A Texan woman who has been held since last March by the Chinese authorities, is now being charged as an American spy. As she proclaims her innocence, theories are circulating explaining why she has been charged.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry claims that Sandy Pham-Gillis, a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Vietnam, had been “charged according to law by the relevant Chinese department” because of “her suspected crimes of espionage,” Reuters reported on Aug. 30.
Phan-Gillis’s husband, Jeff Gillis, said in a statement that the charges “are absolutely false.” The Chinese asserted his wife was in China on a spy mission in 1996, despite her passport showing no trip to China in that year.
A resident of Houston, Texas, Phan-Gillis was arrested and detained as she crossed from the southern Chinese city of Zhuhai to Macau, a semi-independent Chinese territory. She had been visiting as part of a trade delegation from her city.
