Reuters December 11, 1997, 6:15 p.m. PT

WASHINGTON--Three weeks after his release from a Chinese jail, dissident Wei Jingsheng said the Internet offers many opportunities for him to continue his fight to bring democracy to China.

Wei, who met with President Clinton at the White House Monday, said yesterday he believed most Chinese people supported democracy, although many were afraid to openly discuss their position for fear of Communist reprisals.

Because China's leaders kept a tight lid on any protests or emerging resistance, Wei, speaking through an interpreter, predicted any change would come suddenly since one could not see a movement building gradually.

"The resistance and pressure have been formed gradually, but the eruption at the last moment will be sudden," Wei told public television's NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.

"Like a balloon, the air goes in gradually--we know it will burst soon; we do not know exactly when," Wei said.

Wei, a political prisoner for all but six months of the past 18 years, was released by China on November 16 due to a medical condition. His release came two weeks after a state visit to the United States by Chinese President Jiang Zemin.

Wei, a one-time electrician at the Beijing zoo who is now a visiting scholar at Columbia University in New York, said he hoped to avail himself of the Internet and the telephone to do his work, noting he had many more possibilities now than in 1979 when he was first jailed for advocating democratic reform.

In an interview with the Washington Post yesterday, however, Wei confessed he had never learned to use a computer.