Human rights activist Guo Feixiong (real name Yang Maodong), who is committed to promoting constitutional reform in China and calling for deeper cooperation between the United States and China, sent an urgent open letter to Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Public Security Minister Zhao Kezhi, calling on them to order the Guangzhou Public Security Bureau to immediately return his passport so that he could travel to the United States to care for his wife after open-heart surgery because she is in urgent need of family care following cancer surgery in the United States. After Guo Feixiong’s open letter, which asked authorities to release him as soon as possible on humanitarian grounds, went viral on the Internet, much attention was paid to the follow-up on this matter.
Open letter calls for return of detained private passports
Guo Feixiong, an independent Chinese writer and civil scholar (Photo courtesy of Guo Feixiong)
According to Guo Feixiong’s open letter to Li Keqiang and Zhao Kezhi, Guo Feixiong’s wife Zhang Qing, who lives in the U.S. state of Maryland, just had major open heart surgery for colon cancer with liver metastases on January 9. In the open letter, Guo said he had to go to the United States immediately to do his best to take care of his wife and help her through the most dangerous and difficult point in her life. But his passport to travel abroad is being held by the Guangzhou Public Security Bureau in Guangdong Province, and, according to them last year, his right to travel abroad as a citizen requires their approval to do so.
In his open letter, Guo calls on Li Keqiang and Zhao Kezhi to use their enforcement powers in a way that is both natural and humane to help him resolve this critical and urgent difficulty, and to order the Guangzhou Public Security Bureau of Guangdong Province to return his passport as soon as possible and to refrain from any illegal obstruction. Guo Feixiong said, “The two servants are also husbands and loving couples, and must have common sense and empathy. Equally important, you and the government departments you represent have a duty to serve the vital and legitimate needs of Chinese citizens, and a duty to promptly monitor and correct the serious failures of your subordinates.”
Guo Feixiong further noted that freedom, democracy, fairness, justice, peace and development are the national consensus in China today. He sincerely hopes to see that all conscientious people in the Chinese government will make a stronger procedural push for the cause of human rights in China in the new year, so that all citizens’ freedom to travel abroad and other basic freedoms can be effectively protected.
Plea not yet granted
Guo Feixiong participates in a public debate on the streets of Guangzhou in January 2013 (online photo)
Guo Feixiong, 54, is considered a civil scholar who believes in democracy and freedom, and is a moderate and rational advocate for civil rights. He has been imprisoned four times and twice for defending human rights, defending Falun Gong, and demanding that the property of Chinese Communist Party officials be disclosed.
The open letter to Li Keqiang and Zhao Kezhi is a rare opportunity for Guo Feixiong to publicly urge authorities to help him defend his civil rights in a time of great family and personal hardship. However, Guo told VOA Wednesday night that he has not yet heard any response from Li Keqiang or Zhao Kezhi to his request for an open letter.
What VOA has learned so far is that the state security officer in charge of a section of the Guangzhou Public Security Bureau told Guo Feixiong that in principle he would not be prevented from urgently traveling to the U.S. to care for his wife, but that he would need approval from his superiors according to procedure. Guo pointed out that the procedure described by the state security guards does not preclude the authorities from illegally asking him to give up his political rights, and he urged them not to delay his urgent trip by making “unwarranted requests.
Guo Feixiong said he would first call on Li Keqiang and Zhao Kezhi, two public servants, to abandon black-box politics and do practical and important things for citizens in a simple and transparent manner. He said, “A citizen’s matter is a matter of great importance. Citizens’ matters of heaven, you, as a public servant, should lend a helping hand in time. If you lend a helping hand, I am bound to hold you in high, high gratitude. If you do not perform your duty, how will I look at you? So advise these two very high ranking public servants to abandon black box politics and move towards direct simple and primitive transparent politics.”
Wife cries for help for husband in US
In April 2009, Guo Feixiong’s wife, Zhang Qing, came to the U.S. via a third country with the help of the U.S. human rights organization China Aid Association and was granted political asylum by the U.S. government.
In October 2013, more than 80 days after Guo Feixiong was detained on suspicion of “gathering a crowd to disrupt a public place,” authorities still denied him access to his lawyer and family, and the U.S. Congress held hearings on the matter. During the hearing, Zhang Qing testified that her husband had been arrested and imprisoned four times for promoting social progress and defending civil rights in China, and that he had been tortured and put on a hunger strike on the previous occasions.
