China frees scholar 'spies'

Gao Zhan has been released on medical grounds

China says it has released two US-based scholars, Gao Zhan and Qin Guangguang, on medical parole just 36 hours after they had been convicted of spying for Taiwan and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

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On Wednesday, a third US based academic convicted of spying, Li Shaomin was expelled by Beijing.

The arrests had caused an uproar in the US.

The BBC's Beijing correspondent, Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, says that it is not a coincidence that these releases come two days before the visit of US Secretary of State Colin Powell to China.

Mr Powell's trip is intended to repair relations between the two countries, which have been strained in recent months.

Our correspondent says China clearly did not want their cases to jeopardise the goal of putting relations back on track.

Colin Powell: Going to China to mend fences

US officials say Gao has already left China but there is no word yet on when Qin may leave.

"I'm very pleased about it," Mr Powell told journalists duringt his visit to Vietnam.

But he warned that it was, "not the individual cases that should be our greatest concern, but the whole process by which these people are detained and put on trial".

There are three more high profile cases of people with US links currently detained in China:

• US citizen Wu Jianming, held for spying for Taiwan
• Permanent US resident Liu Yaping is being detained over a business dispute
• Permanent US resident Teng Chunyan is in a labour camp for her participation in the outlawed Falun Gong spiritual movement.

The US Secretary of State is preparing for the October visit of President George W Bush to Beijing.

Gao's lawyer, Jerome A Cohen told the BBC's World Today programme that the harsh sentence followed by the release was a compromise intended to appease the different arms of China's Government.

He said the security services wanted to intimidate other scholars, while the foreign ministry realised that the detention of the three academics was "hurting China bad".

Gao was arrested in February on a family visit to China.

In April, the US Government warned Chinese-born Americans that they risked being arrested if they had been involved in activities or published writings critical of Beijing.