China Dissident Urges Political Amnesty

Fang Lizhi, China’s most prominent dissident, said Thursday that a worldwide trend toward greater freedom gives him hope that China may soon release many of its political prisoners.

In a bold challenge to the Chinese leadership, Fang has written to paramount leader Deng Xiao-ping with an appeal that he announce a general amnesty. In the letter, made available to reporters this week, Fang placed particular emphasis on the release of Wei Jingsheng, the country’s most famous political prisoner, who has spent nearly 10 years in confinement and is reputed to be in poor health.

“The authorities, especially Deng Xiaoping, should be able to see how far Chinese society has progressed over the past two years,” Fang said Thursday in an interview with The Times. “He must be aware of progress made in the whole world, especially improvements in the Soviet Union last year--the release of political prisoners, political reforms, glasnost and so forth. This sort of thing is a rising tide throughout the world. So I think there is a possibility that he can accept this proposal.”

In his letter, Fang notes that 1989 is the 40th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China and the 70th anniversary of the May 4th Movement, a student-led struggle to bring greater democracy to China.

“I would like to propose to you . . . that you use the occasion of the approach of these two anniversaries to announce a general amnesty within China, and in particular to release Wei Jingsheng and all other political prisoners,” Fang wrote. “Regardless of how one might evaluate Wei Jingsheng as a person, to release someone like him, who has already served nearly a decade in prison, in my view would be a humanitarian gesture and would have a beneficial effect on our social morale . . . . I entreat you . . . to consider my proposal and to give a new emphasis to the dawning of our future.”

In Thursday’s interview, Fang said his suggestion is practical because “an amnesty is just a very small step--it’s not like allowing freedom of speech, or ending restrictions on political parties.”

Fang is a respected astrophysicist who was expelled from the Communist Party in early 1987 for allegedly instigating pro-democracy student demonstrations. The fame engendered by his loss of party membership has contributed to his emergence as China’s most visible advocate of democracy.

Fang thus is a successor to Wei, who won fame with a December, 1978, wallposter entitled “Democracy: The Fifth Modernization,” playing off the slogan of a government campaign of that period to modernize four aspects of society: industry, agriculture, science and and technology and the military.

Wei, an electrician who edited a dissident journal, was arrested the following March. Later that year, he was convicted of writing “counterrevolutionary and reactionary” wallposters and sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment.

Much of what Wei said in 1978 finds considerable support among Chinese intellectuals today, and some of the boldest, such as Fang, now get away with saying it publicly.

“Maybe I’m going past what they were saying then,” Fang acknowledged Thursday.

Fang said that some intellectuals feel that Wei did make punishable mistakes, while others think he did nothing wrong. But there is widespread agreement that he has been imprisoned too long and should be released, Fang said.

Wei’s release thus would serve to ease some of the tension between the government and intellectuals that has existed since the “anti-bourgeois liberalization” campaign of early 1987, Fang said. That campaign came after pro-democracy student demonstrations in late 1986 provoked a backlash by orthodox hard-liners.

Fang himself, after being allowed to travel to Hong Kong and Australia last fall, was denied permission to make a scheduled trip to the United States late last year. This was widely viewed as punishment for outspoken comments he made in Hong Kong and Australia. Fang said he has reapplied to visit the United States, and also has sought permission to accept invitations to visit Taiwan.

Fang said Thursday that although he faces punitive restrictions on travel and lecturing, which interfere with his life as a scientist, he is in a far safer situation than Wei was a decade ago.

“I think one cannot say that I face no danger,” Fang said, “but the danger is much less than in the past. This is the result of what intellectuals have won . . . in the past 10 years, and the result of developments in China and the whole world.”

Fang also acknowledged that his visibility helps to protect him.

“I urge students not to say too much, because it’s too dangerous,” he said. “I say, ‘Don’t be like me.’ But I feel that I can speak out. I should try to make use of the conditions that allow me to speak. I must speak my mind and try to accomplish whatever I can.”