The disappearance of Chinese human rights activist Guo Feixiong, who was intercepted while traveling to the United States to care for his cancer-stricken wife, continues to attract the attention of the international academic community. More than forty Western sinologists, senior media professionals, and overseas Chinese scholars have issued an open letter to Chinese leaders Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang calling on Beijing authorities to allow Guo Feixiong to travel to the United States to be with his wife. These Western scholars and overseas Chinese who have long studied China are deeply concerned about Guo Feixiong’s personal safety and that of his troubled Family.
International academic community unites to urge Beijing to release him
The open letter, written in English to President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang, was published online Tuesday (Feb. 9) and has now been signed by more than 40 people, including China experts and overseas Chinese scholars from the United States, France, Australia and New Zealand, as well as several International Students, media professionals and democracy activists from China, now in the United States and Canada.
We, the international scholars of Chinese affairs who have signed this open letter, request that your government allow Yang Maodong (pseudonym Guo Feixiong) to travel to the United States to care for his wife, Zhang Qing,” the open letter said. Zhang Qing is a permanent resident of the United States and is receiving treatment for cancer.”
The open letter continued, “Mr. Yang is widely respected for his efforts to promote the rule of law in China.”
The brief open letter concludes by stating that U.S. permanent resident Zhang Qing needs the support of her husband to face a serious health challenge. They are asking the Chinese government to allow Yang Maodong to travel to the United States and come to her side.
Li Anyou: Zhang Qing Needs Her Husband’s Companionship to Face Challenges
In a telephone interview with the Voice of America last Thursday (Feb. 4), Guo Feixiong’s wife, Zhang Qing, disclosed that the results of her post-surgery review in the hospital were worse than expected, and that the cancer had spread, making a second surgery impossible as originally planned, but only chemotherapy.
Andrew J. Nathan, a professor of political science at Columbia University, is one of the co-signers of the open letter. He told VOA that Guo’s wife, Zhang Qing, is in the United States, seriously ill and in need of support from her husband. He also said that as a human being he should be concerned about the situation of Guo Feixiong and his wife.
“I hope the Beijing government will allow Guo Feixiong to come to the United States to be with his wife.” Lai said, “Because his wife is seriously ill. She is in the United States, so the husband needs to accompany his wife to face this challenge. But the Chinese government didn’t let Guo Feixiong leave China to come to the United States to help his wife. So, we just thought we should let him come to the U.S.”
According to a text message sent by Guo Feixiong to the Voice of America on Jan. 28, Chinese customs border control banned him from leaving the country on the grounds that he was “suspected of endangering national security.”
According to American sinologist Professor Li Anyou, Guo Feixiong has remained in China since his release from prison and has not left the country, nor has he mastered the so-called state secrets.
Guo Feixiong’s wife, Zhang Qing, is a U.S. permanent resident who has been granted political asylum in the United States. Guo and Zhang’s daughter, Yang Tianjiao, has become a U.S. citizen, and Guo and his wife are immediate relatives of U.S. citizens.
An-You Lai believes that the United States has a responsibility to be concerned about the safety of Guo Feixiong and the well-being of his family.
U.S.-based Chinese scholar: It’s common for couples to meet
Wang Tiancheng, another co-signer of the open letter and director of the New York-based Institute for the Transformation of Democracy in China, told Voice of America that it was absurd that Guo Feixiong was charged with allegedly endangering national security when he went to the United States to care for his sick wife for family reasons.
It’s a joke,” he said. But that’s what it’s always done. This doesn’t exist a jeopardize national security, and Guo Feixiong came out this Time, very obviously because of his wife.”
Song Yongyi, a U.S.-based Chinese scholar and UCLA professor who is dedicated to the study of the history of the Cultural Revolution, also signed the open letter. He told Voice of America that he hopes Beijing’s top brass will allow Guo Feixiong’s family to be reunited. He said, “And be able to allow the couple to at least meet while his wife is still alive. Right? This, I think, is a human condition.”
Guo Feixiong wrote two open letters to senior Communist Party officials before his disappearance, appealing to the authorities to put their hearts in their mouths, pointing out that all public servants are also human husbands and must have common sense and empathy, and should be able to imagine and understand his heartbreaking pain.
Song Yongyi said that the Chinese authorities’ action to intercept Guo Feixiong’s family at the airport during their most difficult time was unacceptable to anyone, including Xi Jinping himself. He said, for example, that if the same thing had happened to Xi and his wife, Xi would have called it a fascist act.
