Dear Freedom Lover,
Recently, I watched history in the making.
No, I was not in Norway for the announcement of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. I was at the U.S. Capitol Visitors’ Center, watching a Tiananmen Square hero dance with his wife for the first time.
At the end of a lovely celebration with some 150 friends, fellow dissidents, members of Congress, and the media, Fang Zheng and his beautiful wife, Zhu Jin, waltzed to “Auld Lang Syne” (maybe this was a dry run for New Year’s Eve!). It was not just a dance, but an icon of freedom – like the “Goddess of Democracy” twenty years before.
In 1989, Fang Zheng was a student at the Beijing College of Physical Science, a star sprinter and Olympic hopeful. That dream was killed at Tiananmen Square. On the morning of June 4, when the Chinese Communists made their brutal response to a peaceful protest, Fang Zheng pushed a girl out of the path of an oncoming tank. Then the tank hit him, and caught in the treads, he went under the tank. Miraculously, he survived, but both legs were crushed and had to be amputated.
Wheelchair-bound, Fang continued to excel in athletics. When he recovered from his double amputation, he began training in discus and javelin throwing. In 1992 he won two gold medals and broke two regional records in the All-China Disabled Athletic Games. He qualified for the Far East and South Pacific Disabled Games, but the Chinese Government feared his success would call attention to the event they desperately were trying to pretend never happened. They banned him from all further competitions. They also attempted to pressure Fang to “admit” that his injuries were from a road accident, not the legacy of the violence at Tiananmen Square. When he refused, he was denied his college degree, severely limiting his ability to find work.
Ironically, the Chinese Communist government’s attempts to isolate Fang Zheng from the outside world provided the greatest opportunity for him to speak out, and, to once again stand. At the end of the 2008 Beijing Olympics (from which he had been barred), government telephone monitoring revealed that a German journalist had contacted Fang. The Chinese attempted to short circuit embarrassing publicity by allowing him to leave China for the first time. Fang, Zhu Jin, and their little girl, Grace, traveled to the United States in February 2009.
I first met Fang Zheng and his family on June 2, 2009 when Hudson Institute fellow Michael Horowitz and his wife, Dr. Devra Marcus, hosted a reception to honor Chinese dissidents and commemorate Tiananmen. The Horowitz/Marcus house has become home to dissidents and human rights advocates from all over the world. This time, it was filled with former student leaders from China’s Tiananmen “most wanted” list! Horowitz, a fiery advocate for human rights and religious freedom, has been working with Chinese activists and house church leaders for years. Along with them he helped Fang’s voice to be heard by the halls of Capitol Hill and the international media.
Fang was still in a wheelchair, but Devra Marcus, determined that he should walk again, had consulted specialists who worked with U.S. troops. Always one to push the envelope of the possible Horowitz said, “not just walk – dance!” And sure enough, they had already found the doctors, therapists, and prosthetics creators who could make it happen. That night Horowitz promised that all would be invited to see Fang Zheng and Zhu Jin dance.
Four months later we watched Fang Zheng twirl Zhu Jin as if he had been doing it all his life. Their joyous dance and all of the other proceedings of the celebration were being recorded to share Fang’s story with the world, including the people of China. Awards were presented to those who had helped Fang stand up once again, and members of the U.S. Congress expressed their solidarity with those who wished to see a free and democratic China.
The first award was for the Ossur Corporation, a highly respected manufacturer of orthotics and prosthetic limbs for the United States’ armed forces. Ossur created a pair of state-of-the-art, computerized prosthetic legs for Fang and gave them, free of charge, to the Tiananmen hero. Bob Fu, founder and president of China Aid, presented the award to David McGill, Ossur Vice President, and Shane Namack, National Sales Manager. Fu told how when he and his wife, Heidi, escaped from China, an American Christian – an utter stranger to him – bought him a house and car in Philadelphia. And even while he was still in a prison cell in China, the Communist officials angrily had remarked that people in America were thinking of him. In the same way, said Bob, the generous treatment of Fang Zheng would, “encourage Chinese that they are not forgotten.”
Ossur and the other award recipients received a framed collage depicting Fang in four photos: competing in a race during his days as a sprinter, crushed by the tank at Tiananmen, sitting in a wheelchair, and finally, standing proudly on his new legs in front of the U.S. Capitol. McGill said that Fang Zheng is testimony that “loss of limb is not loss of life,” and that good can come from even such tragedies when they give you a “chance to show who you can be.”
Another Chinese dissident and democracy activist, Dr. Feng Congde, presented an award to Michael Corcoran and Mark McVicker of Medical Center Orthotics and Prosthetics, which also works with American troops. Corcoran and McVicker fitted and adjusted Fang’s new prosthetics free of charge. Feng recollected the words of Chairman Mao sixty years ago when he commanded, “Chinese people, stand up.” Fang Zheng is standing up now, said Feng, in spite of what the followers of Mao did to him at Tiananmen Square.
