Beijing, Tear Down This Bamboo Curtain

More than seven weeks have passed since American University political science scholar Gao Zhan was secretly detained by Chinese Public Security during a visit to China. Her husband, Xue Donghua, and their 5-year-old son were arrested with her but released after 26 days.

On Tuesday, Gao was officially charged with being a spy for unspecified overseas intelligence. Though there was no evidence cited for the charge, Gao could face a long prison term if convicted.

Like Gao, I am an American resident who still holds a Chinese passport. Last August, I went back to China and was arrested, detained and then expelled from my country. My experience moves me to call upon Chinese people living abroad--scholars, writers, artists, students, scientists and business people--not to be silent and apathetic. We must call on the Chinese government to follow legal procedures. If we always opt for silence in these cases, then what happened to Song Yongyi of Dickinson College (imprisoned for six months), Kang Zhengguo of Yale University (detained for 50 days) or Gao might well happen to us tomorrow, when we return to China for work, family visits or scholarly activities.

When I was arrested last August, I thought that I would be released after questioning, which is not supposed to exceed 24 hours, or at least my family would be notified. When I was locked up in a detention center, I was shaken and downcast, but I kept a thread of hope. Moment by moment, even in the interrogation room, I was expecting, praying, fantasizing that the outside world knew of my arrest. Perhaps my brother and my parents knew. Perhaps the American Embassy, overseas media and human rights groups, some well-known friends knew. During my time in jail, a minute passed like a day, and a day passed like a year, until I had to resign myself and stop thinking about time during my 15 days of captivity.

Gao is the mother of a small child, a scholar who probably had never been in a police station, and now she is being put through daily intimidation by the state apparatus that dangles the threat of a long prison sentence over her. Even now, she may not know of the release of her husband and child; she is even less likely to know of the U.S. government’s concern for her or of the behind-the-scenes exertions by human rights groups. Thus, she is going through the most harrowing, miserable time of her life. She needs every show of concern that we can give.

We live in the world of global capital, and China is considered a highly desirable economic market. Yet this is not a good reason to keep silent about the fate of another human being, a scholar, a mother and a wife. Many highly educated immigrants from mainland China hold green cards for many years without wishing to be naturalized as U.S. citizens. Strictly speaking, they are Chinese citizens holding permanent residency in the U.S. But they hope to go back to China one day and to contribute, with their work and research expertise, to the development of their motherland.

I am one of these people; Gao is as well. But when Chinese scholars set foot back on Chinese soil, they are just like citizens who have never left China. In a legal sense, the American government and its embassy in Beijing have no power to get involved. Still, in situations of broad popular and media concern, U.S. authorities often express concern and protest.

In the past five years, there have been more than 100 reported cases of overseas Chinese residents who went through interrogations or forced “talks” with security forces while visiting China. I expect that if the Chinese government does not restrain security units from trampling on its own laws in these cases, if it keeps accepting willful, secret arrests and compulsory questioning of overseas residents without notifying their relatives or letting them contact lawyers, then Chinese citizens overseas will protect their personal safety by changing their citizenship.

And if actions by security forces in China compel Chinese citizens abroad to make this choice, this will be shameful to China.