Song Yongyi: A Warning to the International Community
Born in Shanghai in 1949, Song Yongyi studied in the United States after China’s reopening, and was arrested and imprisoned for six months in 1999 when he returned to China from the United States to collect information on the Cultural Revolution. At that time, more than 100 European, American and Australian scholars signed an open letter to the Chinese authorities in order to rescue him, and Beijing released him under the pressure of international public opinion.
Song Yongyi expressed his hope that the appeal of international public opinion would also help Guo Feixiong exercise his civil right to leave the country freely this time, but he also pointed out that the situation of human rights and rule of law in China today is a big regression compared to the era of Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, and how Guo Feixiong’s case will develop is not optimistic, but there is still a need for all parties to speak out and urge Beijing to change its position of disregarding human rights and humanity.
According to the scholar of modern Chinese history, Guo Feixiong’s case tests the bottom line of the Chinese Communist Party‘s anti-humanitarian approach and sends a warning to the international community, including Western multinational capitalists who would rather invest in mainland China at the expense of universal values in pursuit of petty profits.
Wang Tiancheng: Beijing should take the opportunity to turn around its international image
Wang Tiancheng, a former lecturer at Peking University’s Law Department (now Peking University Law School) and editor of Peking University’s Chinese and Foreign Law Journal, was arrested in October 1992 and sentenced to five years in prison for his involvement in the creation of the “China Freedom and Democracy Party”. Since his release from prison in October 1997, he has published several books on China’s democratic transformation, especially since coming to the United States in 2008.
Wang told VOA that Guo Feixiong’s trip to the United States to care for his sick wife was originally for purely personal and family reasons, and that even his criticism of the Chinese government was his civil right. It is up to the Chinese Communist Party leaders to be flexible in their handling of this crisis.
A week ago, in a rare joint effort, more than 20 Chinese intellectuals and citizens sent an open letter to Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang and Li Zhanshu, urging them to reach out to Guo Feixiong and his wife and allow him to travel to the United States to be with his sick wife.
The letter stated that Guo Feixiong was very grateful for the consent and full cooperation of the public security authorities in Guangdong Province, Guangzhou City, Hubei Province and Wuhan City in the process of his wife’s cancer removal surgery, which urgently required him to accompany her abroad, but he was prevented from leaving the country at the last minute and has been missing since.
The letter states that Guo’s wife, Zhang Qing, was looking forward to her husband’s trip to the United States and had recovered from his first surgery, but she was devastated by Guo’s interception and loss of contact.
The letter said that Guo Feixiong’s hunger strike, which was a result of his anger at being prevented from leaving the country, has led to a tragic human tragedy if left unchecked without strong intervention. The letter argues that avoiding this tragedy and saving Guo Feixiong and his wife is a minimum of humanity, and that national leaders “should not turn a deaf ear to a possible human tragedy.”
Chen Guangcheng: Fears Repeat of Gao Zhisheng’s “Evaporated” Death
The Chinese government has remained silent on the public outrage over the loss of Guo Feixiong, who was intercepted while traveling to the United States to care for his sick wife.
Chen Guangcheng, a blind legal scholar in the United States, is concerned that if the outside world does not step up its voice to pressure the Chinese Communist Party authorities, Guo Feixiong, who has been missing for days, may repeat the mistake of human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, who has been missing for more than three years.
Gao Zhisheng disappeared in August 2017 and his whereabouts are still unknown. Subsequent prominent figures who have been disappeared and remain out of contact with the outside world include Sun Wenguang, a retired professor at Shandong University (August 2018-present), Chen Qiushi, a lawyer and media personality (February 2020-present), and Fang Bin, a citizen journalist in Wuhan (February 2020-present).
On January 28, the day Guo Feixiong was stopped at Pudong Airport, Rev. Fu Xiqiu, president of China Aid, a U.S. NGO and Christian human rights organization, contacted the U.S. State Department urgently to seek U.S. diplomatic concerns about the incident. The response he received from State Department officials on January 30 was that the State Department was stepping up its actions and negotiations with the Chinese side regarding Guo Feixiong’s case.
The day before, the State Department had told the media that it was “troubled” and “closely following” the incident.
In 2009, Pastor Fu Xiqiu assisted Guo Feixiong’s wife and children, who had been persecuted, to move from China to the United States, where they were granted political asylum. At the time, Guo was sentenced to prison for “illegal business operations” for helping the underprivileged defend their rights.
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