‘Too Optimistic,’ China Dissident Says

WASHINGTON — In his first message from refuge inside the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, Fang Lizhi, China’s best-known dissident, admits that he was “far too optimistic” last spring about the prospects for change in China.

Now, Fang said, he has “feelings of pessimism” about the future of China--although, he went on, “it may well be that those who are most terrified (in China today) are those who have just finished killing their fellow human beings.” He also advised young Chinese to avoid resorting to violence in their opposition to the current regime in Beijing.

Fang sent his message to the United States in an acceptance letter for the 1989 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award. The letter was read Wednesday night during ceremonies in his honor at Georgetown University, with Polish Solidarity leader Lech Walesa as the keynote speaker.

In 1986, Fang, an astrophysicist, rose to prominence in China when he advised students to engage in protests to bring about democratic reforms. After a nationwide series of student demonstrations, he was expelled from the Chinese Communist Party and became an increasingly active critic of the regime’s human rights policies.

Last spring, Fang kept his distance from the massive student demonstrations for democracy at Tian An Men Square in Beijing. However, Chinese leaders accused him of inspiring the protests. After Chinese troops stormed into downtown Beijing on June 3 and 4, Fang and his wife, Li Shuxian, hurriedly took refuge inside the U.S. Embassy.

Wednesday night, the Chinese Embassy in Washington denounced the decision to grant an award to Fang as “a wanton interference in China’s internal affairs and a provocation against the Chinese people.”

In the letter released Wednesday, Fang said that one year ago, “it seemed to us . . . that the principles of human rights were finally starting to take root in our ancient land.”

“However, time after time, these fond dreams have been shattered by harsh reality,” he wrote. “In the face of the bloody tragedy of last June, we must admit to having been far too optimistic.”

Fang denounced the Chinese government’s claim that what happened in Beijing last June was an internal affair that cannot properly be judged by foreigners.