MCLC: Yu Jie continues his mission

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: Yu Jie continues his mission
***********************************************************

Source: NYT (2/25/12):
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/world/asia/yu-jie-dissident-chinese-write
r-continues-his-work-in-us.html

>From Virginia Suburb, a Dissident Chinese Writer Continues His Mission
By EDWARD WONG

FAIRFAX, Va. ‹ If the place that the Chinese writer Yu Jie and his family
live in nowadays, a modest house in this pleasant Northern Virginia
suburb, seems ordinary, the story of what brought them here is anything
but.

In January, Mr. Yu, one of the foremost critics of China¹s leadership,left
China after months of abuse, house arrest and round-the-clock surveillance
by the state. At its worst, it was flat-out torture: in a detention cell,
security officers bent back Mr. Yu¹s fingers one by one, kicked him in the
chest and held burning cigarettes close to his face, he said.

³If the order comes from above, we can dig a pit to bury you alive in half
an hour, and no one on earth would know,² Mr. Yu said the head officer
told him.

Mr. Yu fainted and was taken to a hospital, where doctors pulled him from
death¹s door, he said. That was on Dec. 9, 2010. Months later, after
returning home, he talked to family and friends about leaving China.

³I said multiple times before that as long as my life was not threatened,
I would not leave China,² he said in the two-story house where he and his
family live, which belongs to a church friend. ³But after Liu Xiaobo¹s
arrest, I was tortured by the government and almost lost my life.²

Mr. Liu, one of Mr. Yu¹s closest friends, wrote Charter 08, a manifesto
calling for gradual political reforms, and was sentenced in 2009 to 11
years in prison, a move that contributed to Mr. Liu¹s being awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize the next year. Mr. Yu, 38, was placed under house arrest
in Beijing in October 2010, five days after the Nobel committee announced
Mr. Liu¹s award, and then, in December, was detained. He was tortured for
three hours.

Mr. Yu is one of several prominent Chinese intellectuals to have chosen a
path of self-exile because of the hardening of the state against voices of
dissent.

Though there are dissidents like Mr. Liu who maintain they will never
leave China, Mr. Yu said his friends supported his decision. ³They said
the situation for people like us is going to get worse, not better,² he
said.

The security apparatus is on full alert this year during a once-a-decade
leadership transition in China, when the Communist Party reshuffles its
top officials.

The last of Mr. Yu¹s 11 books was an attack on Prime Minister Wen Jiabao,
whom many Chinese praise as having an empathic character. But Mr. Yu
argued in ³China¹s Best Actor: Wen Jiabao² that that was merely a
construct intended to fool ordinary Chinese. He said he did not expect
much better from Xi Jinping, who is likely to be China¹s next president,
and those who surround him. Mr. Xi went on a carefully choreographed
five-day tour of the United States this month.

³The country¹s leader is simply a guy selected by a few of the most
powerful families in China to work for them,² Mr. Yu said. ³It¹s because
they¹re in this power scheme together, and because they benefit from it,
and because the social conflict in China is a lot sharper now. To maintain
the status quo, they¹ll do whatever they can.²

Mr. Yu is finishing two books scheduled to be published this year in Hong
Kong. One is a critique of Hu Jintao, the current president, and the other
is a biography of Mr. Liu.

³I think I truly became a political dissident after 1999, when I became
friends with Liu Xiaobo and took part in the following decade or so in all
the activities he did for human rights in China,² Mr. Yu said.

His political education actually began in his hometown, Chengdu. ³I was 16
during the 1989 protests, and this had a big impact on me,² he said. ³I
didn¹t take part, but every night we would listen to BBC and the Voice of
America.²

Mr. Yu studied modern Chinese literature at Peking University. He began
writing essays and passed around printouts and photocopies to friends.

He was labeled a literary sensation when his first book, ³Fire and Ice,²
appeared in 1998. It was a scathing work of social and political criticism
that the China scholar Geremie R. Barmé
<http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/people/personal/barmg_pah.php> called
³undoubtedly the most provocative book of its kind to have appeared in
years.²

Mr. Yu even quoted Mr. Liu in his book, which Mr. Barmé noted was
apparently the first time someone on the mainland had publicly cited him
in a positive light in years. Mr. Liu had been sentenced in 1996 to three
years of hard labor for his writings.

Mr. Yu¹s writings were packaged with those of two other intellectuals. Liu
Xia, the wife of Liu Xiaobo, gave her husband the books while he was in
prison ³to show that a younger generation of writers was active,² Mr. Yu
said. But Mr. Liu published a harsh critique of the writings.

Nevertheless, another prominent writer, Liao Yiwu, arranged a dinner in
Beijing where Mr. Liu and Mr. Yu met. A working friendship was born. The
two wrote together and led theIndependent Chinese PEN Center
<http://www.chinesepen.org/English>. Their relationship extended through
the writing of Charter 08, when Mr. Yu discussed drafts with Mr. Liu. Mr.
Yu, who converted to Christianity in 2003, said he had extensive input on
the part about religious freedom.

³Christianity gives me a very strong basis for my faith,² he said. ³I
don¹t think that democracy can be a faith. Only a more ultimate goal would
allow me to withstand all the difficulties I¹ve gone through.²

Mr. Yu said his work with Mr. Liu had been a focus of his interrogation in
December 2010. ³They asked in detail about articles I had written in the
past 10 years,² he said. ³They asked a lot of questions about my
interaction with Liu Xiaobo and the mothers of Tiananmen Square victims,
and they asked about my trips abroad.²

He said the interrogators also singled out the biography of Mr. Liu that
he was writing and the book about Mr. Wen.

Four days after being tortured, Mr. Yu was released but forced to stay in
Chengdu for three months. Even after returning to Beijing, he was told by
officers to leave the capital during certain times, like the annual
anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Whenever one of his articles was published in Hong Kong, officers would
show up to harass him in Beijing, he said. He began thinking about leaving
last spring, and got permission last month, he said. Officials probably
believed it would be better to have him outside China in this transition
year, Mr. Yu said. Officers accompanied him, his wife, Liu Min, and their
son, Yu Guangyi, to the Beijing airport boarding gate and took their
picture.

And how will he remain relevant while outside China? Mr. Yu said he
believed the Internet would help. He has a Twitter account, @yujie89, with
nearly 30,000 followers. (He said he preferred not to use Chinese
microblogs because of censorship.)

Mr. Yu said his immediate goals were to apply for asylum and finish the
two books due this year. Then he plans to work on a book about the history
of Christianity in China.

³Maybe in a couple years I¹ll have a green card, and maybe I¹ll become an
American citizen,² he said. ³But I see my career and lifelong goal as
achieving democracy and freedom in China. And so my goal is to eventually
return to China.²