Wei Jingsheng

If he had chosen his enemies more cleverly, Wei Jingsheng would probably be a household name by now--like Vaclav Havel, Andrei D. Sakharov or Nelson Mandela. A leading voice in China's Democracy Wall movement of 1978, Wei is his country's most important political prisoner. China's leaders despise him.

Jim Mann's June 24 column implies that the only way to improve human rights in China is through isolation, and that we should suspend normal trade relations (known as most-favored- nation status) until satisfactory progress is made. This view ignores reality and would result in exactly the opposite effect on China by isolating it from Western thought. We all have the same goal--a China that operates in the family of nations respecting fundamental human rights, fair play and international law. I am no more an apologist for China than Richard Nixon was in 1972 when he spearheaded a policy of engagement rather than isolation.

The final appeal of Chinese dissident Wei Jingsheng was rejected today by a Beijing superior court, condemning the 45-year-old democracy advocate to serve a 14-year prison term for "conspiring to subvert the government." "This morning, Beijing's supreme people's court heard Wei's case and upheld the original sentence," court spokesman Chen Xiong said.

Wei Jingsheng, China's famous dissident, is a courageous man and a trenchant thinker. He has also had the bad luck of being a convenient pawn for the political purposes of the high barons of Chinese communism. In 1979, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison and served more than 14. After six months on parole, he was held for another 20 months in extralegal detention. This week, he was sentenced to a second term of 14 years in prison.

The Chinese government hit back at Washington on Thursday for criticizing its jailing of dissident Wei Jingsheng, demanding an immediate end to "vicious actions" in a new round of Sino-U.S. acrimony over human rights. "We strongly condemn these malicious moves by the U.S. side, which constitute a serious infringement upon China's sovereignty and interference in China's internal affairs," Foreign Ministry spokesman Chen Jian told a news briefing. "We demand that the U.S. side . . .

The conviction and sentencing of prominent dissident Wei Jingsheng on sedition charges Wednesday reflect the Communist government's hard line against dissent during the political transition from ailing 91-year-old leader Deng Xiaoping to a new generation of leaders.

Supporters and the family of Chinese dissident Wei Jingsheng, sentenced to 14 years in prison Wednesday for "conspiring to subvert the government," appealed for foreign pressure on Beijing's political leadership to win the release of the country's leading democracy advocate.

"Why are they doing this to him?" one Chinese asked after Beijing imposed a 14-year prison sentence on the country's leading dissident, Wei Jingsheng. "When he was first around in 1979 people were open to criticism of the government. But now, people are living better. They have money and they have hope. He is just one man. Why are they afraid of him?" Good question.

A Chinese court today took less than six hours to convict China's leading dissident, Wei Jingsheng, of sedition and sentence him to 14 years in prison. The state-run New China News Agency reported the conviction and sentence in a two-paragraph announcement that gave no further details. Wei came to prominence in 1979 for powerful essays about democracy and human rights during a short-lived pro-democracy movement. Wei had faced a minimum of 10 years in jail and possible execution if convicted.