China Frees Harry Wu, Sends Him Back to U.S. : Asia: Activist’s expulsion should ease tensions, clear way for First Lady to attend Beijing conference.

Harry Wu, the American human rights activist, was abruptly ejected from China on Thursday just hours after the Chinese had subjected him to a speedy trial and sentenced him to 15 years in prison for stealing state secrets and spying.

The Chinese decision to let Wu return to the United States--without first serving time in prison--should improve tense U.S.-China relations and clear the way for First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton to visit here for an international women’s conference in early September, analysts said.

President Clinton, who had been pushing for Wu’s early release on humanitarian grounds, welcomed the Chinese action, saying it “removes an obstacle to improving relations between the United States and China.”

China freed Wu, 58, on the eve of Undersecretary of State Peter Tarnoff’s peacemaking visit here to resolve U.S.-Chinese conflicts over Taiwan, trade and Wu’s case. Wu’s release also removed a potent symbol for human rights activists attending next week’s non-governmental women’s conference outside Beijing.

Despite the timing, China denied that its decision to let Wu go was a concession to the Americans or part of any deal with the United States. “The ruling in the Harry Wu case has nothing to do with Sino-U.S. relations,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Chen Jian said in a Thursday briefing here.

The White House also denied that Wu’s release was part of a deal.

Clinton Administration officials, though, had known as early as last week that Wu was about to be put on trial in Wuhan; the U.S. Embassy in Beijing made arrangements to have a consular officer present at the proceeding.

As well as pleasing the United States, the Chinese regime’s handling of Wu’s case was designed for domestic consumption: The verdict and expulsion seemed to accommodate both the hard-line factions here, who regarded the Chinese-born Wu as the ultimate traitor for his exposes on China’s gulag system, and more moderate forces in Beijing, who were anxious to see Wu’s controversial case quickly resolved.

After receiving almost no attention here since he was detained June 19 while trying to enter China at a remote border post to continue his efforts to surreptitiously document China’s prison labor system, Wu’s case dominated Chinese news Thursday. A series of reports from the government-run New China News Agency detailed Wu’s “despicable tricks” designed to “slander, attack and oppose China,” and quoted a confession Wu had submitted to the court.

“After thinking carefully and self-examination, I have sincerely drawn the conclusion that the following facts show that I have damaged the interests of the Chinese government and the Chinese people directly or indirectly and that I have violated Chinese laws,” the news service quoted Wu as saying in a letter he had written to the court before his trial.

Some of the descriptions in that publicized confession--such as Wu’s saying he had impersonated a police officer and illegally filmed in labor camps for foreign documentaries--were strikingly similar to passages in Wu’s memoirs about the 19 years he spent as a political prisoner in the Chinese gulags and statements he has made in his campaign to expose them.

China’s state television also broadcast scenes from Wu’s four-hour trial Wednesday morning, showing a solemn Wu bracing himself in a wooden docket, head bowed, listening to the proceedings, then limping out of the courtroom with his hands in shackles after receiving his 15-year sentence.

But while most of China was watching images of Harry Wu, convicted criminal, hobbling back to prison, he was actually on a flight heading back to San Francisco a free man.

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In California, at his home in Milpitas where supporters had tied symbolic yellow ribbons on tree branches after his arrest, Wu’s wife, Ching Lee, told reporters she was delighted with the news that her husband would be home soon.

“I am too happy to really tell my feelings,” she said.

She had lobbied international leaders hard to pressure the Chinese government to free her husband and had urged Mrs. Clinton to boycott the international women’s conference as long as Wu was detained.

In San Francisco, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who returned Thursday to the United States from a trip to China to lobby for Wu’s release, applauded Chinese officials for letting him go and said no deals were struck with the Chinese government to secure his freedom.

“I do not believe there is a quid pro quo” between the U.S. and Chinese governments for his release, said the California Democrat, who appealed directly to Chinese President Jiang Zemin to free Wu. “I believe this release was done as a gesture of friendship to the United States.”

Feinstein said she spent six days in China and met for hours with Jiang, whom she has known since 1985, when they were mayors of sister cities--Shanghai and San Francisco.

The senator said she believes she played a role in winning Wu’s freedom by reassuring Jiang and other leaders that the United States is not backing away from its “one China” policy. “I think my talks had a very positive impact in changing the climate of opinion,” she said. “I am very hopeful that relations between our two countries will get back on track.”

The Chinese were furious that Clinton, pushed by members of Congress, had permitted Taiwan’s president, Lee Teng-hui, to attend a reunion at his alma mater, Cornell University, in Upstate New York. The United States never before had accorded a Taiwanese president such a privilege, though Clinton Administration officials characterized the trip as a private, not state, visit.

China, which considers Taiwan a rebellious province, regarded the Lee visit in June as a major diplomatic breach. Beijing has since protested vigorously to the United States and has made hostile statements and gestures--including conducting missile tests near Taiwan--to display its displeasure.

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As for the seeming Chinese clemency toward Wu, analysts said it was not unprecedented.

“It’s not unusual to have a person sentenced to a certain term, then have that sentence suspended and then be deported,” said Jerome A. Cohen, a former Harvard professor and Hong Kong-based specialist on China’s legal system.

Releasing a prisoner on medical parole or for good behavior is one way for the Chinese to solve a political problem and “show their humanitarian munificence,” Cohen said here, citing examples dating back to the Cultural Revolution three decades ago.

But he noted that the Chinese also sent Wu a clear message: “The assumption is that he shouldn’t come back to China without permission, or else they can execute that 15-year sentence.”

Times staff writers Jim Mann in Washington, John M. Broder in Jackson, Wyo., and Richard Paddock in San Francisco contributed to this report.