Refugee’s Last Hope for Parents’ Visit : Graduation: Chapman student, who says he was leader in Tien An Men revolt, hopes to have his parents here Sunday when he gets diploma. U.S. Rep. Christopher Cox is working on that against big odds.

Nearly six years have passed since Ray Zhang last saw his parents.

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It was the day he escaped Beijing’s Tien An Men Square, where he had taken part in revolts against the Communist Chinese government that turned violent. His parents agreed he should flee for his safety, and he left without knowing when he would be back in touch.

Zhang, now 26, thought they would finally be reunited Sunday, when he will receive a master’s degree in business from Chapman University in Orange. But first he has to get past the U.S. government, which has denied his parents’ request for visas.

“That’s not common sense,” Zhang said in a telephone interview Thursday from his campus dormitory. “I can’t go back to China. The only way is for them to come here.”

Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach), who has tried to bring Zhang’s parents to the United States for more than a year, is waging a last-minute campaign to gain them access. The couple, Zhenchi Zhang, 64, and Li Ling, 59, would need to board a plane in Beijing by midday today, Pacific Daylight Time, to arrive in time for the Sunday afternoon graduation ceremony.

U.S. officials fear that Zhang’s parents will not return to China because they don’t own property or have relatives there, Cox and Zhang said. The couple rent an apartment, a typical living arrangement in a communist country, Cox said, and they have pledged to return after a monthlong visit.

Cox and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) appealed Wednesday to Secretary of State Warren Christopher. The representatives flew to California on Thursday afternoon and planned to meet with Zhang around midnight to place another call to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, where the final decision rests.

At a press conference in front of the U.S. Capitol, Cox said Thursday morning that he hopes to make embassy officials take a closer look at Zhang’s situation.

“They have not paid any real attention to this case,” Cox said. “It is not an affirmative, thoughtful decision. It is bureaucratic inattention.”

Zhang’s parents recently retired from their jobs as professors at Beijing University. Chapman University officials had invited them to lecture at their campus last year, but the Chinese government refused to grant passports permitting them to leave the country for that trip and other visits because of their son’s previous activism.

After Christopher met with Beijing officials last year, the Chinese government approved the passports as a friendly overture, Cox said.

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“The great irony is it is the direct result of Secretary Christopher’s visit to Beijing that Ray’s parents got Chinese passports to begin with,” Cox said. “Now, they cannot use their communist Chinese passports . . . because America will not extend a visa.” The timing also is troubling, Cox said, just days before the sixth anniversary of the June 4, 1989, massacre at Tien An Men Square, where government tanks crushed pro-democracy demonstrators. Zhang had been a leader in student movements since 1986.

When Zhang left his parents in 1989, he didn’t think they would be separated this long. The government now monitors his parents’ communications, and they have been in touch only a few times through letters delivered by third parties.

“I thought it would be for a short period of time,” Zhang said of the separation. “I thought I’d probably just go to south China, a kind of mountain area somewhere to hide for a couple years. Then maybe the government will change.”

Human rights organizations helped him make his way to Paris, and he came to Orange County three years ago. He plans to attend Claremont College in the fall to pursue graduate studies. If his parents don’t gain permission for this trip, he will keep trying to arrange another meeting.

“I really miss them,” Zhang said, “and I think they’ve suffered from the problems I made.”