U.S. Concerned Over China Student Case

In a case that has attracted high-level interest in the Reagan Administration and Congress, China is preparing to put on trial soon a Chinese student from the University of Arizona who is accused of undermining China’s Communist Party through his work with a U.S.-based group working for democracy in China.

According to informed sources, Chinese Ambassador to the United States Han Xu told Secretary of State George P. Shultz early this month about the planned trial in Shanghai. The defendant, Yang Wei, was arrested in Shanghai last January after a series of student demonstrations there and has been imprisoned ever since.

The demonstrations spread to Beijing and other Chinese cities and led to the resignation of former Communist Party General Secretary Hu Yaobang.

For months, Chinese officials would not respond to queries about why Yang was being held.

Now, a copy of the indictment against Yang--obtained by his family--indicates that Chinese prosecutors will charge him with counterrevolutionary activity, focusing on his connections to the Chinese Alliance for Democracy and its magazine, China Spring.

The alliance and China Spring, which have their headquarters in New York City, have become the leading vehicles for expressions of dissent by Chinese scholars and students living overseas.

A Chinese Embassy spokesman this week declined to comment on Yang’s trial or the charges.

“Any information regarding Yang’s case will be made public in the future,” press attache Zhang Chiwei said. “For the moment, we do not have anything on it.”

Yang’s trial could lead to renewed friction between China and the United States over China’s human rights policies.

Shultz raised the issue of Yang’s detention in meetings last March with Chinese leaders in Beijing, and since then U.S. officials in Shanghai have tried to get information about the charges, signaling U.S. concern about the case.

Resolution Approved

Congress recently approved a resolution sponsored by Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) calling for Yang’s release. But the official New China News Agency branded the congressional action “undisguised interference in China’s internal affairs,” and a leading Chinese official, Huan Xiang, recently complained that Congress has been acting like an emperor.

Ambassador Han reportedly notified Shultz of the upcoming trial in the course of a meeting at the State Department on Dec. 4. Department officials would not say what was discussed at the meeting, but one high-ranking official told The Times, “We have heard informally and unofficially that this trial is supposed to start soon.”

Yang, 32, a Chinese citizen, is the son of two Communist Party officials in Shanghai. He studied at the University of Arizona in Tucson from 1983 to 1986 and received a master’s degree in molecular biology.

Last year he returned to China to get married. His wife, Che Shaoli, said he was making arrangements to return to the United States for his doctoral work. But last December, he took part in a demonstration for democracy along with tens of thousands of students in Shanghai. He was arrested Jan. 19.

In the indictment obtained by Yang’s family, Chinese authorities say he wrote articles for China Spring challenging “the absolute authority of the Chinese Communist Party.” The authorities also say that during the Chinese student demonstrations a year ago, Yang visited several universities in Shanghai and at one point posted “reactionary posters” for the Chinese Alliance for Democracy.

The Chinese constitution contains written guarantees of freedom of speech and assembly. But it also contains a provision requiring adherence to the “four cardinal principles”--socialism, Marxism-Leninism, the rule of the Communist Party and the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Yang is reportedly being held in Shanghai Detention Center No. 1. Che, Yang’s wife, says that his family and friends have not been able to visit him since his arrest.

According to Che, a graduate student at Baylor’s college of medicine, Yang seems to be under pressure to sign a confession disavowing the Chinese Alliance for Democracy and China Spring.