Jailed Chinese Dissident Sees Lawyer for First Time

After being detained in China for more than 14 months, pro-democracy activist and Kennedy School of Government graduate Yang Jianli was allowed Tuesday for the first time to meet with his lawyer, Mo Shaoping, his wife said.

Yang, who is president of the Foundation for China in the 21st Century, was visiting China with another person’s passport in April 2002 when he was seized by the authorities while trying to board a plane. Until Tuesday’s meeting, no reliable proof of Yang’s safety had emerged.

“This is really the first confirmation, so we’re really happy to find out where he is and that he’s well,” said his wife, Christina X. Fu. Fu is a researcher at Harvard Medical School.

The meeting came after renewed pressure on China from the international community. In early June, a United Nations committee declared Yang’s detention in violation of international law. And later that month, the House of Representatives passed a resolution condemning China for continuing to hold Yang.

Jared Genser, Fu’s lawyer, said he was going on to push for “a parallel resolution in the Senate” in addition to “pursuing other ways to put multilateral pressure on the Chinese government...so that China will hear the message not just from the U.S. and the U.N.”

Genser said he thought the decision by the Chinese government to allow Yang access to his lawyer was a product of such efforts.

“The pressure is serving the purpose that we hoped it would,” Genser said.

And Fu said that with the doors of communication to Yang thrown open, it did not appear they would close soon.

“We have access now,” she said. “Basically any time [the lawyer] wants to meet my husband again, all he has to do is submit an application.”

Still, Genser said, the good news would not make him or Fu complacent in their struggle to free Yang.

“It reaffirms for me the urgency of the Chinese government releasing him unconditionally as early as may be possible,” he said. “The reality is that while the Chinese government may think that allowing his lawyer access to him may lessen the pressure on this case, the fundamental realities of the case have not changed.”

Those realities include the ban on any direct contact between Yang and his family, which still stands.

But Fu said she thought the end was in sight.

Yang’s case will transfer to a court in six weeks, she said, and he will be sentenced another six weeks after that.

As early as August, Fu said, the public would know what charges Yang was facing.

“If it’s not something serious then he should be able to come home,” she said.

And soon after that, Fu said she looks forward to meeting her husband again in person.

“We’re looking at October I will probably be able to see him,” she said.

In the meantime, she will rely on the indirect communication she can now have with the husband she has not seen for more than a year.

In the meeting, which Gu Wenyang, Mo’s assistant, said took place between 2:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m., Yang relayed his hope that Fu would not worry for him.

He also spoke of his two children, said Gu, expressing a hope that they might be able to attend the Olympic Games in Athens next year.

Gu said the meeting between the two men—at which they were introduced for the first time—took place in a clean, bright attorney interview chamber at a Beijing detention center. Separated by a glass partition, Mo and Yang spoke by microphone as a jailor observed and took notes, Gu said.

In addition to talking of his family, Yang agreed to be represented by Mo and wrote his will, said Gu.

Fu said she was thrilled by the new contact, as indirect as it was.

“It’s really amazing, because in similar cases from the past this has never happened,” she said.

Fu was especially excited to hear that Yang had been reading and writing poetry during his imprisonment.

“He has written some poems which I can’t wait to read, because I know he used to write poems about our family, our children, China, his childhood,” she said.

And though she said the family is unable to send Yang letters, photographs or books, she took solace in the fact that they had been allowed to send him clothes.

Fu said she was unsure what she would say to Yang if she could speak to him either directly or through Mo.

“I wanted to tell him that we’re all fine, we miss him a lot,” she said. “But I also want to tell him that if he can cooperate with the Chinese government he should do just anything....I just don’t want him to be too stubborn.”

But Fu said she was unsure if Yang would heed such words of advice should they reach his ears.

“He did go to China without my approval,” she said.

—Staff writer Simon W. Vozick-Levinson can be reached at vozick@fas.harvard.edu.