Fang Lizhi Recalls his Year as Refuge in American Embassy

The day after the Tiananmen Massacre in 1989, Professor Fang Lizhi and his wife Li Shuxian took refuge in the American Embassy in Beijing. The case soon became a focal point in the struggling Sino-US relationship.

Recently, Fang Lizhi wrote a three-part memoir in Chinese titled "The Sino-US Interplay in 1989-1990 as I Experienced" (see Parts A, B, and C). While there are no real surprises or major reveals from what we have already learned throughout the years, there are some interesting tidbits in the story:

1. The Chinese government delivered a 14-point accusation of Fang Lizhi's "crimes" to the Embassy as the initial step of negotiation. The accusations revealed that Fang Lizhi's residence had been monitored and his phone bugged during the entire movement. Fang Lizhi made detailed response to each accusation.
2. After President George H. W. Bush signed an order to allow Chinese students stay in the US regardless their visa status as a protection, a Chinese official sermoned the US Ambassador for an official protest. An hour later, the secretary of the official called the Ambassador's secretary to plead a US visa guarantee for his wife.
3. After four months of vigorous protest, the Chinese government signals a willingness of negotiation in October, 1989. The initial conditions were passed to former President Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, who were visiting China at the time. Negotiations continued in November and December and cumulated in a state visit by Bush's aid Brent Scowcroft, who came to Beijing with the intention of taking the family to US. But the negotiation broke down at the last minute when China demanded an end of international sanctions.
4. Fang Lizhi continued his scientific research work in the embassy. In fact, he published a preprint in the Fermi Lab with a temporary mailing address of the US foreign service. After the publication, he received many books and journals from his international colleagues. The work for the paper was performed on an old Apple computer left at the embassy.





5. Negotiations to resolve the matter restarted in the spring of 1990 when Japan is seeking a way to end the sanction to China. (Loans to China from Japan and the World Bank were unfrozen two weeks after Fang Lizhi was allowed to leave China.)
6. Because the Chinese government was eager to have sanction lifted, Fang Lizhi had the upper hand in the negotiation of his release. He refused to make "confessions," admit guilt, or appeal for "leniency" but only applied to travel abroad on humanitarian grounds.
7. There were strong indications that Deng Xiaoping took a personal interest in these negotiations through the entire process.
8. Li Shuxian disagreed with a part of the statement Fang Lizhi had written. She only signed on two of the three points her husband had signed.
9. As a mother, Li Shuxian secured a guarantee of their second son's safe passage abroad as a condition of their release.
10. At the farewell party at the embassy, Ambassador James Lilly told Fang Lizhi a secret: the US was aware of how Feng Congde and Chai Ling escaped China, "from the beginning to end." Feng Congde had maintained that their escape did not receive any help from abroad.

People of 1989: James R. Lilley

Jim Lilley became the American ambassador to China in the spring of 1989, just as the undercurrent of student movement was emerging. Although he was born in China and had previously served as the CIA station chief in Beijing under George H. W. Bush, he was not as deeply involved with the Chinese intellectual community as his immediate predecessor Winston Lord.

Jim Lilley has been credited for providing daily, detailed reports about the events to then President George H. W. Bush during the turmoil of 1989. But his influence or effects, if any, to the movement itself remains unknown.

He did take some notable actions after the massacre. His embassy provided asylum to the famous Chinese dissident Fang Lizhi and he took an uncompromisable stand on the issue in Fang Lizhi's safety and well-being. At the same time, however, he also arranged a secret diplomatic mission which had the national security adviser Brent Scowcroft visiting Beijing and toasting with Deng Xiaoping.

Jim Lilley successfully negotiated the settlement which sent Fang Lizhi out of Beijing and to the United States. He was subsequently shocked to see Fang Lizhi criticizing the US as well as President George H. W. Bush as soon as he had stepped on the American soil. He had never forgiven Fang Lizhi for that action. Fang Lizhi, on the other hand, quickly lost his standing with the American governmental circle.

James R. Lilly passed away Nov. 12, 2009, at the age of 81.


People of 1989

Winston Lord Recalls His Days in China

In anticipation of the coming thirty-year anniversary of the normalization of relationship between China and the United States, the National Committee on United States - China Relations hosted a panel discussion, Once Upon a Time in Beijing, attended by five former U. S. Ambassadors to China, on December 9, 2008. The program was broadcast on C-SPAN and available on YouTube.

Near the beginning, at about the 11:45 mark, Ambassador Winston Lord, who was in China between 1985 and 1989, recalled one of his highlight/lowlight moment:

It was in June of 1988, a year before the Tiananmen, meeting with Chinese students, hundreds of them in what came to be known as the Democracy Salon and see their passion and their eagerness. It was a highlight, but also a lowlight. I have to elaborate this because a few days later Deng Xiaoping sent me a personal message to not to meet Chinese students.

The "Democracy Salon" he referred to here was the one organized by Liu Gang and had been in weekly session by that point. It was held at a grass lawn in Peking University and regularly attracted dozens to hundres of students.

Winston Lord's visit to the Salon drew a big audience that day. Later in the day, a graduate student was killed in an apparent isolated violence off-campus. A small-scale student movement broke out for the occasion and Liu Gang, by the time no longer a student, was banned from the campus. The initial outdoor "Democracy Salon" was therefore interrupted but later resurrected by Wang Dan in his dormitory building.

In this panel discussion, Winston Lord proceeded to describe the incident when Fang Lizhi was forbid to attend a banquet hosted by visiting President George H. W. Bush as another lowlight of his time in Beijing.

Much later in the program, at about 1:07:30 mark, Winston Lord's successor James Lily gave an interesting account on the manuvers involved in getting Fang Lizhi out of China after he had taken refuge in the American embassy following the Tiananmen massacre.


Recollections of 1989