Man Seeks Asylum--Says He Fled Chinese

A man who identified himself as a former Chinese diplomatic aide on Monday announced that he is seeking political asylum in the United States after an odyssey that he said took him from Bolivia to suburban Los Angeles.

Liang Xiang Dong, 27, identifying himself as a former assistant to China’s Bolivian ambassador, said he was stripped of his post and ordered to return to Beijing after he made statements sympathetic to the pro-democracy movement crushed by the government in June, 1989.

Liang claimed that on July 10, while being escorted by Chinese officials through New York en route to Beijing, he managed to escape and catch a plane to Los Angeles International Airport. While in Southern California, he said, he has stayed at the homes of several friends in the San Gabriel Valley, constantly moving from place to place to avoid detection by Chinese government informants.

Officials at Chinese embassies in Bolivia and Washington would not confirm Liang’s account and would not comment on whether Liang was in fact a diplomatic aide. A Chinese diplomat in New York, however, disputed Liang’s statements, and said no official in Bolivia had ever been removed. “No such kind of thing happened,” said Sun Hsi Bin, a New York City-based consul for public affairs.

Liang told his story at a news conference Monday in Chinatown, near downtown Los Angeles, but offered no details, saying that to do so would endanger friends and acquaintances who helped him.

He was accompanied by Chinese community leaders and representatives of Amnesty International.

Members of both groups said Liang has shown them his diplomatic passport and other documents that they believe proved his identity and backed up his story.

Most of the details about Liang were provided by David Ma, a Monterey Park businessman and a founder of the Federation for a Democratic China, a local organization supporting the Chinese democracy movement.

Several weeks ago Liang contacted Ma, who said he persuaded Liang to apply for asylum and to go public.

“It took a lot of time to convince him he should come forward,” Ma said, adding that Liang had previously been too frightened to do so.

Liang said that while in Bolivia he was an outspoken critic of the Chinese government and that he helped drum up financial support for dissidents who escaped China after the violent June 4, 1989, massacre in Tian An Men Square. In July, he said, he was ordered to return to Beijing, where he faced interrogation and possible incarceration. “I knew for sure I would be punished,” Liang said.

An attorney representing Liang said the asylum application was filed Monday.