It’s been a little over a month since The Fountain Hills Times reported that Sue Jiang, Fountain Hills resident and business owner, was “detained” after landing in Shanghai, China, to attend the funeral of her father. She reportedly is being held in a Shanghai prison for a “crime of provocation.”

I wondered over the Christmas and New Year’s Holiday’s just how she is doing. China reportedly has “detained” dozens of US citizens in prisons over the past two years. It’s difficult to know exactly how many they are imprisoning as the State Department declines to confirm the number, citing privacy concerns. We know for sure that one of our Fountain Hills residents, Sue Jiang, is being held in a Chinese prison.

This type of behavior by China has been going on for quite some time. Decades of administrations have done nothing to curb their behavior. We finally have a president with the audacity and will to stand up to China.

We, collectively, as American citizens, continue to buy their goods, corporations continue to leverage cheap Chinese labor to create huge profits, NBA superstars bow to the almighty dollar and refuse to address the bloody, barbaric atrocities perpetrated by the totalitarian Chinese regime. China is betting that cheap goods and huge corporate profits will blind us to their real long-term goal of world domination; they may be right.

In my opinion, this was the biggest story of the year in Fountain Hills. Sue Jiang did not get to spend the holidays with her family and friends in our town. My hope is that we keep this story alive and do all we can to put pressure on those who hold Sue’s fate in their hands. I pray for her safe return.