Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, August 25, 1995 TAG: 9508250084
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: SAN FRANCISCO LENGTH: Short
His wife and associates met Wu on the tarmac at San Francisco International Airport about 8 p.m.
``I believe you all know how happy I am now,'' Ching-Lee Wu told reporters shortly before her husband's flight arrived from Shanghai.
Dozens of supporters crowded around her, many carrying signs saying ``Welcome Home, Harry,'' and bouquets of yellow roses.
About 45 minutes after the plane landed, airport spokesman David Wilson told an army of waiting reporters that Wu did not want to be interviewed Thursday night.
``I can say he seemed to be doing OK,'' Wilson said.
Wu's speedy expulsion removes a major obstacle to improving relations with the United States, which have sunk to their lowest level since diplomatic ties were established in 1979.
It also raises Beijing's international profile as it prepares to host a U.N. conference on women expected to draw nearly 40,000 delegates from around the world.
Clinton administration officials said Hillary Rodham Clinton's attendance at the conference still was being weighed. Privately, White House aides say they now expect her to go. She has been invited to address the conference.
Wu spent 19 years in Chinese labor camps before emigrating to the United States in 1985. Beginning in 1991, he made four clandestine trips to China to research, document and film abuses in China's extensive ``reform-through-labor,'' or laogai, system.
by CNB