From: "JAMES J. CEN" <phsjjc@EMRYCC.CC.EMORY.EDU>
Subject:      Forward: Shen Tong? (IX)
Reply-To: "JAMES J. CEN" <phsjjc@EMRYCC.CC.EMORY.EDU>
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 02:59:00 GMT
Comments: cc: soc-culture-china <soc-culture-china@cs.utexas.edu>,
              talk-politics-china <talk-politics-china@cs.utexas.edu>

Dear Netters:

	The following is a report in the Oct. 29 issue of Boston Globe
on Shen Tong's press conference.  You are welcome to comment on it.  I
will offer an analysis of this interesting piece of reporting in a few
days and will send the gathered opinions (including my own) to the reporters.

James J. Cen
Emory University
===========================================================================
Chinese dissident Shen Tong describes weeks in captivity

By Charles A. Radin
GLOBE STAFF

and Betsy Q. M. Tong
Contributing Reporter

Communism in China is a dead shell, waiting to be swept
away, according to the dissident student leader Shen Tong,
who returned to Greater Boston Sunday after almost two
months in custody in Beijing.

In a news conference yesterday at Democracy for China
Foundation offices in Newton, Shen and Ross Terrill - a
South End-based author and scholar expelled from China
when Shen was arrested - said Chinese society is evolving
in ways similar to Eastern Europe be fore the fall of
communism there.

Appearing pale but speaking resolutely after being held
incommunicado by Chinese authorities for 54 days, Shen,
a graduate student at Boston University, said he and
dissidents with whom he met throughout China held "a
shared belief that China is ready to move forward."
"It is important for the exiled democracy movement to
reach back ... to stand with those who struggle on the
mainland," he asserted.

But even as Shen recounted how police interrogators who
had tried to bully him backed down when he answered
them aggressively, he was under growing fire at the news
conference and in the exile community generally.
Older Chinese scholars and reporters for some Chinese-
language media appeared at the news conference or called
reporters to assail Shen's claim to a leading role in China's
pro-democracy movement, the movement whose
repression on Tiananmen Square in 1989 created the exile
community.

Shen has "greatly exaggerated his own importance," said
Huang Yasheng, a former activist in the China Information
Center, from which Shen's Democracy for China
Foundation arose. "As Chairman Mao said, 'Revolution is
not a tea party.' But it should not be a press conference
either."

Huang repeated unconfirmed reports circulating among
Chinese exiles that Shen's trip had caused arrests of other
dissidents on the mainland, and accused Shen of misusing
China Information Center funds.

The abuse-of-funds charges were similar to those lodged
against Wu'er Kaixi, another, better-known pro-democracy
activist who ran afoul of Huang and other senior Chinese
graduate students two years ago. The Information Center
collapsed during the charges and countercharges; the
foundation which arose with Shen in the leadership
position never won support among the senior Chinese
here.

The split in the exile community is over policy as well as
personalities and personal styles. The younger students and
their supporters among American politicians generally feel
the United States should confront and oppose China as it
did the Soviet Union on human rights issue9. The older
exiles in general believe progress toward democracy is
being made in China, and support the US policy of
continued friendly engagement with China despite the
regime's shortcomings.

Shen and Marshall Strauss, the foundation's executive
director, sharply, sometime9 angrily, dismissed the critical
allegations yesterday. They asserted that Shen has never
overstated his role in the pro-democracy movement. They
said dissidents who met with Shen prior to his confinement
by Chinese authorities on Sept. 1 knew whom they were
meeting and were aware of the risks involved.
Shen said he was taken by Chinese officials to the top
floor of a local hotel and confined there, under heavy
guard, without any formal charges being placed against
him.

He said he was not tortured or physically harmed, but that
he was interrogated for long periods of time, not allowed
to go out, and not allowed to have news or contact with his
family.

"But they got nowhere," Shen said. At times his
questioners tried to have him believe he would be
sentenced to a long prison term, Shen said, but he
responded that they should "remember what happened to
the police of East Germany and the KGB.... You will all
be judged by history."

This, Shen said, produced a less threatening round of
conversations that eventually led to his release.
===========================TO BE CONTINUED==============================
Newsgroups: talk.politics.china