Anti-China Marcher Brings Long-Distance Message to City

The idea of walking 500 miles to Washington, D.C., from Boston to protest human rights abuses in China came to political dissident Yang Jianli as he was sitting in a prison cell in China, unsure if he would ever be released. After five years, he was, and now Mr. Yang is making good on his promise to march down the East Coast to remind Americans and his fellow Chinese immigrants that many dissidents are locked up in China without hope of ever getting out.

In white sneakers and a T-shirt printed with the slogan of his walk, Human Rights for China, Mr. Yang arrived in New York during the weekend to spread his message. Since he set off early this month, that message has inevitably become infused with the latest news from China, including an earthquake that has devastated Sichuan province, and the upcoming Beijing Olympics.

He is criticizing government corruption that he says has been unveiled by the earthquake, while his journey is a smaller version of the Olympic torch's march around the world to China.

He says his march is about promoting freedom, while he says the torch's journey has come to symbolize the Chinese government's repression.

Yesterday morning at a stop in Flushing, he was greeted by a raucous crowd of supporters dressed in blue vests and waving the striped flags of the China Democracy Party. Many wore T-shirts with another favored phrase of Mr. Yang, Gong Lin Li Liang, meaning citizen power.

"Citizens must have a voice," he said.

Until they do, Mr. Yang says he is speaking for the powerless whose homes may be bulldozed to make way for the Olympics, Tibetans who have been rioting for freedom, and the other dissidents he left behind in prison.

Mr. Yang, who holds dual doctorates from the University of California at Berkeley and Harvard, was arrested six years ago for his participation in the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989. He fled China shortly after the protests, but was picked up when he returned to research labor issues in 2002 after finishing his doctorate in political economy at Harvard. He was released in August last year.

Mr. Yang thanks America for his freedom, attributing the Chinese government's decision to stop torturing him and eventually to set him free to pressure from Congress.

But he doesn't hold back from criticizing America, too. Mr. Yang compares the willingness to participate in the 2008 Olympics to participation in the 1936 Olympics, held in Nazi Germany. He has also said he is disappointed in disclosures that prisoners held by American military and intelligence agencies have been tortured, something he says has egged on the Chinese government to continue its torture of political dissidents.

Along his way to D.C., Mr. Yang says he has found many supporters. With him at the rally yesterday in Flushing was the 19-year-old daughter of another political dissident who was arrested at around the same time he was, and who remains in jail.

Ti-Anna Wang, who was born in Canada and named in honor of the Tiananmen Square protests, said her father, Dr. Bing Zhang Wang, a lung surgeon, has been held in solitary confinement on terrorism and espionage charges for six years. He was picked up while traveling in Vietnam.

In Flushing, Ms. Wang was joined by her brother and as many as 200 other pro-democracy demonstrators.

Before Mr. Yang arrived yesterday, the rally had gotten off to a rocky start.

Mr. Yang's supporters briefly clashed with a group of Chinese government supporters; they shouted at each other for about half an hour at a major intersection on Main Street.

"This is a mistake, they are wrong," one man shouted toward the Yang supporters.

"They're anti-Chinese and they're taking advantage of the earthquake," a Chinese college student studying in Michigan, Qundi Li, 23, said.

A member of the China Democracy Party, Richard Yang, 46, responded: "I respect their right to speak. But I disagree with them because they're totally brainwashed."

Eventually, the pro-China group filtered away as Mr. Yang's blue-vested supporters clustered around him.

He seemed unconcerned by the small backlash.

"We agree more than we disagree. We just have to sit down and have a dialogue," he said of the pro-government protesters, before he continued his journey on to Manhattan and southward to Washington. There, he will hold a rally on the 19th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, June 4.

Ms. Wang, who was born the same year, said she hopes Mr. Yang's walk will bring more attention to the plight of people like her father, although she said she wasn't sure if it would change the minds of Chinese citizens who support their government.

Asked what would, she said, "It will have to be international pressure."