Preparing for the Day When the Winds Return : China: An army of exiles is waging a battle of information to make sure the pro-democracy movement, brutally crushed last spring, will rise again.

A way of looking is also a way of not looking, according to one Chinese proverb, and a way of saying is also a way of not saying.

In his State of the Union message, President Bush neither saw nor spoke about the brave struggles of our compatriots in China. With the evident enthusiasm of a grandfather, the President talked about the great hope that America and the world places in its children. But for one fifth of the world’s children--those trapped in China today--he had neither expressions nor visions of hope.

Nevertheless, the winds that swept through Eastern Europe last year will reach our homeland. We will be prepared.

This week, leaders of the major Chinese dissident groups from the United States, Canada and France gathered in Washington to join forces worldwide to ensure the inevitable downfall of the Chinese Communist government.

The world must never be allowed to forget what happened in Tian An Men Square. According to internal documents leaked to the underground information network from sympathizers in the Communist Party, more than 6,000 persons died the night of June 4, and at least 21,000 were wounded. The massacre in the square took place after the killing of demonstrators in other parts of Beijing. Bodies were removed and cremated quickly. The Chinese government has never published names of those killed or arrested and continues to deny the numbers. It remains for those of us privileged to be in free lands to preserve the sacred memory of those murdered by the totalitarian regime.

These last few months have been most trying ones for all those who care about democratic values in our great country. Despite our appreciation of the societies that are protecting and supporting us, we are Chinese patriots first and foremost. We long to return to our country, not as counterrevolutionaries destined for prisons, torture and death but as leaders of a new day in China.

The pro-democracy movement is not just a small group of students. It is a broad cross section of leaders and thinkers from major institutions in our great country. Thousands of us are now in exile, using fax machines and computer exchanges to relay information about events in China.

From this network we have been able to learn that Fang Lizhi, the astrophysicist who inspired thousands of pro-democracy advocates, was exiled to Australia on Jan. 26. Fang and his wife, Li Shuxian, had been sheltered in the U.S. Embassy since the Tian An Men Square crackdown.

Do not confuse the rhetorical easing of repression in China with any real progress. Secret trials are continuing of dissident intellectuals, writers and students whose human rights are being violated, according to Amnesty International. Those who are now judged to have not been tough enough on the demonstrators, such as Jiang Ping, the president of Beijing Law School, are being removed from their posts.

To bring the day of freedom closer for China, we are waging a battle--not with tanks but with information. From a mobile station, we are sending daily radio broadcasts into China. We are printing Chinese newspapers and sending these into the country, denouncing the current regime and advocating democratic principles and values. We are establishing a June 4th Foundation to support a global protest and memorial on Sunday, June 3, and to establish a research center to prepare for the social transformation of China. The Pope and other religious leaders are expected to assist our cause, as they have so nobly aided the Poles, Romanians and Russians in their search for religious freedom.

What can the American people do to help our cause? The lesson of the radical change in Eastern Europe is clear: Economic sanctions do work. The nations that have so quickly rejected communist rule are those that had restricted trade relations with the United States and desperately need new capital. The Poles advise us that communism is the longest and most painful of the roads to capitalism. The American government can shorten that road by reducing direct financial support to the Chinese government, which is now rebuilding its army and weapons systems while millions more Chinese are now unemployed. We urge this great country to confront the corrupt, unseeing Chinese government with the only message that Beijing may heed--denial of major trading benefit to state industries. This message also may be the only thing that the regime cannot afford. Centralized state industries are those most vulnerable to corruption. Targeted regional assistance and private-sector help are less corruptible.

The global village works on images, although these are no longer visible from China. Do not forget that tanks did run over people in Beijing--only seven months ago--and that the army killed doctors who were treating the injured. The Chinese government may punish the demonstrators, may even kill them, but it will never kill their ideas. Our time will come, and we will be ready to assist our country as it sheds its millenia of oppression.