DATE=1/29/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=CHINA - SCHOLAR (L)
NUMBER=2-258554
BYLINE=ROGER WILKISON
DATELINE=BEIJING
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: A Chinese researcher based in the United
States has been freed by Chinese authorities and sent
back to America after being detained for nearly six
months on charges of smuggling state secrets out of
China. VOA correspondent Roger Wilkison reports U-S
legislators and academics mounted a strong campaign
for the release of Song Yongyi, saying his continued
detention could affect an upcoming vote in the U-S
Congress on Beijing's trade relations with Washington.
TEXT: Western diplomats in Beijing say they have no
doubt that Mr. Song's release Friday was a gesture by
Chinese authorities ahead of the Congressional vote
later this year on whether or not China should enjoy
permanent normal trading status in the United States.
China wants the Congress to stop reviewing its low-
tariff trading privileges on an annual basis and grant
it those rights permanently as part of a deal that
will allow Beijing to join the World Trade
Organization.
A pro-trade congressional delegation that visited
Beijing earlier this month urged Chinese President
Jiang Zemin to release Mr. Song and remove an obstacle
to improving US-China relations. More than 100 China
scholars in the United States and elsewhere also
appealed for Mr. Song's freedom.
Mr. Song was put aboard a Detroit-bound flight
Saturday morning.
The 50-year-old researcher is a librarian at Dickinson
College in the U-S state of Pennsylvania. He is also
an expert on China's chaotic Cultural Revolution in
the 1960's and 1970's, when supreme leader Mao Zedong
unleashed a wave of violence against his enemies in
the Communist Party and sought to stir up
revolutionary zeal. His associates say Mr. Song was
collecting publications from that period for his
research when he was detained by Chinese authorities
last August. In December, Mr. Song was formally
arrested on charges of smuggling state secrets out of
the country.
Earlier this week, a Chinese spokesman said Mr. Song
had sent 320 kilograms of documents containing secrets
out of China. The spokesman said Mr. Song had -in his
words- confessed everything and would face criminal
proceedings. Under China's vaguely worded state
secrets law, anything not published in the official
news media or disclosed by a government or party
officials can be labeled a state secret.
The Cultural Revolution still remains a sensitive
subject for the Chinese government. At a time when it
is seeking to shore up its authority, the Communist
Party has been reluctant to allow any debate on Mao
Zedong's excesses during the final years of his life.
It is even more hesitant to permit any investigation
of the ambiguous role during that period of the late
Premier Zhou Enlai, whom some scholars say did not do
enough to prevent the turmoil unleashed by Mao. Zhou
is still seen in China as the embodiment of Communist
virtues, and his official reputation is spotless.
(signed)
Neb/RW/PLM
29-Jan-2000 01:27 AM EDT (29-Jan-2000 0627 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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