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“YONGYI SONG” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the Senate section on pages S134-S135 on Jan. 31, 2000.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
YONGYI SONG
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I want to say a few words about a distinguished Pennsylvanian, the librarian from Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA, Mr. Yongyi Song, who was greeted tumultuously in Philadelphia on Saturday afternoon when he returned from the People's Republic of China after having been held in custody there since August 7.
Mr. Yongyi Song came to the United States some 10 years ago and has become a world-renowned scholar on the Cultural Revolution. In addition to his regular duties at Dickinson College, he has published extensively on the Cultural Revolution.
Last August, he and his wife Helen made a trip to the People's Republic of China so that he could continue his research. While there, he was taken into custody on August 7. Thereafter, his wife was released, but on Christmas Eve he was charged with transmitting state secrets.
A careful analysis of the case raises very severe questions as to whether there was ever any substance to the charges. A campaign was waged by scholars and academicians and by colleges and universities across the land to obtain his release. Dickinson College retained a very distinguished attorney, Jerome Cohen, an expert in Chinese affairs, who took up the cause.
A resolution was submitted last Wednesday by this Senator with quite a number of cosponsors--Senator Biden, the ranking member on the Foreign Relations Committee, being the principal cosponsor; in addition, Senator Santorum and others.
After consultation with Secretary of State Albright and others in the State Department, I sought a meeting with the Chinese Ambassador, which I had last Friday late in the morning.
Before going to the meeting, I heard rumors that Yongyi Song might be released. While I met with the Chinese Ambassador, I was delighted to find that he handed me a piece of paper announcing Mr. Song's release, and gave me the word that Mr. Song would soon be on a Northwest airliner headed for Detroit, and ultimately for Philadelphia.
We thank the People's Republic of China and we thank the Chinese Ambassador for Mr. Yongyi Song's release. We regret that he ever was taken into custody. But when he returned and commented to the news media, on a galaxy of cameras--both television and still cameras--and to many newspaper reporters, Mr. Song commented that he was not physically abused. He said he was subjected to a good bit of mental torture. He disputed the representations by the People's Republic of China that he had confessed or implicated others. But as Shakespeare would say, ``All's well that ends well.''
It has been reported that this is the first time there has been a release of anybody who was charged with stealing state secrets. It is my hope that this is a significant step forward for the People's Republic of China to recognize human rights. In an era when the People's Republic of China is seeking permanent most-favored-nation status and seeking entry into the World Trade Organization, it is my hope that they will accept at least minimal norms for due process, so that if someone is taken into custody, that person is entitled to confer with counsel, should be entitled to notice of the charges, should be entitled to an open trial, and should have the requirement that evidence be presented in an open forum before any determination of guilt.
The detention of Mr. Yongyi Song from August 7 until January 28, in my judgment, was excessive. But we are glad to have Yongyi Song back at his duties at Dickinson College and glad this has ended favorably. We do hope this is a first step in a continuing recognition by the People's Republic of China to give appropriate consideration to human rights.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a copy of the article entitled ``Scholar Back in U.S. After China Detention'' from The New York Times be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
Scholar Back in U.S. After China Detention
(By Philip Shenon)
Philadelphia, Jan. 29--An American-based Chinese scholar who had been jailed in China for nearly six months returned to the United States today to say that he had been ``mentally tortured'' by Chinese security agents who demanded that he confess to espionage and implicate others.
``They didn't torture me physically, but I should say that they mentally tortured me,'' the scholar, Song Yongyi, a research librarian at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa., said after he was reunited with his wife in a tearful scene at Philadelphia's international airport. ``It was very ruthless.''
``When I come back to the United States, I really feel at home now,'' said Mr. Song, who was taken into custody by the Chinese last summer, only weeks before he had been scheduled to be sworn in as an American citizen. ``Even though China gave me birth, the United States gave me spirit.''
In an airport news conference and in a separate interview, the 50-year-old librarian, a specialist in the documents of the murderous decade from 1966 to 1976 known as the Cultural Revolution, denied a claim by the Chinese government that he was freed after he confessed to spying.
