G ao Zhan is a Chinese political scientist who immigrated to the United States in 1989 and has applied for U.S. citizenship. She earned her doctorate at Syracuse University and wrote her dissertation on "The Sojourning Life as Problematic: Marital Crises of Chinese Students Who are Studying in the United States." In her work, she has compared women's conditions in China and Taiwan. In one recent article she argued that women in Taiwan have more opportunities for political participation than those in China. Currently, she is researching a book on the economic condition of women in China. Gao is a faculty fellow at the School of International Service at American University. With an unpaid faculty appointment at American University, Gao does not teach classes but does have access to university facilities to help her carry out her research interests.

Earlier this year, Gao Zhan, her husband, and her five-year-old son were on vacation in China to celebrate the Chinese New Year with relatives in Nanjing and Xian. On February 11, 2001 they were detained at the Beijing airport while traveling back to Washington, D.C. The Chinese Foreign Ministry has accused Gao of accepting missions from overseas intelligence agencies and for taking funds for spying activities in mainland China.

The U.S. State Department and American University have defended Gao's work as purely academic. Her attorney, Jerome Cohen, dismissed the spying allegations saying Gao has visited China about once a year since 1989 to either visit family or to conduct research. Cohen argues that China's mention of payments could be in conjunction with Gao's role as treasurer of the Association of Chinese Political Studies.

ACPS is a U.S.-based group that receives funding from a variety of sources. It is a 15-year-old organization of professors and students. ACPS president, Chen Weixing, describes the organization as a nonprofit, independent academic organization. Chen states that the group receives no funding from the U.S. government, but has received funds in the past from other governmental sources, including the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C. Furthermore, the group does not sponsor research projects, but uses its funds to organize an annual conference and occasional symposium. It stated in a Washington Post article that "the line between spying and academic research can be blurred. If you get funding to do research on a subject, they can try to say it's espionage."

China's Foreign Ministry claims that Gao has confessed to the allegations of spying, but others argue that if she has done so it is only because she wants to be reunited with her family in the U.S. Interestingly enough, Gao's husband, Xue Donghua, became a U.S. citizen last week.