Dissident Kept From Chinese Officials

Fellow graduate students kept Wang Dan, a top organizer of the 1989 Tiananmen Square student protests and Harvard graduate student, from entering a recent event with the president of Peking University because of his political views.

President Chen Jia'er was at Harvard on October 29 and 30 for a conference with a number of other university presidents designed to promote communication between American and Chinese schools.

At an event sponsored by the Harvard Chinese Students and Scholars Association (HCSSA), Wang tried to enter a gathering with Chen at the Inn at Harvard, but was turned away by fellow Harvard graduate student Ying Shang, vice-president of HCSSA.

In a recent press conference, Chinese government officials labeled Wang a criminal.

"The government regards me as a dissident and they have no confidence to argue with a dissident," Wang wrote in an e-mail message. "In fact, I had no intention of arguing with them.

Chinese officials are used to acting in this way, even in America."

According to Shang, an assistant to the Peking University president telephoned her before the event and asked her to keep Wang Dan from attending.

Wang said he had no political intentions in going to the event with Chen. Rather, he went out of respect for the alma mater of both of his parents.

He said he did not expect to be blocked from entering.

"These things are not appropriate for Harvard. They should not happen again. It violates freedom of speech on

which Harvard is based, which is the reason why I wanted to come to

Harvard in the first place," he said.

University spokesperson Joe Wrinn, disclaimed responsibility for the incident.

"This was a private event--the University knew nothing of it. What happened during this private event was not affiliated with Harvard," Wrinn said.

HCSSA, a group recognized by the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS), sent an e-mail to its members on the morning of Friday, October 29, inviting them to attend the reception with Chen.

"We didn't want to exclude anybody," Shang said.

She did not plan to keep Wang from the gathering, Shang said, but she felt pressure from Hao Ping, the Peking University president's assistant.

According to Shang, Hao deemed the event a personal meeting with the Peking University president, a member of the Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee, and insisted that Wang's presence would be inappropriate.

"President [Chen] didn't think that it would be proper for him to meet Wang Dan," Shang said.

For the event to take place, "there was no choice in the matter," Shang said.

Shang said that when Wang came to the door, "We told him President Chen didn't want to see him."

But, she said, "had Wang Don insisted, no one would have stopped him [from going in]. We sympathize with Wang Dan."

Wang Dan said he did not press for entrance, and thought Shang "got some pressure from higher levels."

Shorenstein Fellow and former East Asian editor for the London Times, Jonathan Mirsky said, "China being the place that it is, the president and the assistant would have been questioned by the Security Service why they allowed themselves to be in the same room as a 'criminal.'"

A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson recently named the exiled Wang a criminal when it was speculated internationally that Wang would win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Wang was nominated for the prize this year, along with Israeli President Ezer Weizman and Pope John Paul II.

"If those people win the prize, that is unacceptable to the Chinese people and the Chinese government," Zhang Qiyue told reporters. "They violated national law and are criminals," she said.

Though the gathering with Chen was not on Harvard's weekend agenda for the visiting university presidents, Christoph Wolff, dean of GSAS, said that student groups cannot discriminate when admitting students to their groups' functions.

"The student groups have to be open to everybody. That is stated very clearly in the guidelines," Wolff said. "All events, participation, must be open to all students."

"This man [Chen Jia'er] is a guest of honor of the President of Harvard, and he excludes a distinguished Harvard student on purely political grounds, this is very extraordinary," Mirsky said.