Chinese Government Frees KSG Grad

The Chinese government released Kennedy School of Government alum Yang Jianli, a democracy advocate, after holding him for five years on charges of espionage and illegally entering the country.

Yang, 43, was first arrested in April 2002 after entering China with a friend’s passport. The government had revoked Yang’s own passport for his involvement in the 1989 pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square.

Since Yang’s release, he has spoken with his wife, Christina X. Fu, who said that he sounded well and that his “voice sounded strong,” according to Yang’s former dissertation adviser, Richard J. Zeckhauser ’62.

Zeckhauser, who is the Ramsey professor of political economy, said that he expects Yang to return to the Boston area, where his wife, a Harvard Medical School researcher, and two young children await his return.

Yang, co-founder of the pro-democracy group Foundation for China in the 21st Century, was arrested when he entered China to investigate labor conditions.

“He just wanted to find out what was going on there. And there’s really no way to find out what’s going on in China, particularly things they don’t want to have known, without being on the ground,” said Zeckhauser, who expressed serious doubts about the legitimacy of the espionage charge.

Zeckhauser led 34 Kennedy School faculty members, including then-dean Joseph S. Nye, in a 2002 letter-writing campaign to persuade the Chinese government to release Yang. Similar efforts were undertaken by both the U.S. Congress and the State Department, but Zeckhauser said “the Chinese government was basically very unresponsive.”

In August 2003, 15 months after his initial detainment, Yang was put on trial on charges of espionage and visa violations, and eventually sentenced to five years in prison. Yang’s trial was closed to public observers on the grounds that it concerned state secrets.

Yang’s lawyer, Mo Shaoping, alleged in 2003 that Yang had been kept in solitary confinement, barred from exercise, denied access to reading materials, and kept handcuffed until his hands were “bloody and infected.”

In December 2004, Yang asked the Chinese government for medical parole, saying he had suffered a stroke that July.

Zeckhauser, who has not been able to communicate with his former student in the past five years, said that it was unlikely that Yang would relent in his fight for a democratic China.

“I would be very surprised if he didn’t continue doing what he’s done all along,” he said. “He’s a Chinese patriot. What is his career? I think his career is to be a Chinese patriot.”

Yang’s Washington-based lawyer Jared Genser declined to comment, and Yang’s wife could not be reached.