Chen Ziming formally completed a 13-year sentence for his role in the 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations in October 2002, but remained under close surveillance, with many activities restricted. His political rights were removed for a further four years, and this is the first Chinese-language interview he has given since his release.
Together with Wang Juntao, Chen ran a progressive think tank called the Beijing Social and Economic Sciences Research Institute and published Economics Weekly, a journal that focused on the social consequences of China’s economic reforms.
Following the June 4, 1989, military crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing, the government labeled Chen and Wang as the “black hands” behind the movement. Within days of the massacre, authorities issued a list of banned books that included anything written by Wang Juntao and Chen Ziming.
On February 12, 1991, Wang and Chen were each sentenced to 13 years in prison for “counterrevolutionary” activities. In November of that year, they were given an International Press Freedom award by the New York-based press freedom group, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
Chen, who has suffered from cancer, heart disease and hepatitis, was released from prison on medical parole in 1994 at a time when Beijing was keen to ensure the renewal of its Most Favored Nation trading status with the United States wasn’t held up in Congress by human rights concerns.
He was imprisoned again the following year after he signed a petition calling for the release of political prisoners. He told RFA Mandarin service reporter An Ni about his ‘release’:
“I was released in May 1994 after receiving my sentence in 1991. At that time there was a lot of campaigning about China’s human rights record, and the government put me back in jail again because they were angry with (then Taiwan President) Lee Teng-hui. While I wasn’t ill when they paroled me I had since discovered I had cancer, and undergone surgery and medication, but they still locked me up again. Then, when Sino-US relations improved a bit, they sent me home again, on the same day that President Clinton began his second term in office.”
“The terms under which I was let out at that stage were called ‘jail at home’. This meant that I could serve my prison sentence in my own home, but I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere. I wasn’t allowed visitors apart from my closest family. There were dozens of people downstairs watching my apartment block. It was exactly the same as being in jail except that I was with my family.”
“From 2002 to 2006 I still had no political rights, and I wasn’t allowed to publish anything under my own name. So I had to use a pseudonym to express my point of view. During that time I was also allowed to see other people. But I still had people following me, and I didn’t want to cause any problems for others, so I didn’t contact my friends. Until this day there are still some very close friends whom I haven’t renewed contact with yet.”
…”I think if the political climate improves in China then perhaps I’ll be able to get in touch with a few more people, arrange some group activities, and start doing the things I would really like to do. But at the moment I’m still dependent on my wife Wang Zhihong for our family income, although I can occasionally earn some money for articles I write. That’s how I am living at the moment.”
“In 2004, I met up with He Jiadong, who just recently passed away, because we wanted to start a Web site called Reform and Construction, under the aegis of the Beijing Social and Economic Sciences Research Institute. Initially, I asked the authorities if they would let me run such a site, and they said yes, so I said I’d go ahead and do it. Mr He had to be the legal person responsible because I still didn’t have political rights. Our application got through the communications authority and the Beijing municipal news department.”
“The site was very well received among Chinese intellectuals. A lot of people sent in articles to contribute. I organized the site into more than a dozen themes, all of which were very popular, because they were on interesting and sensitive topics, and our page hits were rising all the time. The problems came when we wanted to move to a bigger server, and the site never appeared. When we finally got hold of the company in charge of the server they told us that it had been closed. ‘Perhaps you caused some concern from official quarters,’ they said.”
“As long as we weren’t getting very many hits and weren’t very high profile they were happy to let us exist. But as soon as we switched to a bigger capacity host, and the site had already migrated, and we’d paid the money, they shut us down. That was in August 2005. The site is still closed. I have been shunted back and forth between three departments: the police; the communications agency and the Beijing municipal news office. None of them will give me a straight answer about whose decision it was to close the site…They won’t give us a reason for the closure, either. They just pull the plug on you, because they can.”
Chen said the closure of the Web site didn’t mean the end of his activities, however.
“As a Chinese intellectual, there’s still plenty I can do; lots of things that need doing. I already came up with the idea of constructive opposition when I came out of jail in 1995. That means that if you are an opposition, you most oppose a few things. But you must also come up with some suggestions in order to be constructive. So there are plenty of things to be getting on with.”
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