Chinese Dissident Returns to U.S.ANDREW MIGA WASHINGTON (AP) -- A Boston-based democracy activist who has returned home from China after being jailed for five years says although he was treated harshly at times by his captors, he's still optimistic about China's future. Yang Jianli said he was forced to sit straight on a bench for four hours every day for a year and a half. He was beaten once. He was handcuffed for two weeks. He was denied the chance to go outside for fresh air during several stretches, the longest eight months. Despite such treatment, Yang said, he's sure China is on a path to democracy. "Nobody can stop the process," he said Monday in a telephone interview with The Associated Press from his Brookline, Mass. home. "The problem is how long and how much a price the Chinese people have to pay." He was greeted by his wife and 12-year-old son upon arriving Saturday night in Boston. His jailers hinted at one point that they had been taken into custody. "I worried very much about them," he said. "I'm very happy to be in a free country together with my family." Yang, 44, a Harvard scholar, served a five-year prison term on charges of spying for rival Taiwan and entering China illegally. He was released from prison in April, but he was refused a passport to leave until recently. China is seeking to show a warmer face to the world as the 2008 Beijing Olympics near, Yang said. "They don't want to show the true face, the ugly face," he said. "They still have a very bad human rights record." Human rights groups and top U.S. officials, including President Bush and prominent members of Congress such as Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., had championed Yang's case. Yang co-founded the Foundation for China in the 21st Century, a group that advocates political change in China. Communist authorities view such groups as threats to their monopoly on power. He was part of the pro-democracy Tiananmen Square student protests in 1989. In 2001 he earned a doctorate at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Yang, a Chinese citizen who is a legal permanent resident of the U.S., was detained in 2002 while traveling around China meeting with activists and laid-off workers. The espionage charges appear to stem from four $100 grants given to student researchers by a group that Yang founded in 1992 while attending the University of California-Berkeley. Chinese prosecutors alleged the grants were funded by someone in Taiwan's government. The island split with China in 1949 and the two spy actively on each other. Yang's family denied the spying accusations but acknowledged he was traveling in China with a friend's identity card, which made his entry into the country illegal. They said Yang was forced to do so because he was banned from China after participating in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests that were crushed by a military crackdown. Yang plans to return to China to resume his pro-democracy efforts, but he's not sure when. He said it's even possible he might enter the political arena there, but for now he wants to spend time with his family. (This version CORRECTS SUBS 11th graf to correct Yang earned Harvard doctorate in 2001, sted 1991.) -------------------------- |