Xu Liangying Awarded 2008 APS Sakharov Prize

Xu Liangying (许良英) is an outspoken scientist in China. He is best known in China for translating and publishing the entire set of Einstein's Works. He was profiled in the New York Times two years ago as "Einstein's Man in Beijing: A Rebel With a Cause".

This month, he was awarded the 2008 Andrei Sakharov Prize by the American Physical Society "For a lifetime’s advocacy of truth, democracy and human rights -- despite surveillance and house arrest, harassment and threats, even banishment -- through his writings, and publicly speaking his mind."

Xu Liangying first got himself in political trouble in 1957, when he was declared an "extreme rightist" for his outspokenness. It was not until late 1970s when he managed to publish his translations of Einstein's works and his own research of Einstein's philosophy.

In late 1986, Xu Liangying had teamed up with Professor Fang Lizhi (方励之) and Liu Binyan (刘宾雁) to organize a conference revisiting that "anti-rightists" campaign on its thirtieth anniversary. Deng Xiaoping did not appreciate that idea, since Deng himself had spearheaded the campaign. After the wide-spread student movements in South China that year, Deng decided to purge Fang Lizhi, Liu Binyan, and Wang Ruowang (王若望). It was widely believed that Deng had mistaken Wang for Xu Liangying.

Xu Liangying was not deterred. In 1988, he was an adviser and guest speaker in Liu Gang's "Democratic Salon" in Beida. In early 1989, when Fang Lizhi published the open letter to Deng Xiaoping appealing for the release of Wei Jingshen, it was Xu Liangying who first responded with a letter of his own, co-signed by more than forty prominent intellectuals, to support Fang.

According to the New York Times profile, Xu Liangying suffered a heart attack during the heated period of the 1989 student movement and therefore could not join any of the demonstrations.

At the Cusp of the Great Reform

The Third Plenum of the Eleventh CCP Congress (十一届三中全会) was held on December 18, 1978. This meeting is widely regarded as the defining milestone that kicked off Deng Xiaoping's reform movement after the end of Culture. In China, preparations are already being made for the big 30 year anniversary celebration near the end of this year.

However, Bao Tong (鲍彤), a long time Policy Secretary of Zhao Ziyang, just published an article on his recollections of that historical meeting. According to the article, that meeting was planned as a routine meeting to discuss some economic policies in agriculture and central planning. Before the meeting, Deng Xiaoping and then Party Chairman Hua Guofeng had agreed that they should not discuss any issues left out from Culture Revolution, especially those that had been decided by Mao Zedong himself.

As it was common in such meetings, the actual agenda and decisions were determined in preparatory meetings in advance. In this case, the preparatory meeting was held in early November. Deng Xiaoping did not think it was important enough to attend. Rather he spent the first half of that November in Southeast Asia on a state visit.

But it was during that preparatory meeting, that Chen Yun and Hu Yaobang rose to the occasion and changed the course of the meeting. At the time, Chen Yun had just been "rehabilitated" but had not yet returned to the top leadership. Hu Yaobang was the "younger" generation who had just been put in charge of the Party's Internal Affairs. Together, they advocated that many of the wrongs during the Culture Revolution must be corrected before the nation could move forward.

By the time Deng Xiaoping returned to Beijing in mid-November, he found the agenda totally out of control. In a swift maneuver, he scratched his own planned speech and had a new one drafted. In which, he took hold the new momentum as his own and laid all blames of the previous conservative agenda to Hua Guofeng.

As a result, the Third Plenum meeting became something Deng had not envisioned. It established a new policy of "a liberation of thoughts" (解放思想). Hua Guofeng was forced to make a self-criticism.

For his handy work, Chen Yun was immediately elevated to the high position of Vice Chairman of the Party. In the 1980s, Chen Yun was the chief rival of Deng Xiaoping in the Party leadership.

In 1980, Hua Guofeng finally was purged from the leadership. With the position of Party Chairman abolished, Hu Yaobang became the General Secretary.

Seven years later, in 1987, Hu Yaobang himself would be purged by Deng Xiaoping for being too liberal and tolerant to student movements. His death in 1989 triggered the largest-scale student movement in the history of China.

Exiled Tiananmen Leaders Appeal for Rights to Citizenship

Nineteen years after the Tiananmen Massacre, most of the then student leaders and intellectuals have come abroad. Some of them had escaped China clandestinely. But most left China legally, either as private visitors after having served their sentences in China or were "sent out" by the Chinese government in one of her "humanitarian" gestures to the world.

