Published by: World Tibet Network News, Sunday, October 13, 1996

by Richard Ingham

HONG KONG, Oct 13 (AFP) - A veteran Chinese dissident has fled to Hong Kong after co-authoring a letter demanding Tibetan independence, a human rights group reported Sunday, and local radio reported he was seeking asylum in the United States.

Wang Xizhe, whose campaign for democracy dates back 22 years, arrived safely in the British colony and was expected to leave very shortly, said Robin Munro, Hong Kong director of Human Rights Watch/Asia.

"We can confirm he is in Hong Kong," said Munro, adding he did not know when Wang arrived.

The government-run radio station RTHK, which broke the story, said Wang was requesting political asylum in the United States. US consular officials could not be reached for comment.

Wang, 47, and another prominent dissident, Liu Xiaobo, 40, triggered government reprisals last month after they wrote a letter calling for Tibetan self-determination, which is anathema to Beijing.

The pair also called for stronger legal controls over the ruling Communist Party, for talks between Beijing and its rival Taipei and for stronger action by China in its sovereignty dispute with Japan over the Diaoyu-Senkaku islands in the East China Sea.

Liu last week was sentenced to three years in a "re-education through labor" camp. Wang immediately went to ground after the sentencing.

A Hong Kong government spokesman, asked to respond to Wang's arrival, said: "We do not comment on individual cases."

A dissident source said Wang, as a leading activist, would be given fast-track screening as a political asylum-seeker.

"I don't think there'll be a problem finding a third country willing to take him," the source said.

Hong Kong is a haven to more than 40 Chinese pro-democracy campaigners, and the territory has been a vital conduit for taking an unknown number of dissidents to new lives in the West.

By some counts, Yellowbird, the best-known network for smuggling dissidents out of China, has helped as many as 800 activists to escape since the 1989 crackdown on the pro-democracy movement.

Observers in Beijing said China consider dissidents to be less of a nuisance out of the country than in it, but predicted it would be irked at the failure of its police to track Wang down.

"China has often exiled its dissidents, but likes to do so on its own terms," said one western diplomat.

"Cases like this, or Liu Gang earlier this year, are something of an embarrassment, especially as they are supposed to be under close police surveillance."

Munro said: "Usually the Chinese government turns a blind eye (to dissidents fleeing to Hong Kong), although if there's a lot of publicity they may be stung into a response. But this time, rather than make a big stink, they'll think 'well, that's one dissident less to worry about.'"

"We are glad for Wang's sake, because he has suffered so much, but China has lost one more brave and outspoken voice for democracy and human rights."

The sentencing of Liu came in the same week that Wang Dan, one of the student leaders of the 1989 protests, was reportedly charged with subversion after he wrote articles for the foreign press following his release from jail.

Wang Xizhe, formerly a factory worker in the southern city of Guangzhou, has a history of pro-democracy campaigning that dates back to a wall poster in 1974 and includes the 1979 "Democracy Wall" movement, according to Human Rights Watch/Asia.

He had been released on parole on February 3, 1993, after serving nearly 12 years of a 14-year term for sedition, forming a "counter-revolutionary group" and spreading "counter-revolutionary propaganda."