Chinese Dissident Fang and Wife Fly to Britain : Diplomacy: Beijing lets couple leave yearlong asylum in the U.S. Embassy. White House hails the decision.

In an apparent effort to regain international financial support, the Chinese government Monday permitted Fang Lizhi, the country’s leading dissident, and his wife to leave their yearlong confinement inside the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and fly to freedom and a new academic job in Britain.

A U.S. Air Force C-135, specially dispatched from Japan, picked up Fang and his wife, Li Shuxian, in Beijing and took them to London. The British government announced that it has given the couple six-month visas, which can be extended. Fang, an astrophysicist, will do research at Cambridge University at the invitation of the prestigious Royal Society.

China released Fang and his wife two weeks before an economic summit meeting in Houston at which the world’s leading industrial democracies are expected to consider whether to continue a freeze on loans to China.

Those blocked loans--including a $5.6-billion package from Japan and approximately $2 billion more from the World Bank and Asian Development Bank--are considered crucial for the revival of China’s slumping economy.

White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater said that the Bush Administration has made “no commitments, no promises, no quid pro quo of any kind” in exchange for Fang’s release. Other U.S. officials insisted that the United States will continue to oppose a full-scale resumption of international lending to China.

However, Fitzwater hailed the Chinese regime’s decision to let Fang leave the country. “This humanitarian action is a far-sighted, significant step that will improve the atmosphere for progress in our bilateral relations,” he said.

Fang and Li took refuge in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing in June, 1989, three days after Chinese troops ended the pro-democracy demonstrations at Tian An Men Square. Accusing the couple of “counterrevolutionary” crimes, the Chinese regime sought to block their departure from China until after Fang signed some sort of confession and agreed to refrain from political activity while in exile.

On Monday, the State Department released a carefully worded statement signed by Fang before he left China. In it, Fang did not retract or express any remorse for his efforts to bring democracy to his country. He acknowledged only that his political views violate the preamble to the Chinese constitution, which requires Chinese citizens to adhere to Marxism, socialism, the leadership of the Communist Party and the “dictatorship of the proletariat.”

The statement Fang signed also did not promise to avoid criticizing the Chinese government or leadership while he is in Britain.

“We will appreciate and welcome all activities which accord with the progressive interests of Chinese society, and moreover refuse to participate in all contrary activities whose motive lies in opposing China,” Fang’s statement said.

That wording seemed to leave Fang free to argue that his opposition to the Chinese regime is patriotic in nature and is in the long-term interests of China itself.

“It (Fang’s statement) is pretty vague,” one senior Bush Administration official said. “It’s really up to him how he wants to interpret it.”

This U.S. official said he understood that Fang would like “a period of a few months” to focus on scientific work and to get some medical treatment for a heart condition before he speaks out on political subjects. But the official also indicated that there is nothing to stop Fang from doing so now, if he chooses.

State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler announced that China also has agreed to permit Fang and Li’s son, Fang Zhe, to leave China, thus removing another potential obstacle that might have inhibited Fang from criticizing the regime.

Earlier this year, Chinese authorities reportedly had been seeking an arrangement under which Fang’s son would stay behind in Beijing while his parents went abroad. But one U.S. source said he expects that the son will also leave China within “a matter of days.” Fang Zhe has applied to come to the United States for university study.

The New China News Agency, China’s government news service, said that “in view of the signs of repentance by Fang Lizhi and Li Shuxian, and their illness and out of humanitarian considerations, the Beijing Public Security Bureau has decided to allow them to go abroad for medical treatment in line with China’s policy of leniency towards those who participated in the disturbances.”

The references to medical treatment and illness apparently refer to a previously undisclosed incident that raised concerns about Fang’s health.

U.S. sources say that about a month ago, while inside the embassy, Fang suffered what appeared to be a possible heart attack. However, a doctor from a Western European country was brought in to examine Fang and concluded there had been no heart attack.

According to State Department officials, talks between Chinese officials and the Bush Administration over Fang’s possible release date back to last September.

Last January, Bush Administration officials mistakenly believed that the Chinese leadership was ready to let the dissident leave the country. When China failed to do so, President Bush and other Administration officials criticized China’s unwillingness to respond to U.S. initiatives aimed at improving Sino-American relations.