The final award was presented by Dr. Yang Jianli. Yang was studying at U.C. Berkeley in 1989 when his fellow graduate students chose him to go back to Beijing to support the students at Tiananmen Square. He barely escaped arrest, returned to the U.S. where he earned two Ph.D.’s. When he went back to China in 1992, he was arrested and sentenced to five years for “espionage.” During the long periods of solitary confinement he endured, he composed and memorized poems which he later published. Yang echoed the sentiment that “for the past 20 years, Fang Zheng has been standing in spirit.” Calling the event “a celebration of American values,” he said “Fang Zheng is the embodiment of those American values, values we treasure even more than you do.” As he introduced Dr. Terrence Sheehan, the Chief Medical Officer of Adventist Rehabilitation Hospital of Maryland, he told how professors at M.I.T. had told him that it would be impossible for Fang to walk on prosthetic limbs. “But Devra, the captain of the Horowitz house, said ‘yes he can,’” Yang exclaimed, and Dr. Sheehan made it possible.
Dr. Sheehan and the physical therapy staff of Adventist Rehabilitation Hospital had no doubts that Fang Zheng could walk. Fang entered the hospital on September 2, 2009 where he received ongoing physical therapy from the dedicated staff and “made amazing progress on a daily basis.” Sheehan called Fang a leader and said, “He personifies what our forefathers said about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” When Sheehan asked Fang how he felt, Fang said how good it was to be able to stand and “look you in the eye.”
Michael Horowitz revealed a fourth award. This one was presented in absentia to the Chinese security officer who bugged Fang Zheng’s telephone and made it possible for him to come to America. Horowitz also thanked to those in Falun Gong who were responsible for the amazing Global Internet Freedom Consortium, “tearing down the firewall” by undermining internet censorship by the Chinese Communists and other thug regimes, such as Iran. He also excoriated Siemens and Nokia for assisting Iran with its internet spying. Then Horowitz introduced each of the members of the U.S. Congress who had come to celebrate with Fang Zheng and his family.
The first to offer his congratulations to Fang was the congressman that Michael referred to as “the tiger of the Congress,” U.S. Representative Christopher Smith (R-NJ). Mr. Smith, a longtime champion of the persecuted church and other human rights issues, said that the United States government seems to be subordinating and trivializing human rights in China. “Human rights cannot be put at the back of the bus,” he said, not when “Fang Zheng has paid such a huge price for human rights.” Smith drew chuckles from the audience when he noted that a former member of congress was now “dancing with the stars,” but Fang Zheng is “a true champion, a true star,” he concluded.
U.S. Representative Anh Joseph Cao (R-LA), who fled Vietnam for America when he was eight years old, said that when he looked at Fang Zheng, he saw courage – “courage to fight for what is right, to speak out against oppression.” He challenged that “we also have to look at ourselves. Do we have the courage to speak out against regimes that oppress people?” Earlier that day, Cao and other members of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission met with the Dalai Lama and spoke about the need to end human rights violations all over the world.
The final member of congress to speak was U.S. Representative Joseph Pitts (R-PA), another great defender of the persecuted and oppressed. Mr. Pitts, a member of the Congressional Executive Committee on China recalled watching the events of Tiananmen Square unfold “with hope and then horror.” He echoed the praise of the others, saying, “Fang Zheng is an amazing man of courage.”
Finally it was time for Fang Zheng to speak and to dance. His friend and fourth “most wanted” Tiananmen leader, Chai Ling, introduced him. Chai was one of two women leaders of the Tiananmen Square movement and said that after the massacre “she lived in terror,” but that “news from the free world” gave her the hope that maybe someone still cared about the people of China. She said that Fang had wanted make his remarks in English, but that he was so overcome by all that had taken place that he needed to speak in Chinese.
Fang said that he was “so thankful” to all of those who had supported him, and that he was full of gratitude for “the greatness and goodness of America” and the American people who had helped him and his family all the way through his journey to that moment. Now, he said, the people of China are not “standing up,” but he believes that the time is coming when all in China will experience true freedom.
Bob Fu said that Fang is “a living testimony that change can happen.” Another change was that Fang followed the course of many of the other Tiananmen Square survivors. The Baptist Press reported that Fang and Zhu Jin “embraced faith in Christ as their Lord and Savior a week after arriving in the United States at a church retreat near San Diego.”
I thought of the song that says “When you get the choice to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance.” Fang Zheng chose to dance.
Sincerely,
Faith J. H. McDonnell
Director of Religious Liberty Programs