Word: weis
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...Clinton Administration considered Wei's release to be a payoff from its policy of "constructive engagement" with China. Wei was such a leading light of the dissident movement--and thus considered so dangerous by the Chinese government--that his supporters sometimes feared he would never go free. A former electrician in Beijing, Wei first gained notoriety with a 1978 essay advocating that Deng Xiaoping broaden his campaign to carry out "Four Modernizations"--of industry, agriculture, science and the military--to include democracy as a "fifth modernization." The next year, after writing a wall poster that accused Deng of being...
Even behind bars, though, he could not resist needling Deng in a series of letters that were smuggled out of jail and published overseas. "Your problem," Wei wrote Deng in 1987, "is that you have too much ambition, too little talent and you're narrow-minded." And on Nov. 11, 1989: "You say, 'We are not afraid of going it alone, and no one has the right to interfere in our domestic affairs.' You unscrupulous schemer! Do you think that treating the people of China as a joke makes you some kind of hero? It's time to loosen...
...Wei was released briefly in 1993, before his speeches and writings got him thrown into the slammer again. Only in recent years has he seemed less of a threat, obviously weakened and sometimes listless, wasting away in a cold cell...
...Clinton Administration has quietly lobbied for Wei's freedom, especially in the past two years, and stepped up the pressure before and during President Jiang Zemin's visit to the U.S. last month. Jiang made no promises concerning Wei at the summit with Clinton; to let him go too close to the meeting would have resulted in a loss of face for the Chinese leadership. Earlier this month James Sasser, the U.S. Ambassador to China, said he was "personally disappointed" that Jiang's tour across America had not brought the release of political prisoners, but in the same week...
...around 6 p.m. on Nov. 15, Wei was sitting in his cell at the Nanpu New Life Salt Works Prison north of Beijing, when a prison official came in and ordered him to pack up immediately. He was given a down jacket and a suitcase but had to leave behind most of his books and letters. Meanwhile, security officers picked up Wei's closest relatives--his father, stepmother, elder sister, younger brother and a niece--and drove them to a People's Liberation Army border guards' hostel that was a stone's throw from Beijing International Airport...