Harvard Graduate Detained In China

A Harvard Medical School (HMS) researcher searching for answers about her husband’s detention by Chinese authorities was herself held and then sent back to the U.S, as she tried to enter China Wednesday.

Christina X. Fu had hoped to see her husband Yang Jianli, a recent Harvard doctoral graduate and Chinese dissident, who has been held by the Chinese government since April 26.

Yang was detained 10 days after entering China on a borrowed passport—a charge which usually carries a sentence of five days’ detention and a $12 fine according to the Associated Press.

Yang is president of the Boston-based Foundation for China in the 21st Century, and according to his wife, is on a Chinese government blacklist of 49 dissidents Chinese citizens who cannot return to their homeland.

Fu said she had not heard from Yang since the day after his arrest.

A State Department official said the Chinese government has not responded to a request for information on the charges facing Yang.

Fu, a statistician in the health care policy department at HMS, said she has also enlisted Harvard’s help in lobbying for her husband’s release.

During a visit to China last week, University President Lawrence H. Summers met with top Chinese officials, including President Jiang Zemin.

Prior to Summers’ visit, Fu met with Harvard’s Senior Director of Federal and State Relations Kevin Casey and asked that Summers intervene on her husband’s behalf.

An administration official confirmed that Summers was aware and concerned about Yang’s detention.

And another source familiar with details of the trip said that Summers raised the issue with both Chinese and American officials while in China.

A University spokesperson declined to comment.

Fu said that State Department officials have told her that the outlook for her husband’s case would improve if Harvard and former Treasury Secretary Summers intervened.

Yang, 38, was visiting China for the first time since the pro-democracy protests of 1989, Fu said. In 1989, Yang, a Chinese citizen, had brought money to protesters and witnessed the Tiananmen Square crackdown, Fu said. She added that Yang has since been banned from China.

After being forced out of China, Yang became very active in pro-democracy dissident organizations in the United States, chairing the U.S. branch of the Federation for Pro-Democracy in China, Fu said.

But several years ago, Yang quit many of these organizations to focus his attention on his newly established Foundation for China, which his wife described as more research-based than political.

“China sees this organization as radically anti-government, but it’s not,” Fu said.

Chinese authorities questioned Yang’s friends and co-workers about his activities when these acquaintances visited China, she said.

At the same time that he ran the Foundation, Yang was also working towards a doctorate, studying mathematical approaches to politics with Ramsey Professor of Political Economy Richard J. Zeckhauser ’62.

Zeckhauser called Yang an outstanding student with a “sparkling” personality.

“He was doing so much [with the Foundation] at the same time as he was doing this interesting research,” Zeckhauser said. “It was amazing.”

Fu said she tried to convince her husband not to return to China, arguing that it was too dangerous.

“He said that he would be quiet, and that no one would know who he was,” Fu said. Through the Foundation, Yang was studying changes in China’s political climate, Fu said, and just wanted to see these changes “on the ground.”

For over a week, Yang toured cities in northeast China and called Fu daily to check-in.

“He told me that if he didn’t call for 48 hours, it meant he was in trouble,” Fu said.

On April 26, Fu received an anonymous call saying that her husband he been detained.

For her part, when Fu tried to enter the country on Wednesday, she was stopped by Chinese immigration officials who said she posed a threat to the country. She was sent back to the U.S. via Vancouver and arrived in Boston late Wednesday.

—Staff writer David H. Gellis can be reached at gellis@fas.harvard.edu.