Activist Back In U.S. After China Expels Him

Human rights activist Harry Wu arrived in the United States Thursday night, narrowly escaping reimprisonment in the hellish Chinese prison system he had helped expose.

The expulsion of Wu, 58, could lead to improvement in U.S.-Chinese relations, which have deteriorated in recent months over such issues as trade, Taiwan and human rights.

Resolution of Wu’s case also could lead to first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton’s attendance at the United Nations-sponsored World Conference on Women in Beijing next month, something Chinese leaders reportedly want. Clinton has delayed her decision on attending, and several Republican members of Congress had said she should not go as long as China continued to hold Wu.

Thursday morning, Wu, a Chinese-born U.S. citizen, was convicted by the Wuhan City Intermediate People’s Court of spying, illegally obtaining state secrets and posing as a government worker. He was sentenced “to 15 years in jail and expulsion from China for his crimes,” said Xinhua, the state news service.

Hours later, his wife and associates met Wu on the tarmac at San Francisco International Airport at about 8 p.m.

Dozens of supporters, many carrying signs saying “Welcome Home, Harry,” joined a throng of reporters to greet Wu.

Wu had earlier been imprisoned in Chinese labor camps for 19 years, from 1960 through 1979, for criticizing the Communist Party. In 1985, he was allowed to leave China to visit relatives in the United States, where he obtained citizenship.

From 1991 through 1994, Wu secretly made four trips to China. He documented abuses in the Chinese prison system, including the use of prisoner labor to manufacture goods for export and the transplantation of organs from executed prisoners. His film was broadcast on “60 Minutes,” and he testified before Congress about his findings.

On June 19, as he tried to enter China again, Wu was detained by police at an immigration inspection post. He was imprisoned until Wednesday, when he was put on trial.

Wu was defended by two Chinese lawyers. He pleaded guilty, according to Xinhua, and had written a confession before his trial. A U.S. Embassy official, Daniel Piccuta, attended the trial, in accordance with the SinoU.S. Treaty on Consular Affairs.

The Xinhua statement said Wu had received “good humane treatment and timely medical treatment” while in custody.

During the closed trial, the prosecutor said that from 1991 to 1994 Wu had entered China under the pretext of visiting friends, traveling and doing business. But his actual purpose was to obtain Chinese state secrets and provide them to overseas institutes and organizations, the court found.

Three times he filmed guard facilities, reform-through-labor sites and the layout of a prison in Shanxi Province, Xinhua said. He stole one confidential document from each of two factories in Shanghai, the news agency said.

Wu also used a hidden video camera to take photos of prisons and to film prison management and prison layout, Xinhua said.

In August 1991, wearing a police uniform, he posed as a policeman and sneaked into a prison in Qinghai Province to do more illegal filming, Xinhua said.

When the court announced Wu’s conviction and sentenced him to a 15-year prison term, it said he would be expelled, without specifying whether that would happen before or after he served the prison term. The United States had sought his release on humanitarian grounds.

Wu’s sudden release Thursday took his wife, Ching-Lee Wu, by surprise. “I am too happy to really tell my feelings,” she told reporters on the front lawn of their home in Milpitas, Calif., near San Francisco. Wu is a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.

In Wyoming, where President Clinton and his family are vacationing, spokeswoman Ginny Terzano would not say whether Hillary Clinton would now go to Beijing. She said Wu’s case was only one of “a number of considerations.”

Graphic: The recent history of Harry Wu