China Frees Dissident After 12 Years

In a gesture clearly aimed at influencing debate over China policy in Washington, one of China’s longest-serving political prisoners was released today after serving 12 years of a 15-year sentence.

Xu Wenli, 49, a former electrician and editor who was one of China’s most prominent pro-democracy activists in the early 1980s, was released from Beijing No. 1 prison and driven to his home, where he embraced his wife and spoke briefly with reporters.

Xu indicated that he wished to focus, at least in the immediate future, on family matters rather than political concerns.

The fate of political prisoners in China is directly linked to debate in the United States over whether normal trade relations with China should be made conditional on an easing of repression here. The Clinton Administration is proposing to Congress that such a linkage be made, but that it be done through an executive order rather than by legislation.

Xu is the sixth well-known political prisoner to be given early release this year as part of Beijing’s effort to improve its human rights image. The Ministry of Justice recently acknowledged, however, that as of the end of March, there were 3,501 convicted “counter- revolutionaries” held in Chinese prisons and labor camps. Some Western estimates of the total number of political prisoners run into the tens of thousands.

Xu edited April Fifth Forum, the longest-surviving journal of China’s 1978-1980 democracy movement, which ended with the arrests of key activists. He advocated moderate reform within the system.

In a memoir smuggled from prison in 1985, Xu wrote that his long sentence arose from two factors: his refusal to admit any guilt and his failure to edit out a reference to “bloody dictatorship” in an article. He said at his trial that the charge was taken out of context.