The Engagement Works

US officials on Saturday welcomed Beijing's release of Pennsylvania-based scholar Song Yongyi, seeing it as proof of engagement with Beiji...

US officials on Saturday welcomed Beijing8217;s release of Pennsylvania-based scholar Song Yongyi, seeing it as proof of engagement with Beijing producing results. In Washington, US Representative Matt Salmon, said the US ambassador to Beijing Admiral Joseph Prueher had told him that efforts made by a Congressional delegation in early January had been key to Song8217;s release. Salmon led the delegation to Beijing which met with Chinese President Jiang Zemin.

8220;This breakthrough is proof that engagement works,8221; Salmon said in a statement. 8220;I hope this will help convince opponents of Normal Trade Relations that open and honest engagement is the best course for both the United States and China.8221;

Prueher said he was pleased with the Chinese government8217;s decision to release Song 8220;and the attention focused on this case by the Administration, Congress and the academic community8221;. 8220;Aside from our personal pleasure in Song8217;s release, we hope this event is a harbinger of continued open academic research in China aswell as a broadened and constructive dialogue with our host government on related issues.8221;

Song, who had been detained since last August and formally arrested on Christmas eve, boarded a plane for the US early on Saturday. His release came just days after Chinese officials accused him of leaking state secrets pertaining to the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution, which brought disaster to China and remains one of the cruelest legacies of former Chinese strongman Mao Zedong.

The charges exposed him to a lengthy prison term. The Hong Kong-based Information Centre of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China, told AFP that Song left Beijing on Saturday morning with US embassy officials on a flight to Detroit. He was flying on the same Northwest Airlines direct flight previously used by leading Chinese dissidents Wei Jingsheng and Wang Dan when they were released by the Chinese Government, Frank Lu of the human rights organisation said. Lu said he was told of the release by Song8217;s wife Yao Xiahua.

Chineseforeign ministry officials had said on Tuesday that the scholar was expected to be tried for leaking state secrets. Foreign ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao accused Song of smuggling 320 kg of documents out of the country last year and said the academic admitted the charges. 8220;Since 1996, funded by overseas institutions, Song has illegally brought and sold abroad large quantities of secret state documents and also materials forbidden to be transferred abroad,8221; Zhu said.

He declined to reveal which institutions were involved, but said Song had acknowledged he secretly copied and hid the documents. China signed a landmark trade agreement with the United States last November. The administration of President Bill Clinton is expected to push Congress later this year to grant China permanent Normal Trade Relations status. This would be a key precursor to membership of the World Trade Organisation for China. Currently, China8217;s trade status is renewed by Congress on an annual basis.

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Song is a well-known scholarof China8217;s 1966-76 Cultural Revolution period, and his arrest infuriated many China scholars in the United States as well as human rights advocates in the West.