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 Peter Hahn, 74, is being charged with embezzlement and
counterfeiting receipts, his lawyer, Zhang Peihong, told Reuters.
Zhang said he believed authorities were targeting Hahn because of
his Christian faith and because he ran a non-governmental
organization.
"The charges leveled against him are just excuses," Zhang said.
Hahn, who ran a vocational school in the border town of Tumen, had
been under investigation for months, along with several colleagues.
In an interview last month, Hahn's wife, Eunice Hahn, said the
building that houses the school was a "mission base camp for our
missionaries".
Eunice Hahn said those under investigation among Hahn's staff
included two U.S. nationals and three South Koreans. Both Zhang and
Eunice Hahn said Hahn had aided North Korean defectors more than a
decade ago, but he was no longer doing so.
China has long worked to curb the flow of North Koreans who flee
persecution and poverty in their homeland and illegally enter China
before going on to other nations, usually ending up in South Korea.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. State Department said a U.S. consular
official had visited Hahn in jail on Friday.
"We take our obligation to assist U.S. citizens seriously and we
stand ready to provide consular services," Jen Psaki told a regular
news briefing in Washington.
In August, sources told Reuters hundreds of Christian missionaries
had been forced out of China, most by having their visas refused, in
a far-reaching crackdown.
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China said it was investigating a Canadian Christian couple who ran
a coffee shop in Dandong, further south near the North Korean
border, on suspicion of stealing state secrets.
China's Foreign Ministry confirmed the charges against Hahn, but
said he was criminally detained. Zhang said law enforcement
authorities in Yanbian prefecture, where Hahn is being held, told
him on Friday that Hahn had been formally arrested - a more serious
status than criminal detention.
Zhang said police had been allowing Hahn to see a doctor regularly.
Eunice Hahn said her husband had diabetes and had two strokes this
year.
"I just want to bring this to some sort of conclusion," she said.
(Reporting by Megha Rajagopalan, additional reporting by Ben
Blanchard in Bejing, James Pearson in Seoul and David Brunnstrom in
Washington; Editing by Dan Grebler)
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