``I did not confess to anything,'' he said, crediting his release to pressure on Beijing from members of Congress who threatened to hold up vital trade legislation, and from Western scholars who campaigned for his freedom.
Scholars had warned that his arrest threatened to jeopardize academic exchange programs that China had carefully cultivated with the United States and other Western countries since the late 1970's.
``I say thank you to all the American people, because without them I cannot get released,'' Mr. Song said, his eyes brimming with tears, which he said were among the first he had shed since childhood. ``During the past 30 years, I never cry, but last night I cry all night.''
He was met at the airport by his wife, Helen Yao, a jewelry designer, and Senator Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican who introduced legislation demanding Mr. Song's release and granting him immediate American citizenship. He also threatened to block legislation intended to make way for China's entry into the World Trade Organization.
Mr. Song and his wife, who is also Chinese-born, were detained in August in Beijing, where he had been gathering yellowing Communist Party newspapers and handbills published during the Cultural Revolution, about which he has written two books and several articles. Ms. Yao was released in November and forced to leave China without her husband.
Mr. Song said today that the documents he had been gathering were published by the radicals known as the Red Guards and that they were available at the time to virtually everyone in China. He said there was nothing secret about them.
``You can purchase all those in public markets,'' he said.
``You can purchase those in some book stores. This is not national security.''
He said he argued the point with his guards over and over again. ``I strongly argue that,'' he said in his sometimes broken English. ``My question is: If you say this is a secret and I'm leaking the secret, then you should first say all the Chinese people are spies. Because they all touched those. They all know this, not only me.''
The Cultural Revolution, in which millions of Chinese were persecuted as Mao tried to consolidate his power and
``purify'' the Communist Party, remains a subject of extreme sensitivity to Beijing, which continues to restrict access to official archives of the period.
During his early interrogations, Mr. Song said, his guards tried to coerce him with lies. He said they told him that his wife, who was being held in a separate detention center, was gravely ill, but that she could be freed for medical treatment if he confessed to spying.
``That was the worst moment of all,'' he said. ``They say my wife is so sick and so weak, that I should think about my wife and how she could return home quickly.''
When that did not work, he said, the guards tried to convince him that his wife had implicated him in spying and other crimes against the government. ``Every time they question me, they say, your wife says such-and-such, your wife identifies such-and-such,'' Mr. Song said.
At one point, he said, security agents told him that his wife had identified him as a member of Falun Gong, the spiritual group that has been the subject of a vicious crack-down recently, and that he had smuggled its literature into China.
``I know nothing about Falun Gong,'' Mr. Song said, ``I say, I believe this is not true. I say, bring my wife in. But then they become suddenly silent. They said, O.K., we move on to the next topic.''
He said the experience of the last several months was far worse than his experience during the Cultural Revolution, when he was arrested and branded a counterrevolutionary.
``In the 1970's, I was beaten, I was tortured,'' he said.
``But this was worse. With physical torture, they torture only you. This time, they arrest, and they try to mentally torture my wife. As a man, you feel so bad.''
Mr. Song, who has bladder cancer that is in remission, said that he had repeatedly asked to see a doctor, but that his guards refused without explanation. ``My health condition is not very good, and I asked them several times if I could get doctors to examine me, but they wouldn't,'' he said ``As soon as I get home, I should see a doctor and get a full body examination.''
As he set off from the airport after the news conference, Mr. Song was asked what he would do when he arrived home in Carlisle. He did not hesitate. ``I think he will have some sweet talk with my wife,'' he said, his arm tightly around her shoulder.
He said Ms. Yao's confinement in China had changed her.
``My wife became a very brave woman, so I'm very proud of her,'' he said. ``Actually this is not her typical characteristic. The Chinese government, the Chinese national security police, they make a weak woman into a brave soldier.''
Mr. SPECTER. I thank the Chair and my distinguished colleague from Iowa.
Mr. President, in the absence of any other Senator seeking recognition, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Collins). Without objection, it is so ordered.
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