ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, October 29, 1996 TAG: 9610290058
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
ECONOMICALLY, China is growing, and increased trade with the West - not least with the United States - is helping to fuel its growth.
Politically, however, China remains a repressive state whose rulers do not countenance the kind of independent thinking that in democracies is considered a right of citizenship.
Harry Wu, a hero of conscience who spoke Monday night at Virginia Western Community College, now lives in America. But in 1960, he was arrested as a "counterrevolutionary" Chinese citizen, and spent the next 19 years as a political prisoner.
A relic of the bad old days? Not quite. The abuses continue.
A U.S. resident since 1985, initially on a temporary visa as a geology professor until winning political asylum, Wu has spent his recent years writing and speaking out about continuing human-rights abuses and the estimated 6 million to 8 million political prisoners in the land of his birth.
Just last year, on a visit to China, he was arrested for "espionage" and sentenced to 15 years imprisonment. His plight captured international attention; after 66 days of house arrest in a hotel, Wu was expelled from the country.
Just this month, literary critic Liu Xiabo was sentenced without trial to three years in a labor camp after asking party leaders to honor their promises of free speech and assembly. Other prominent Chinese prisoners of conscience include Wei Jingsheng, last year sentenced to another 14 years after finishing a 16-year sentence for peaceful political advocacy; and Bao Tong, a former government official who remains in a restricted government compound even after completing the seven-year term he was dealt after the Tiananmen Square crackdown.
Wu argues that the United States should revoke China's current trading status. About that, we're not sure; trying to isolate China economically could prove counterproductive. But, clearly, the international community has been too silent in the face of China's human-rights transgressions.
Americans should remember China's political prisoners and keep a public spotlight on them. America's duly elected leaders should use their diplomatic channels to make known this nation's displeasure with the anti-democratic policies of China's unelected dictators.
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