He is the Kleinheinz Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford Un ...

Detention in Iran

In 2015, Iran gave Wang a visa to study Persian at an institute in northern Tehran. His goal was to do archival research during the trip, for a possible dissertation on nomads on Iran's

Turkmen Turkmen, Türkmen, Turkoman, or Turkman may refer to: Peoples Historical ethnonym * Turkoman (ethnonym), ethnonym used for the Oghuz Turks during the Middle Ages Ethnic groups * Turkmen in Anatolia and the Levant (Seljuk and Ottoman-Turkish desc ...

frontier more than 100 years ago. Wang received $8,500 from Princeton's history department to go to Iran, as well as no more than $8,800 from the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies. Wang disappeared in August 2016. His wife Hua Qu was notified of his detainment by a local Iranian lawyer. He was held in

Evin Prison Evin Prison () is a prison located in the Evin neighborhood of Tehran, Iran. The prison has been the primary site for detaining Iran's political prisoners since 1972, before and after the Iranian Revolution, in a purpose-built wing nicknamed "E ...

. While in prison, Wang faced harsh conditions and did not even have room to straighten his back. According to Wang's wife, he was not warned that American citizens should not travel to Iran. In an interview with

BBC Persian BBC Persian () is the Persian language broadcast station and subsidiary of BBC World Service which conveys the latest political, social, economical and sport news relevant to Iran and the world. Its headquarters are in London, United Kingdom. Pe ...

after he was released, Wang described his captors as having been explicit about their intent, frankly telling him that he is taken "hostage" to be used for a prisoner swap and to force the US government to release seized Iranian assets. In an article published in ''

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher based in Washington, D.C. It features articles on politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 185 ...

'', Wang considers his forty months of prison in Iran as a time to revise his opinion of the Iranian government; he came to believe that Iran's current situation is not “all because of something we did wrong to them”.

“I slowly saw: They don’t ''want'' to be our friends. They don’t ''want'' to reconcile. They say it clearly n state propaganda They want us as an enemy, because that is the reason for their existence.”

In December 2019, it was announced that Wang would be released in a prisoner swap after three years in prison.

Free Xiyue Wang movement

In July 2017, the

American Council on Education The American Council on Education (ACE) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) U.S. higher education association established in 1918. ACE's members are the leaders of approximately 1,600 accredited, degree-granting colleges and universities and higher educati ...

and 31 other higher education and research associations issued a statement calling for Wang's release. More than 1,000 researchers from 25 countries signed a petition also calling for his safe return. On September 21, 2018, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found that "there was no legal basis for the arrest and detention of Mr. Wang. His deprivation of liberty is arbitrary." On February 15, 2019, Princeton students held a Free Xiyue Wang Day event. On December 7, 2019, Iran announced the release of Wang in exchange for an Iranian scientist, Masoud Soleimani, held by the United States.

Post-prison Activities

Since his return to the United States, Wang has been vocal in his criticism of the Iranian regime and regime's appeasement by Biden's administration and progressive academics. After his return to Princeton, Wang has described Iran-friendly academics, including those who encouraged him to go to Iran, unsympathetic with some of them blaming the ordeal on Trump's administration despite the fact that Wang was arrested three months before Trump was elected. Xiyue Wang supports the investigation of Mohammad Jafar Mahallati, a professor at Oberlin College in OH, who has been recently accused of allegedly hiding information about th
1988 massacre
of political prisoners in Iran. Regarding the January 2021 appointment of

Robert Malley Robert Malley (born 1963) is an American lawyer, political scientist and specialist in conflict resolution, who was the lead negotiator on the 2015 Iran nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Malley was Director fo ...

as special Iran envoy, Wang believes releasing American prisoners in Iran will not be a priority of Malley. In a

Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...

piece, Wang rejected the view that attributes Iran's hostility towards the U.S. to the

1953 Iranian coup d'état The 1953 Iranian coup d'état, known in Iran as the 28 Mordad coup d'état (), was the overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh on 19 August 1953. Led by the Iranian army and supported by the United States and the United Kingdom, the co ...

, arguing that the Iranian regime's hostility is "self-perpetuated", "proactive", "integral to the regime’s identity" and "rooted in a fierce anti-Americanism enmeshed in its anti-imperialist ideology", as he witnessed firsthand during his time in Iran. Wang has advocated the maximum pressure policy and show of strength as leverages without which diplomacy with Iran and trying to re-enter

JCPOA The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA; (, BARJAM)), also known as the Iran nuclear deal or Iran deal, is an agreement to limit the Iranian nuclear program in return for sanctions relief and other provisions. The agreement was finalize ...

would fail.

Personal life

Wang is married to Hua Qu (), and they have a son born in 2013. His wife and son are Chinese citizens, but a spokesperson of the

Chinese Foreign Ministry The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China is the first-ranked executive department of the State Council of China, responsible for the country's foreign relations. It is led by the minister of foreign affairs, currently ...

has stated that Wang himself does not hold Chinese citizenship. Wang's mother has American citizenship. In 2001 he moved to the US with her. He became a naturalized citizen in 2009.

References

External links

Website about Xiyue Wang's case organized by his friends and colleagues

Free Xiyue Wang

Free Xiyue Wang (@FreeXiyueWang) , Twitter

Frequently asked questions about Xiyue Wang
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wang, Xiyue 1980 births Living people People from Beijing Harvard University alumni Princeton University alumni University of Washington alumni People convicted of espionage in Iran Chinese emigrants to the United States American people convicted of spying for the United States by the Islamic Republic of Iran Naturalized citizens of the United States American Iranologists