But no matter how they got here, they all share the same fate: their citizenships are forever in a limbo state. Even if they came with valid Chinese passports, the Chinese embassies and consulates here refused to renew them. So their passports had expired years ago. They could still travel as UN refugees, but they are, quite literally, people without a country.

Today, some of these leaders, including Wang Dan, Hu Ping, Chen Yizi, Wuer Kaixi, Liu Gang, Chen Xiaoping, Wu Renhua, and Wang Juntao, published an open letter to the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs to demand their rights of citizenship. They also appeal to UN and the International Olympic Committee to help.

The letter also indicated that these leaders are ready to try various legal actions against the Chinese government if their demands are not answered within a month. It also hinted that they might try their own ways to return to China.

The Political Spring Season in Beijing

It's March, which means a few political activities will be going on in Beijing:

1. The annual sessions of the National People's Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, known simply as the "Two Meetings" (两会), are in town. Security will be tight.
2. After two weeks of hyperbole surrounding the meetings, there will not be any significant decisions made, especially in the year of Olympics
3. But we will be entertained by pictures of many delegates nodding off during the sessions.
4. Tiananmen Mothers petition to probe the Tiananmen Massacre.

It's been eleven years, but they haven't given up.

In the dark night of June 3, 1989, with gunshots heard and flares seen in the dark sky, Professor Ding Zilin (丁子霖) thought she had finally managed to lock up her restless son in their bathroom. But the seventeen year old high schooler outsmarted his parents. He climbed out of a window and headed to the streets. He was shot near MuXiDi (木樨地), at the western skirt of Beijing where the most fighting and death had taken place that night.

Since then, under tremendous pressure and constant harassment by the government, Ding organized and led the loosely-knit organization known as the Tiananmen Mothers, consisting parents (yes, mostly mothers) of victims who had died during the massacre. They painstakingly collected and documented 155 cases of death. They also helped to channel humanitarian funds from abroad to the victims' families.

But year after year, they have also petitioned the "Two Meetings" for a dialog and reconciliation. They have yet to receive a response.

Official Media Remembering Hu Yaobang

The great student movement of 1989 was triggered by the untimely death of former General Secretary Hu Yaobang (胡耀邦). Ever since then, it was a rare occasion that Hu's name would be mentioned in China's official media. One notable exception was that, in 2005, a moderate ceremony was held to commensurate the 90th anniversary of his birth. But perhaps due to the fact that the date of his death is so closely connected to the movement itself, there has been no activities on the anniversary of his death, on April 15th, 1989.

Maybe until now. It is still two months away from that anniversary but a very unusual essay praising Hu is being published in the official Xinhua Net. The article, originated from the News of the Communist Party of China, is titled "Hu Yaobang's Character as a Public Servant: Not Worrying about the Level of his Position, but Worrying about the Lack of Morality" (胡耀邦的公仆品质：不患位之不尊，而患德之不崇). It's a pretty lengthy appraisal of Hu's characters: modesty, open-mindedness, tolerance, and intelligence. It illustrates each of the character with some small stories of Hu's political life. The personal stories are interesting, but however not very revealing.

The beginning paragraph of the article is pretty telling:

Hu Yaobang has passed away for 19 years. But his voice and expression, his marvelous achievements, and his characters as a public servant are still deeply etched in people's memory. His virtues, noble character, integrity, and charisma, is still being widely praised.

胡耀邦辞世19年了，但他的音容笑貌，他的丰功伟绩，他的公仆品质，仍然深深铭刻在人们的记忆深处；他的良操美德，他的高风亮节，他的人格魅力，仍然被人们广为传颂。

In the coming months, will there be more to come?

Speak No Evil During the Olympics

It looks like the controversial mix of human rights and the Olympics will not be restricted just in China this year. British media is reporting that the British Olympic Committee is forcing a contract to their athletes, banning them from speaking up on China's human rights issues. Any athletes who refuses to sign the contract will not be allowed to travel to Beijing, or sent home right away should they be found in violation.

According to this report by the Daily Mail, New Zealand and Belgium have also censored their athletes, while countries including the United States, Canada, Finland, and Australia have pledged to stand by their athletes' rights of free speech.

A Portrait of Hu Jia

Melinda Liu of Newsweek just published a nice portrait of activist Hu Jia. It is interesting to note that "Hu's moment of awakening was the carnage of the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown on prodemocracy protesters", according to the article.