China Acts to Limit Student Politics in U.S.

In an unprecedented move aimed at heading off political activity by the more than 20,000 Chinese students in the United States, China has informed a Chinese graduate student here that he is being fired from his job in Beijing and that his passport is being revoked because of his work for a dissident political organization.

The disciplinary action was taken against Hu Ping, 40, who came to the United States last year to study government at Harvard University. On Jan. 2, Hu was elected chairman of the Chinese Alliance for Democracy, sometimes called China Spring, a New York-based organization that lobbies for political liberalization and democracy in China.

Hu said that early this month, officials at China’s consulate in New York “asked me to resign as chairman and from the organization.” If he did not, they said, he would be dismissed from the research institute, the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, and his passport would be revoked. Hu refused and was later notified of his expulsion.

Zheng Wanzhen, press counselor at the Chinese Embassy in Washington, confirmed Wednesday that his government has taken action against Hu. The Chinese Alliance for Democracy, he said, “is regarded by the Chinese government as a hostile and reactionary organization which seeks to overthrow the socialist system in China.”

In the 10 years since China began allowing students to go abroad, it has sent more students to the United States than to any other country. The 20,000 Chinese students enrolled at American universities represent the largest single bloc of students ever sent here by any Communist government.

U.S. officials consider these Chinese students to be one of the most important aspects of Sino-American relations, since many of the American-educated students could serve in leadership positions in China for decades to come.

Over the past few years, the Chinese regime has begun to voice increasing concern about its students here--first, because of signs that many seem to be staying on in the United States and, second, because some of the students seem to be embracing Western ideals of democracy and liberty that conflict with the ideology of the Chinese Communist Party.

Last December, a court in Shanghai convicted Yang Wei, a former student at the University of Arizona, of engaging in “counterrevolutionary propaganda and incitement” during the student demonstrations for democracy that erupted throughout China in early 1987.

Yang was the first student to be convicted of counterrevolutionary offenses in China after his return from the United States. The case against him focused on his ties to the Chinese Alliance for Democracy.

Hu, a graduate of Beijing University, said he first became politically active during what was called the “Democracy Wall” campaign of 1978-79. He is also the author of a lengthy essay on freedom of speech in China, published in a Hong Kong magazine.

He went to Harvard last year, intending to study political theory and to write a book about democracy in China. His wife and child came to the United States with him. Hu said Wednesday that he does not know what he will do now. He said he might ask for political asylum in the United States.

Zheng, the Chinese Embassy spokesman, noted that Hu came to the United States with the sponsorship and funding of the Chinese government.

“The education section of the embassy has tried to . . . persuade Hu Ping to resign from this organization,” Zheng said. “ . . . Because of his attitude in refusing to resign from this so-called Chinese Alliance for Democracy, a decision has been taken by the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences to expel him and also to do away with his status as a government-funded student.”