World Tibet Network News Saturday, March 21, 1998

HONG KONG, March 21 (AFP) - US-based Chinese dissident Wang Bingzhang has been denied entry to Hong Kong at the request of mainland China and sent to the nearby Portuguese enclave of Macau, a human rights group said here Saturday. Wang, 50, was detained by Hong Kong immigration authorities late Friday after arriving from Macau, the Information Centre of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China said. Spokesman Frank Lu said Wang's wife, who was travelling with him, wastold by immigration officials that her husband had been intercepted "following a request from the central (Chinese) government." Wang, who had arrived in Hong Kong from New York on Monday, was detained for several hours before being returned to Macau about 1:00 a.m.Saturday (1700 GMT Friday), Lu told AFP.He said Wang, a US citizen, flew from Macau to Taiwan late Saturday morning intending to catch a flight back to the United States. "I think the detention was not necessary as Mr. Wang planned to leave Hong Kong today for the US," Lu said. A

Hong Kong government spokesman refused to comment on Wang's detentionand deportation. In late January, Wang slipped into China via Macau using an alias as hewas on a list of activists to be refused entry into China. His intention was to organize an internal opposition party to the ruling communists, but after a large-scale manhunt he was arrested and deported two weeks later. Wang vowed then to return to his homeland to continue his pro-democracy efforts. "The time is good now for democracy in China and the future looks strong for us," Wang said on his return to the United States, adding that after meeting dissidents in China he believed the number of small pro-democracy groups was growing. There is increasing frustration with corruption that is practised byhigh-level bureaucrats right down to street vendors, Wang alleged, adding that the Chinese are also straining under burden some taxes."The Chinese people are tired of all this and are ready to take action. People don't want to put up with these condition

s any longer. "The Communist Party in China knows that it has to change and it is evolving. Pressure from inside China and outside China are helping force these changes."Wang said the Justice Party intended forming an umbrella organization to coordinate and unite the efforts of pro-democracy groups working in China and in other countries. The Chinese Communist Party sent Wang to Canada to learn medicine 21 years ago and he became a doctor. He sought political asylum in the United States in the early eighties and later founded the China Spring magazine and the dissident group Alliance for a Democratic China there.