Prominent Tiananmen student leader Wang Dan (王丹) brushed off on Thursday an accusation by Beijing that he is a "Taiwan spy" as an old tactic which he "had long become used to" and which was not worthy of a response.
Wang said that from the first day he took part in pro-democracy activities in China, the Beijing regime had used insults and defamatory language in an attempt to discredit him.
So the latest accusation of spying for Taiwan came as no surprise.
Wang said he was not interested in wasting time answering the accusation. Instead, he quoted former US president Abraham Lincoln: "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time."
Wang, who is now working on a doctoral degree at Harvard University, said that Beijing's attacks on him had not changed his affection for Taiwan, and that he would never pass up the opportunity to co-operate with people who support the ideals which he and young democracy activists from all over China share.
Wang said, however, that he and Wu'er Kaixi (
Wang and Wu'er were attending a memorial and a press conference held in Washington, DC, on Thursday marking the 15th anniversary of the June 4, 1989, Tiananmen Square Massacre.
Wang and Wu'er said they would be willing to return to China as long as no conditions were placed on them.
Wu'er said his parents were getting old but the Beijing authorities had refused them permission to leave the country to visit him. Nor had the authorities allowed him to return to Beijing to see them.
Saying that returning to one's home country is a citizen's basic right, Wu'er called on the international community to exert greater pressure on the Beijing authorities so that dissidents living overseas could return home.
Wang, founder of the Chinese Constitutional Reform Association in the US, said China should not focus on economic development at the expense of human rights.
"We want to remind China that if they want to be a powerful country, they will have to follow international rules. And the most basic rule is to respect human rights," Wang said at the press conference.
Wang, 35, has been to Taiwan many times since he first visited the country on March 18, 1999. He visited Taiwan twice last year.
He was in Taipei in January last year to launch two new books, one a collection of poems and the other a work of prose. Both are published by Locus Publishing in Taipei.
Wang said at the time that he preferred to call himself a poet, adding that "literature is what enables me to survive."
He was in Taipei again last July for six weeks at the invitation of the Taipei City Government as an artist-in-residence.
Wang was jailed in July 1989 for his role in the Tiananmen pro-democracy demonstrations and was released in February 1993. He was arrested again in October 1996 and sentenced to an 11-year prison term.
In April 1998, he was released on parole on medical grounds and allowed to travel to the US for treatment -- a move that effectively sent him into exile.
WANG RELEASED: A police investigation showed that an organized crime group allegedly taught their clients how to pretend to be sick during medical exams Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) and 11 others were released on bail yesterday, after being questioned for allegedly dodging compulsory military service or forging documents to help others avoid serving. Wang, 33, was catapulted into stardom for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代). Lately, he has been focusing on developing his entertainment career in China. The New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last month began investigating an organized crime group that is allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified documents. Police in New Taipei City Yonghe Precinct at the end of last month arrested the main suspect,
Eleven people, including actor Darren Wang (王大陸), were taken into custody today for questioning regarding the evasion of compulsory military service and document forgery, the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said. Eight of the people, including Wang, are suspected of evading military service, while three are suspected of forging medical documents to assist them, the report said. They are all being questioned by police and would later be transferred to the prosecutors’ office for further investigation. Three men surnamed Lee (李), Chang (張) and Lin (林) are suspected of improperly assisting conscripts in changing their military classification from “stand-by
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Former Taiwan People’s Party chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) may apply to visit home following the death of his father this morning, the Taipei Detention Center said. Ko’s father, Ko Cheng-fa (柯承發), passed away at 8:40am today at the Hsinchu branch of National Taiwan University Hospital. He was 94 years old. The center said Ko Wen-je was welcome to apply, but declined to say whether it had already received an application. The center also provides psychological counseling to people in detention as needed, it added, also declining to comment on Ko Wen-je’s mental state. Ko Wen-je is being held in detention as he awaits trial
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