DATE=1/29/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=CHINA - SCHOLAR (L)
NUMBER=2-258554
BYLINE=ROGER WILKISON
DATELINE=BEIJING
CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO:    A Chinese researcher based in the United 
States has been freed by Chinese authorities and sent 
back to America after being detained for nearly six 
months on charges of smuggling state secrets out of 
China.   VOA correspondent Roger Wilkison reports U-S 
legislators and academics mounted a strong campaign 
for the release of Song Yongyi, saying his continued 
detention could affect an upcoming vote in the U-S 
Congress on Beijing's trade relations with Washington.

TEXT:  Western diplomats in Beijing say they have no 
doubt that Mr. Song's release Friday was a gesture by 
Chinese authorities ahead of the Congressional vote 
later this year on whether or not China should enjoy 
permanent normal trading status in the United States.

China wants the Congress to stop reviewing its low-
tariff trading privileges on an annual basis and grant 
it those rights permanently as part of a deal that 
will allow Beijing to join the World Trade 
Organization.

A pro-trade congressional delegation that visited 
Beijing earlier this month urged Chinese President 
Jiang Zemin to release Mr. Song and remove an obstacle 
to improving US-China relations.  More than 100 China 
scholars in the United States and elsewhere also 
appealed for Mr. Song's freedom. 

Mr. Song was put aboard a Detroit-bound flight 
Saturday morning.

The 50-year-old researcher is a librarian at Dickinson 
College in the U-S state of Pennsylvania.  He is also 
an expert on China's chaotic Cultural Revolution in 
the 1960's and 1970's, when supreme leader Mao Zedong 
unleashed a wave of violence against his enemies in 
the Communist Party and sought to stir up 
revolutionary zeal.  His associates say Mr. Song was 
collecting publications from that period for his 
research when he was detained by Chinese authorities 
last August.  In December, Mr. Song was formally 
arrested on charges of smuggling state secrets out of 
the country.  

Earlier this week, a Chinese spokesman said Mr. Song 
had sent 320 kilograms of documents containing secrets 
out of China.  The spokesman said Mr. Song had -in his 
words- confessed everything and would face criminal 
proceedings.  Under China's vaguely worded state 
secrets law, anything not published in the official 
news media or disclosed by a government or party 
officials can be labeled a state secret.

The Cultural Revolution still remains a sensitive 
subject for the Chinese government.  At a time when it 
is seeking to shore up its authority, the Communist 
Party has been reluctant to allow any debate on Mao 
Zedong's excesses during the final years of his life.  
It is even more hesitant to permit any investigation 
of the ambiguous role during that period of the late 
Premier Zhou Enlai, whom some scholars say did not do 
enough to prevent the turmoil unleashed by Mao.  Zhou 
is still seen in China as the embodiment of Communist 
virtues, and his official reputation is spotless.  
(signed)

Neb/RW/PLM



29-Jan-2000 01:27 AM EDT (29-Jan-2000 0627 UTC)
NNNN

Source: Voice of America
.