Freed Activist Foresees Change in China

ANDREW MIGA

Chinese pro-democracy activist Yang Jianli appears in a news conference in Washington Tuesday, Aug. 21,
2007, after serving five years in a Chinese prison. Left to right are Securities and Exchange Commission
Chairman Christopher Cox, Yang's wife, Christine Fu, Yang and their son, Aaron. {AP Photo/Dennis Cook)

WASHINGTON -- A democracy activist who has returned to the United States after serving five years in Chinese prisons said Tuesday that he believes democratic change in China is inevitable.

Yang Jianli said he was forced to sit straight on a bench for four hours every day for a year and a half. He was beaten once. He was handcuffed for two weeks. He was denied the chance to go outside for fresh air during several stretches, including one that lasted eight months.

Still, Yang said he is sure China is on a path to democracy.

"The Chinese government is sitting on a powder keg as frustration with the one-party system mounts," Yang told reporters and supporters at a news conference Tuesday. "The tighter the grip on power, the more difficulty they will have in holding on."

With his family and members of the U.S. Congress at his side, Yang said he was happy to be standing as a "free man, freely expressing my thoughts and ideas before you."

U.S. lawmakers pressed China to improve what they called a dismal human rights policies.

Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., urged China to use next year's Beijing Olympics to "fall in line with the civilized world."

Yang said that although his captors treated him harshly, he remains optimistic about China's future.

"Nobody can stop the process" of democratization in China, he said Monday in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "The problem is how long and how much a price the Chinese people have to pay."

Yang, 44, a scholar at Harvard University, served a five-year prison term on charges of spying for China's rival Taiwan and entering China illegally. He was released from prison in April, but was refused permission to leave until recently.

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., said U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson was instrumental in getting China to allow Yang to return to the U.S. Frank said Paulson personally raised the matter with Vice Premier Wu Yi during a recent trip to China.

China is seeking to show a warmer face to the world as the 2008 Beijing Olympics near, Yang said.

"They don't want to show the true face, the ugly face," he said. "They still have a very bad human rights record."

Rights groups and top U.S. officials, including President Bush, had championed his case.

Yang co-founded the Foundation for China in the 21st Century, a group that advocates political change in China. Communist authorities view such groups as threats to their power monopoly. He was part of the pro-democracy Tiananmen Square student protests in 1989. Two years later he earned a doctorate at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Yang, a Chinese citizen who is a legal permanent resident of the United States, was detained in 2002 while traveling around China meeting with activists and laid-off workers.

The espionage charges appear to stem from four $100 grants given to student researchers by a group that Yang founded in 1992 while he attended the University of California, Berkeley.

Chinese prosecutors alleged the grants were paid for by someone in Taiwan's government. The island split with China in 1949, and the two spy actively on each other. Beijing considers Taiwan a rebellious province.

Yang's family denied the spying accusations but acknowledged he was traveling in China with a friend's identity card, which made his entry into the country illegal.

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Source: "AP".