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He vows to continue research into Maoist Cultural Revolution
Wednesday, February 02, 2000
By Bill Schackner, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
CARLISLE, Pa. - If Song Yongyi felt despair during 174 days in a Chinese jail, it wasn't from withering interrogations or lack of sleep but from discovering who had been put in a nearby cell.
His wife and childhood sweetheart, Helen Yao, was weak and growing ill on account of him, Chinese security told the Dickinson College librarian. He could end her suffering once and for all by admitting the research documents he had purchased were state secrets.
Song, 50, said his heart sank.
"That shocked me. I had thought she was back in the United States," he said. "The thoughts that came to mind. Should I say something fake? Should I make something up? But then I thought, 'They still might not let her go.' "
So instead of confessing, Song decided to call their bluff by insisting to see her.
The agents refused. And the war of wills resumed between the Chinese government and a stubborn expert on the Cultural Revolution who insisted that research documents he had gathered from the period were hardly a national security threat.
Eventually, he was allowed to see his wife twice while he was being held, once in September and then again in November, just before she was allowed to leave China and return to the couple's Carlisle home.
Song was released by the Beijing government Friday following an international outcry. He will be honored by the campus in a welcome home ceremony today.
He recounted his captivity yesterday in an interview from the home that he and his wife share just off campus here.
Dressed casually in a red V-neck sweater and gray slippers, he seemed healthy and in good spirits.
He even managed to emerge from jail at his typical weight of 170 pounds.
Song said the agents tried to weaken his resolve with threats of lengthy imprisonment. But he was not physically mistreated, he said.
There were even times when he cracked jokes with his interrogators who became familiar faces over time. And a few of them asked him for language tips.
"They asked me to teach them English," he said, letting out a hearty laugh at the thought.
His detention while on a research trip sponsored by Dickinson sent a shudder through the international network of China scholars and caught the attention of Congress.
But Song said those who saw a threat to research freedom should actually be heartened by the Communist government's decision to drop the charges against him.
"I don't think scholars of China should worry about my case because it's over. We won," he said.
Song vowed to pursue release of other scholars jailed in the country. He said he'll continue his research though he doubts he'll be allowed back into China.
Song is a Chinese native.
As a young man, he tried to start a book club and, as a result, was sent to prison for five years during the Cultural Revolution, a brutal Maoist decade that ran from 1966 to 1976 when millions of Chinese citizens where persecuted or killed.
He came to the United States in 1989 and completed the requirements for citizenship but has yet to take the oath. He had planned to do so last September.
Song had made previous trips to China in 1996 and 1998, but this latest journey turned frightening on Aug. 7. That's when Chinese security agents swooped down on him in the Beijing hotel where he and his wife were staying.
"They said, 'Are you Mr. Song?' They said, 'There is something important that needs investigation.' They said, 'You have to go with us,' " Song recalled.
Over the next several hours, he was interrogated about his research into one of China's most sensitive periods.
He was asked about his purchase of fliers promoting communist speeches from the period and newspapers published by Mao's radical Red Guard supporters.
"They said 'Your study of the Cultural Revolution is a great danger to the national security,' " Song said.
The agents told him the Red Guard newspapers were "intelligence," and the fliers were state secrets. When Song protested that the materials were easily available in street markets and in book stores both then and now, the agents were unimpressed.
"They said, 'At that time they were not secrets, but we could reclassify them as secrets. In your case, they're state secrets,'" he said.
Song's first month of captivity was in a 12-foot cell in which he and three other detainees slept on one large bed. Their meals were slid through an opening in the wall and they were not allowed to leave the cell except for two 30-minute sunlight breaks each day.
His captors took his bifocals, leaving him with blurred vision and headaches.
There was not enough room to exercise. "I'd just sit. Sometimes I didn't want to think about too many things," he said.
He worried about his wife and daughter Michelle, 18, a freshman at Carnegie Mellon University.
He also worried about his career.
"I'm 50 years old. That's the golden age for a scholar. If they put me in [prison] for five or 10 years, I'd waste a lot of valuable time," he said.
After a month in which Song continued to maintain his innocence, he was moved to better accommodations and was allowed to watch television. His glasses were returned.
But two guards stayed in the room with him around the clock.
In November, he was allowed to see his wife before she was released so she could return to the states.
Upon her return to Carlisle, she mobilized a campaign to get her husband back.
Then, on Christmas Eve, Song was formally charged with "the purchase and illegal provision of intelligence to foreigners."
He was returned to a more spartan cell. His glasses were taken from him a second time.
Unable to see the television in the cell in front of him, he listened one day as a Chinese newscaster spoke about a visit several members of Congress had with Chinese President Jiang Zemin.
Song didn't realize his case was a topic on their agenda.
He also did not know the worldwide media attention he was attracting.
On Jan. 25, the Chinese Foreign Ministry claimed that Song had confessed, something Song steadfastly denies.
Then, on Friday, the government did an about-face.
It repeated its claim that Song was guilty but said it would not pursue the case, "in view of his repentance and meritorious service," without explaining what that meant.
Song Yongyi and his wife, Helen Yao, stand in front of the paintings in their Carlisle home Tuesday. She painted the artwork prior to her husband's imprisonment in China. (Kalim A. Bhatti, for the Post-Gazette)