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As Antony Blinken prepares to embark on his first trip to China as Secretary of State, activists around the world are urging him to place human rights at the top of his agenda. For Blinken to do so would certainly be in keeping with America’s tradition of championing freedom and democracy — a tradition that has so benefited me. As a former political prisoner of China, who owes his freedom to the support of many American men and women, I hope and believe that U.S. support will help free prisoners of conscience in my home country.
Particularly worrisome is the fate of the young Chinese men and women who have been “disappeared” or detained for leading recent peaceful demonstrations that have become known as the “Blank Page Movement.” The protests began with people by expressing their frustration over the Chinese Communist Party’s draconian “Zero-COVID” policy and quickly evolved into a movement demanding broader freedoms.
I am hopeful that Blinken, in his meetings with senior Chinese officials — perhaps even including China’s leader, Xi Jinping — will unequivocally demand the release of the hundreds of young men and women who have been detained. Freedom is, first and foremost, important for their personal lives. Moreover, they represent the best of today’s China and its brewing changes. Fighting for their freedom is both moral and strategic.
In recent years, Xi has largely transitioned his politics from dictatorship to one of gamesmanship. Last year, he started out by making a political gambit revolving around two numbers — zero and 5.5 — placing bets on zero COVID and economic growth of 5.5 percent.He tied these goals to his purported “wisdom, greatness and correctness,” to the legitimacy of his continuing rule, and even to the superiority of China’s system of “socialism with Chinese characteristics.
