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Free
Jianli By Steve Bailey, Globe Columnist,
10/16/2002 China's president, Jiang Zemin, is coming to George Bush's ranch in
Crawford, Texas, next week, highlighting the unexpectedly strong relationship
between the two superpowers. This summit is likely to be heavy on symbolism,
thin on results, but as the two take an hourlong boat cruise on the ranch's
lake, Bush and Jiang are likely to take up the most difficult issues before
them: how China can remain neutral in America's coming conflict with Iraq and
arms control. Christina Fu has one more issue she would like Bush to raise: getting her
husband back home to Brookline. Fu's husband, Yang Jianli, has not been heard from in six months. Yang, a
prominent pro-democracy dissident, was arrested April 26 in Kunming, in
Yunnan province, trying to buy a plane ticket with false papers. He spoke
with his wife by phone twice the next day, but the Chinese government has
barred contact since. ''Is my daddy in jail? It makes me feel bad,'' 7-year-old Aaron Yang asked
his mother one day recently when he came home from school. ''I tell him that
even if he is in jail, he is a good person,'' Fu says. ''China is
different.'' Human rights will be low on the agenda when Bush and Jiang meet, but it
has been at the top of Yang's agenda since the 1989 massacre at Tiananmen Square.
Yang, a former Communist Party member in China, was working on his doctorate
in mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, when the
pro-democracy movement boiled over in China. He rushed home to participate in
the protests, which left 5,000 dead and changed his life. Yang, 39, has become a thorn in Beijing's side. He is a cofounder of the
Boston-based Foundation for China in the 21st Century, which broadcasts ''The
Voice of China'' into China and runs a Web site, www.chinaeweekly.com. His efforts earned him a place among 49 dissidents who have been
blacklisted from returning to China. Yang was foolish trying to get back into China using phony papers. But his
wife says there was no way to dissuade him from returning for what was
supposed to be a 10-day stay. Now Fu has made it her mission to get him out.
Since May, she has abandoned her job as a Harvard Medical School researcher
to work full time on the campaign. She flew to Beijing, but was turned away.
She has won the support of the state's congressional delegation and faculty
members at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, where Yang received a
doctorate in political economy. US Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of
Massachusetts, will hold a news conference on Yang's plight tomorrow. Christina Fu is a US citizen; Yang Jianli is a permanent resident. Their
home on Washington Street in Brookline is as American as any other. They rent
rooms upstairs to help pay the mortgage. The kids, Anita and Aaron, have
their basketballs, baseball caps, and musical instruments everywhere. An
American flag is on the refrigerator door, next to the schedule for
parent-teacher conferences and the ''Free Jianli'' button. Oct. 25 - ''Jiang
visits US'' - is in red on the calendar. ''Every day my son dreams a lot about him coming home,'' Fu says. ''I
dream a lot about him coming home.'' The story of Yang Jianli belongs on the business page because it is
ultimately good business to free him. The Chinese want to do business with
us, the biggest economy in the world, and in Bush they feel they have a man
with whom they can do business. It would not take much for Bush, a father of
two, to return another father of two home to Brookline. Steve Bailey is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at 617-929-2902 or
at bailey@globe.com. This story ran on page C1 of the Boston
Globe on 10/16/2002. -------------------------- |