Ex-Political Captive Gets OK to Leave China : Asia: Han Dongfang to get U.S. medical treatment. Activists abroad are told they won’t be punished.

Han Dongfang, a former political prisoner and labor activist whose case has been a sore point in Sino-U.S. relations, said Thursday that he has received permission to leave China to get medical treatment in the United States.

The granting of a passport to Han came only after China twice broke apparent pledges to U.S. officials to allow him to leave.

When Secretary of State James A. Baker III visited Beijing last November, Baker believed he had received a promise that Han would be among a group of dissidents granted exit permission. Chinese officials later said they promised only to allow Han and the other dissidents to apply to leave China but never promised that approval would be granted.

Then in May, at a press conference held at the U.S. Embassy here, Arnold L. Kanter, undersecretary for political affairs, said Chinese officials told him that an exit permit had been granted to Han. That information turned out to be false.

Han said he expects to leave China within about two weeks. He plans first to fly to New York for treatment of tuberculosis contracted during 22 months he spent in prison after the 1989 crackdown on China’s pro-democracy movement. Han, a factory worker, founded and led an independent labor union that took part in that spring’s Tian An Men Square protests.

In another gesture aimed at putting the 1989 crackdown more firmly into the past, the official New China News Agency released a government statement Thursday pledging that Chinese students abroad will not be punished for anti-government activities they have conducted overseas.

The statement reiterated, however, that there will be no significant easing of political controls within China.

“Those who joined in organizations against the Chinese government and engaged in activities that were harmful to the state security, honor and interest are welcome to return home to work, on the conditions that they must withdraw from the organizations and no longer take part in any activities to violate the Chinese constitution and law and oppose the Chinese government,” it said.

Meanwhile, one of China’s most prominent political prisoners, Wang Juntao, is on a hunger strike, according to his wife, Hou Xiaotian, who was imprisoned for five months without charge after the 1989 massacre that ended the protests. Hou is one of the dissidents Baker believed was promised permission to leave China, but she has not been able to obtain a passport.

Wang, 34, a former journalist serving a 13-year sentence for his role in allegedly helping to organize the Tian An Men Square protests, has been trying to press a civil lawsuit charging prison officials with responsibility for hepatitis B he contracted while imprisoned.

Wang also has complained that authorities have refused to allow him to pass writings to his wife intended to back up this virtually unprecedented legal effort. His hunger strike is to press a demand that officials meet him to discuss this and other grievances.

Hou may be risking arrest or other punishment by her increasingly open campaign on behalf of her husband. Last week, in the first event of its kind since the 1989 crackdown, Hou quietly announced word of Wang’s hunger strike. This week she sought but was denied formal police permission for a public demonstration to call attention to his plight.