Guo’s fourth arrest came after he and a group of Guangdong citizens participated in a public street debate on the “constitutional dream” sparked by the Southern Weekend’s New Year’s message in early 2013. The then more outspoken official media in Guangdong Province, Southern Weekend, published a pro-constitutional New Year’s message based on its demand for the implementation of the Constitution by new Communist Party leader Xi Jinping, but it was censored and altered by the Communist Party’s propaganda department, prompting a collective protest by the newspaper’s editorial staff and a heated debate among many liberals and Maoist leftists.
Guo Feixiong: Guilt and Hurt
Earlier this week, Guo Feixiong disclosed to Voice of America that after his open letter to Li Keqiang and Zhao Kezhi was published, Guangzhou State Security asked his sister Yang Maoping the same day for a CT diagnosis of Zhang Qing’s condition, which showed that a colon tumor had metastasized in the liver and a lymphatic mass, and that the surgery could be much more serious than what was seen in the diagnosis.
Photo: Guo Feixiong’s wife Zhang Qing describes Guo Feixiong’s condition in prison (Photo by Fang Bing, Voice of America)
Guo Feixiong said that his wife Zhang Qing’s condition is causing him to worry and live like a child. He said, “I am a direct victim of the oppressive politics of the past 30 years, and I am the biggest victim of that clock of inhumane secret regulations that restrict the freedom to travel abroad.” He said, “The path I chose as a man to advance freedom and democracy, I was willing to take it all. And by refusing to leave the country twice, in 2012 and 2019, I showed what I was willing to take on. But a man like me would not want my wife and children to suffer major consequences in their lives. I definitely did not expect such a major calamity to befall my head, my most admired and dearest wife. She is so kind and introspective. She has taken on so much for us. She also drummed up a spirit of resistance in a generation of women. Alas, I have done so little for my wife. I’m guilty. I’m hurting.”
Guo Feixiong also appealed to the public security authorities with whom he dealt to use their loyalty to help with his immediate needs.
Multiple parties concerned about developments
Guo Feixiong’s open letter seeking help from Li Keqiang and Zhao Kezhi because his passport had been detained by the Guangzhou Public Security Bureau and he was unable to obtain a visa to the U.S. has been widely circulated online and has attracted the attention of international media and human rights organizations and the sympathy of many netizens.
Ge Xun, a volunteer for the U.S. NGO Humane China (Photo by Ge Xun)
Ge Xun, an NGO volunteer in San Francisco and former president of Humane China, expressed concern about Guo Feixiong’s current situation. He personally called on Premier Li Keqiang, Minister Zhao Kezhi and other Chinese officials to immediately return Guo Feixiong’s personal passport and process his travel to the United States as soon as possible in a humanitarian manner, putting aside political considerations.
Speaking to VOA, Ge Xun said that Guo Feixiong has always been a moderate and rational person who has been influential both at home and abroad as a selfless and dedicated citizen who has defended the rights of citizens and enhanced the civilization of Chinese society, and who has endured personal and family hardships that he should not have had to endure, and that Communist Party officials should take this opportunity to show goodwill and unconditionally grant him the right to travel abroad and care for his loved ones.
Mr. Guo Feixiong has been persecuted and suppressed for a long time. He has been imprisoned twice for fighting for basic human rights and freedom and democracy and respecting universal values, all for some very absurd reasons,” Ge Xun said. He is now a normal citizen, and he should have the right to leave the country. Especially when his family has suffered so much hardship and so much pain, I hope the Chinese government will issue him a Chinese passport in the most basic spirit of genuine concern and humanitarianism to help facilitate his travel to the United States.”
Given the visa restrictions during the epidemic, Guo Feixiong hoped that the visa department at the U.S. Embassy and Consulate in China would expedite the visa process for him and his sister Yang Maoping to travel to the United States.
In an interview with the Voice of America on August 7, 2019, after his release from prison, Guo Feixiong urged Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping to carry out political reforms and called for deeper cooperation between the U.S. and China.
Some analysts believe that at this delicate time of political party turnover in the United States and the imminent possibility of a new situation in U.S.-China relations, Beijing authorities may be deliberating on Guo Feixiong’s trip to the United States, trying not to create problems for the still-uncertain opportunity to improve relations with Washington.
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