From: Bo Xiong <xiong@BSU-CS.BSU.EDU>
Subject:      Returning Dissident Detained, But Other Expatriates Welcome
Reply-To: Bo Xiong <xiong@BSU-CS.BSU.EDU>
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1992 07:01:32 GMT
Comments: To: china-nt@uga.cc.uga.edu

The following is carried in Sept 5's CND-Global:
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2. China: Returning Dissident Detained, But Other Expatriates Welcome ...60
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From: A CND Reader
Source: UPI 9/04/92

BEIJING (UPI) -- Officials Friday announced Chinese students abroad
are welcome to come home "regardless of past political attitude," even
though police this week seized a recently returned dissident for anti-
government activities.

Authorities Tuesday detained Shen Tong -- who returned to his
communist homeland last month after three years of self-exile in the
United States -- hours before he planned to give a news conference about
plans to resume pro-democracy activities.

Friday, the official Xinhua news agency denied Shen, 24, had been
arrested -- claiming police only had him under "surveillance and
investigation" at an unspecified residence. Authorities have told
Shen's mother that her son is in "supervisory detention," but have not
allowed her to see him.

Xinhua alleged Shen, who fled China in the wake of the 1989 Tiananmen
Square massacre, had engaged in "illegal activities in collaboration
with foreigners" since returning home.

Before his seizure, Shen had hoped to register a branch of his human-
rights organization, the Newton, Mass.-based Democracy for China Fund,
with the Beijing government.

But Xinhua Friday called the fund an "illegal organization," and
said Tuesday's incident had been "carefully planned abroad" to
recharge the Chinese exile movement.

Shen's seizure has drawn widespread foreign condemnation, and
contrasts China's recent appeals to expatriate students to come home and
participate in the country's economic reforms. Shen was the first
Tiananmen pro-democracy leader to return to China.

All told, just a third of 170,000 students and researchers who have
gone overseas in the past 10 or 15 years have ever come home.

Friday's Xinhua dispatch acknowledged the expatriates' fears of
persecution, but tried to reassure students they can return to China
without incident.

"They are welcome regardless of their past political attitude,
whether or not they participated in anti-Chinese government
organizations abroad, engaged in actions which jeopardized China's
security or harmed the nation's reputation and interests," Xinhua said.

However, the dispatch warned returning students must withdraw from
groups deemed anti-government, and can "no longer participate in anti-
government activities" once coming home.

Xinhua made no mention of two other dissidents, Qi Dafeng and Qian
Liyun, who police detained along with Shen.

But it said two French journalists and American scholar Ross Terrill,
who authorities deported after Shen's detention, had been expelled for
"activities incompatible" with their status as tourists.

According to Xinhua, Terrill's offense had been giving foreign
reporters a statement about Shen's planned news conference.

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Newsgroups: talk.politics.china