Published by: World Tibet Network News 97/05/23 23:00 GMT

Philadelphia Enquirer

Sunday, May 18, 1997

Letters from Prison and Other Writings By Wei Jingsheng

Translated from the Chinese by Kristina M. Torgeson

Viking. 283 pp. $23.95

Reviewed by James North

In September 1990, the great Chinese dissident Wei Jingsheng sat down to write a

letter to his country's president, Jiang Zemin. Wei had already been in prison

for 11 years, sentenced in 1979 merely because he put up wall posters

contending that genuine democracy should be part of China's economic

modernization. Wei's health had worsened; he suffered from heart disease,

stomach problems, arthritis and a nervous condition.

You might have expected a certain deferential tone to his letter; he had no

power, he was ill, and Jiang, after all, was the president. If not deference,

then at least some diplomatic politeness might have been in order, if only to

improve his chances for physical survival.

But, no. Wei's opening lines were: ``Although you looked fatter on television

than you did when you were in Shanghai, I can guess this is only an indication

of your cook's talents and not because you are having an easy time of things.''

But Wei had more than poking fun on his mind; he went on to offer the president

advice about China's crisis, with concrete suggestions about the national

economy, foreign policy, and the need for more public works. He closed with:

``So much for now! More next time.''

If Wei Jingsheng lives, he will one day be as well-known as other great human

rights heroes like Nelson Mandela, Vaclav Havel and Alexander Solzhenitsyn. And

this remarkable book, The Courage to Stand Alone, will help bring him the

increased attention and respect that he so rightly deserves. He nearly

completed his 15-year sentence in 1993, was released early, partly due to

international pressure, and went right back to speaking and writing in favor of

democracy. After only six months of freedom, he was detained again, and he is

serving another 14-year prison term. He has spent 17 of his 47 years in prison.

The Courage to Stand Alone is an exciting and inspiring collection of his prison

letters, along with a useful short autobiography, a summary of his

pro-democracy views, and his speech in court during his first trial. Kristina

M. Toreson has translated his words gracefully into moving and often colloquial

English. Short essays by his friend Liu Qing, an ex-political prisoner who is

now in the United States, and two China experts, Andrew Nathan and Sophia

Woodman, round out the portrait of this courageous man.

Despite Wei Jingsheng's suffering, he does not come across as bitter. Part of

the wonderful quality to this book is the back and forth between his warm (but

at times a little overbearing) letters to his brother and sisters, followed by

his defiant but witty epistles to the top Chinese leaders. On one page, he is

advising his younger sister, Shanshan, about her career as an artist; a few

pages earlier he had been informing paramount leader Deng Xiaoping that Deng

was ``untalented and small-minded,'' and spelling out why.

Wei is perhaps most eloquent when he challenges the belief, advanced by the

Chinese leadership but also not uncommon in the West, that ``human rights'' is

a culturally limited concept, that in Asia freedom of speech or of conscience

matter less because Asians are somehow more group-oriented, more conformist.

This man, whose very life is a blazing refutation of this obnoxious view,

answers simply and eloquently, ``It is abominable to argue that . . . there is

no such thing as objective human rights standards simply because dictatorial

slave societies still exist.''

At the same time, Wei Jingsheng comes across as a committed Chinese patriot. He

is an electrician by training, and some of his letters include technical

suggestions for solar and hydraulic devices to increase production in the poor

rural areas. He also takes up at length the question of Tibet, and he outlines

a brilliant and sophisticated program to offer the dissatisfied mountain region

enough genuine autonomy so that Tibetans might still want to remain part of

China.

Despite Wei's energy, the sadness of the years in prison does at times show

through. In 1982, he writes his siblings that he will tell his fiancee their

long relationship must end because he does not want her to waste her life

waiting.

This chronicle makes clear that the Chinese regime does pay attention to

international pressure; when it increases, prison conditions for Wei Jingsheng

improve, and more solidarity would free him. But over the last few years, the

expanding economic links between China and the West have muted the criticism,

at least from governments and big business. When Vice President Gore visited

Beijing in March, he was delighted to be on hand as China signed huge business

contracts with Boeing and General Motors. But Gore only mumbled generalities

about the pro-democracy dissidents; he apparently could not even bring himself

to publicly mention the name of Wei Jingsheng. Gore went home, but his kind of

cowardice has dangerous consequences for Wei. During this second prison term,

the Chinese regime has already taken away the heater from his cell, his heart

condition is getting worse, and he can hardly walk.

Continued Western silence is condemning him to death.