BEIJING - China released its most prominent pro-democracy prisoner yesterday, sending him to exile and medical treatment in the United States.
The release of Xu Wenli, 59, who spent more than 16 of the past 21 years in prison for his irrepressible advocacy of civil rights, was seen as a signal of Beijing's strong desire for good relations with the United States, coming one week after a visiting American diplomat made pleas on his behalf.
American officials and human rights groups abroad have repeatedly sought Xu's release since late 1998, when Xu received a 13-year sentence on subversion charges after he helped to organize an independent political party, the China Democracy Party.
Suffers from hepatitis
The appeals grew more urgent after 1999, when prison doctors discovered that Xu had a chronic and progressive hepatitis B infection.
While other prominent dissidents have been released over the years on what often appeared to be trumped-up medical grounds, Xu's liver disease is serious and worsening, family members said.
Officially, he was granted medical parole so that he could seek advanced medical treatment in the United States, said John Kamm, the head of an American rights foundation, who said he was authorized by the Chinese to announce Xu's release.
"This was directly related to the Chinese government's desire to improve relations with the United States," said Kamm, founder and chairman of the Dui Hua Foundation in San Francisco, which monitors Chinese political and religious prisoners.
Last night, with no publicity here, Xu and his wife of more than three decades, He Xintong, boarded a plane for an undisclosed location in the United States.
Daughter in Boston
The couple's daughter, a schoolteacher, has lived for years in Boston.
The Associated Press reported that the daughter, Xu Jin, was en route to Chicago to meet her parents and planned to take them to New York for a meal in Chinatown.
"It's a very merry Christmas," she said. "First, I'm getting some food for them, because my dad doesn't have much teeth left, so can only eat soft food."
Last week, during a bilateral meeting on human rights here, Lorne Craner, the assistant U.S. secretary of state for human rights, placed Xu at the top of a list of political prisoners whose release the United States sees as a priority.
The American ambassador and other officials have often called for the release of Xu and other prominent dissidents.
Dozens of others
While welcoming Xu's freedom, rights advocates abroad noted that dozens of others who pushed for a new democracy party in 1998 remain imprisoned and, overall, thousands of people are in jail for peaceful expressions of dissent or efforts to organize.
Among them are Qin Yongmin, 49, a close associate of Xu's, who received a 12-year sentence in December 1998, and Wang Youcai, 36, the main founder of the ill-fated China Democracy Party that year, who was sentenced to 11 years.