Jiang Visit Rallies Dissident’s Supporters

Three members of Congress called on President Bush yesterday to press for the release of Yang Jianli—a Harvard graduate who has been detained in China for almost six months—when Bush meets with Chinese President Jiang Zemin next week.

“I ask President Bush to do everything in his power to help my husband,” Christin X. Fu, Yang’s wife and a researcher at Harvard Medical School (HMS), said at the one hour press conference in Washington. “Please do not forget terrorism is bred where there is no respect for human rights, no democracy, freedom and rule of law.”

Yang, a U.S. permanent resident who earned a doctorate from the Kennedy School of Government, was detained in the Chinese city of Kunming on April 26. He had been banned from China following his involvement in the 1989 pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square.

Fu said she hoped the event—at which Rep. Barney Frank ’61 (D-Mass.), Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Calif.) and Rep. Michael A. Capuano (D-Mass.) spoke—would raise awareness of Yang’s case and put pressure on the administration to push the Chinese on the issue.

“We hope that President Bush will raise Dr. Yang’s case directly with President Jiang,” Cox said at the press conference.

Jiang will arrive in the United States next week and is scheduled to meet with Bush at his ranch in Crawford, Texas on Thursday.

Yang’s supporters see Jiang’s visit as their best—and perhaps only—chance at winning Yang’s release.

“It is understood that as part of the run-up to the meeting and in the aftermath, political prisoners will be released,” James V. Feinerman, a professor of Asian legal studies at Georgetown and speaker at the press conference, said in a phone interview from his office.

Yesterday, China released Ngawang Sangdrol, a Tibetan nun who had been imprisoned by Chinese authorities since 1992 for political activities.

The speakers at yesterday’s press conference said they hope Yang’s release will be next.

“The Chinese need to let this man go home,” Frank told The Crimson. “He wasn’t trying to do anything bad. He wasn’t doing anything that wouldn’t be perfectly fine in a well-run country.”

A number of high-ranking officials have already been pressing Yang’s case.

Both U.S. Ambassador to China Clark T. Randt and Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Lorne W. Craner have discussed Yang’s status with senior Chinese officials.

“We have raised this case almost weekly since his detention,” said Jeffrey Jamison, a spokesperson for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor.

The U.S. government is pressing harder on Yang’s case than for the case of a number of other political prisoners, according to a State Department official who asked not to be named.

“There are many, many people that we have an interest in and there are many names that we raised, but this particularcase is one that we have repeatedly raised at a number of senior levels,” he said. “So I think we’ve made clear to the Chinese our strong interest in this case.”

But administration officials will not comment on whether Yang’s case will be mentioned by name at the Bush-Jiang summit.

Even aside from international concerns, Feinerman said China’s treatment of Yang also runs counter to its domestic legal system.

“China is violating provisions of its own criminal law and a number of international treaties in the way that it is treating this case,” said Feinerman.

According to Chinese criminal law, suspects can only be detained for a limited period without being charged, the family must be informed of the detention and written notice must be given so that a lawyer can be retained.

“All of those things have been violated in this case,” he said.

Fu, a U.S. citizen, spoke at the press conference about her personal relationship with Yang.

“When I think of my husband, I have in my mind a little boy in a rural country of China,” she said. “It was during the Cultural Revolution, when he was about nine-years-old. As a little Red Guard, he was sent by his teacher to the street to capture farmers who were selling their produce, which was prohibited that time.

“When Jianli saw those vendors, he would quietly tell them to quickly run away before others catch them and beat them. From that young age, he could feel the pain and hardship people lived. I was very touched by his kind heart.”

She described how Yang, head of the Boston-based think tank Foundation for China in the 21st Century, travelled to 30 states and more than a dozen countries around the world to advocate for democracy in China.

“I’m very proud that my husband is such a peace-seeker,” she said.

But Yang’s detention has come at a bitter cost to his family.

After her husband was detained, Fu had difficulty working at HMS.

“I was so worried that I cried a lot and couldn’t sleep,” she said. “I basically couldn’t function at my job.”

Fu was given a two month disability leave for her depression.

Since then, she has made advocating for her husband her full-time job by using the vacation time she has accumulated over the past 10 years at Harvard.

Fu said if she used all her vacation time, she wouldn’t have to return to work until early December.

But Fu said she plans to return to HMS shortly after Jiang’s visit.

“I don’t think there is much more for me to do after the end of October,” said Fu, who is “not optimistic” that Yang will be released.

“I was told that if it would happen, it would have already happened,” she said.

But for now, Fu is making every effort to win her husband’s release.

Fu is spending the week with her sister-in-law in Washington and plans to meet with officials at the National Security Council and staff in the office of Sen. Edward M. “Ted” Kennedy ’54-’56 (D-Mass.) and John Kerry (D-Mass.).

She plans to fly to Houston on Tuesday, where Jiang will be staying for two days before travelling to Crawford, to protest with Amnesty International against Jiang’s visit and pressure Bush to ask for her husband’s release.

Her seven-year-old son, Aaron, who travelled with her to Washington, will also accompany her to Houston. But Fu said she won’t let geopolitics interfere with the life of a 10-year-old.

“I let my daughter Anita stay home,” Fu said. “She is in the fifth grade and cannot miss school.”

—Staff writer Amit R. Paley can be reached at paley@fas.harvard.edu.