According to Administration officials, the final successful negotiations were conducted over the last week in Beijing by U.S. Ambassador James Lilley and officials in the American division of the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

U.S. officials emphasized that Fang was consulted repeatedly and helped to draft the statement he signed. In fact, one Administration source said that “Jim (Lilley) was the mailman” carrying messages back and forth between the Chinese Foreign Ministry and Fang.

One senior Administration official said the talks were so sensitive and uncertain that “it was very dicey all day yesterday (Sunday).”

Britain’s Royal Society expressed delight that Fang chose to come to London. “I’ll say it took us by surprise. Flabbergasted is the word that comes to mind,” said Stephen Cox, head of the society’s international affairs department.

Six months ago, the society offered him a fully funded research appointment at Cambridge University, where Fang spent a year of study in 1979, but Fang had received a number of similar invitations from universities in other countries, such as Australia.

A spokesman for British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said that Britain welcomes the “positive solution” that led to Fang’s release. “We are glad that we have been able to contribute to this outcome,” the British spokesman said.

The Japanese government not only praised the Chinese government for letting Fang go, but also suggested that China’s action could help bring about a lifting of Western economic sanctions at the economic summit in Houston next month.

Two years ago, the Japanese government agreed to extend a package of loans to China worth $5.6 billion over five years. At the last economic summit in Paris a year ago, the world’s leading industrial nations agreed to suspend international loans to China. These international sanctions have also held up about $1.6 billion in World Bank loans and approximately $500 million from the Asian Development Bank.

Several U.S. officials said Monday they do not believe China’s action toward Fang will be sufficient, by itself, to clear the way for a resumption of all the blocked loans to Beijing.

“That’s not something we would advocate,” said one U.S. official. “That’s not something we will be going into the meeting (the economic summit in Houston) with.”

Another U.S. official said that the United States is still looking for several other changes from the Chinese regime, such as an end to China’s jamming of the Voice of America and a broader improvement in China’s conduct toward intellectuals and dissidents.

On Capitol Hill on Monday, Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.), a strong critic of the Bush Administration’s policy toward China, said: “While I am pleased by Prof. Fang’s release, I continue to be concerned about the lack of freedom available to millions of his fellow citizens.” Mitchell said that he will continue efforts to deny most-favored-nation trading status to the Chinese regime.

“Fang’s release is a good start but it’s certainly not enough,” said California Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), another critic of the Bush Administration.

Times staff writers David Holley in Beijing, Mark Fineman in London and Michael Ross in Washington contributed to this story.

CHINA’S LEADING DISSIDENT

Fang Lizhi is the son of a Hangzhou postal clerk. He entered Beijing University in 1952 at age 16 to study theoretical and nuclear physics, becoming one of China’s pioneer researchers in laser theory. His research in cosmology and black hole physics won international attention. Fang burst into political prominence during pro-democracy student demonstrations of 1986-87, and authorities charged that his speeches to students at the University of Science and Technology in Hefei, where he was vice president, helped incite the protests. He was kicked out of the Communist Party and fired from his university post, but he remained one of only a few Chinese who dared campaign publicly for democratic change before the popular uprising rocked Beijing. Today at 54, he says he is happiest pondering the mysteries of the universe.

U.S. TIES SINCE TIAN AN MEN

June 3-4, 1989: Authorities crack down on pro-democracy demonstrators in Tian An Men Square.

June 5: President Bush announces sanctions against China, including suspending sales of military equipment and government-to-government trade.

July: The United States protests shooting incident in which troops fired on compound that housed much of Western diplomatic corps.

December: Bush acknowledges he sent two senior officials to Beijing after the crackdown to maintain open communications with the Chinese government.

January 1990: U.S. partially lifts policy opposing World Bank loans after Chinese leaders lift martial law in Beijing.

January: Bush vetoes legislation that supporters said was needed to protect Chinese students in United States from being returned home, possibly to face retaliation.

January: Senate approves legislation to codify sanctions against China, including suspension of program to encourage private investment in China.

May: China’s release of detained dissidents is seen as an effort to influence the United States to continue most-favored-nation trade status for China.

May 24: Bush renews full trade relations between the United States and China for one year despite protests in Congress.

June 25: China allows safe passage out of the country of dissident Fang Lizhi, who had taken refuge in the U.S. Embassy after the Tian An Men Square crackdown.

Source: Reuters