An Ontario man embroiled in a contract dispute with a Chinese company has been jailed without charges for four months after visiting the country on a business trip.

Jimmy Chen's wife last saw her husband at a border crossing between Hong Kong and China when guards took him aside.

"They asked him to go to a room and they wanted to ask him a few questions and he disappeared," the couple's daughter, Yan Chen, translated for her mother, Yang Jian Ping.

When they next heard about Chen, he had been transferred to a detention centre in Zhang Zhou City, located in the southeastern Fujian province.

Malata Group (Hong Kong) filed a multi-million dollar civil suit in Ontario against Chen's company, complaining it hadn't been paying on time.

Chen's company distributes electronic equipment under the Malata brand name.

Chen's family say Canadian Embassy staff in China have visited Chen, but the family wants the federal government to do more.

"Find out for example why they have held him for four months without charge," his daughter said.

Some legal experts warn that while Chinese-Canadians doing business in China benefit from the advantage of speaking fluent Chinese and understanding the culture, there are pitfalls as well.

For instance, China does not recognize dual citizenship.
 
"They continue to be seen as citizens of China and that makes them subject to the full range of Chinese law," said professor Chi Carmody, who teaches law at the University of Western Ontario.

The Dui Hua Foundation, a U.S. group that works to help wrongfully imprisoned in China, has dealt with a number of cases of business people detained in China.

The foundation's founder, John Kamm, says he's come across cases where jail is used for business reasons — and that most of the cases involve business people of Chinese descent.

A Foreign Affairs spokesperson stated that the government is aware of Chen's case, but refused to comment due to privacy laws.