China Puts Journalist On Trial
Writer Had Supported Official Who Denounced Party Members' Graft

By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, January 20, 2006

FUZHOU, China, Jan. 19 -- A veteran Fuzhou journalist stood trial Thursday in the final step in a retaliation campaign launched after a Communist Party official gained national fame by publicly denouncing his superiors for condoning and covering up corruption.

The case, in southern Fujian province on the Taiwan Strait, opened a window on an important but infrequently discussed aspect of China's national problem with corruption: So many officials have become involved in business during 25 years of economic liberalization, according to the Fujian whistle-blower and other analysts, that bribery, rather than being an individual deviation, has become characteristic of the party's rule in thousands of Chinese cities and towns.

The accusations set off a nationwide discussion not because they revealed corruption -- most Chinese take that for granted -- but because they came from within a party hierarchy whose under-the-table dealings are usually kept secret. And in the aftermath, the lengths to which Communist leaders in Fuzhou have gone to punish and discredit their accusers showed how highly the party values discipline and solidarity in the ranks.

The ostensible charge in Thursday's trial of Li Changqing, who worked as a reporter for the official Fuzhou Daily, was "fabricating and spreading false terroristic information" by reporting on an outbreak of dengue fever without official permission to do so. But the real problem, according to Li, his family, his colleagues and his attorneys, was his support of Huang Jingao, the whistle-blowing party secretary of suburban Lianjiang county.

Li told the three-judge court that during more than a year of detention, which he said included torture, his interrogators never asked him about the crime he was charged with. Their questions, he said, centered on articles Li wrote and published on various Web sites endorsing Huang and his accusations of corruption.

"From the beginning, the only thing they wanted was to punish Li for writing so many articles in favor of Huang," Li's Beijing-based attorney, Mo Shaoping, said in an interview.

In August 2004, Huang wrote a now-famous open letter saying that his efforts to root out bribery had been stymied by a fraternity of corruption in which functionaries on the take protected one another from scrutiny. The extraordinary statement, posted on the Web site of the party's official People's Daily, was an immediate sensation. Chinese discussed it on the bus and at lunch, exulting over Huang's integrity. Editorial writers in the government-controlled press hailed its airing as a sign of progress in a country known for covering up its problems.

But Huang's fame was short-lived. The letter was taken down by party censors a few days later. Further press comment was banned. Then Huang was called in by party leaders here in Fuzhou and ordered to "do a complete self-examination." They issued a statement that accused him of "individualism" that helped "hostile foreign elements" and "Taiwan separatism."

That was the opening shot in what turned out to be a crushing retaliation by party leaders in Fujian province and Fuzhou, the provincial capital about 400 miles south of Shanghai. Within three months, Huang was dismissed as Lianjiang party chief and placed under house arrest pending an investigation.

Last August, he was formally charged with 50 counts of corruption in which he allegedly collected more than $700,000. A dozen others, including Li, were charged in connection with the case. Huang was sentenced to life in prison last November.

The other part of the campaign was to blacken Huang's reputation and those of people around him, including Li. Articles began appearing in a Hong Kong newspaper, Ta Kung Pao, asserting that Huang had been corrupt all along and issued his statement as a way to divert attention from his own crimes. The bribery was necessary, the articles said, because Huang, 54, juggled a half-dozen mistresses and kept them in various love nests around Fuzhou, sometimes visiting several in one afternoon.

One of the mistresses, Ta Kung Pao said, was Li's wife, Bao Dingling.

Ta Kung Pao has frequently functioned as a conduit for information the Chinese government wants to circulate. Its Fuzhou correspondent, Shi Bing, said he wrote the Huang stories based on his own research. But his bureau here has ties to the Fujian provincial government; it was opened on a suggestion from the provincial party chief, Lu Zhanggong, according to local journalists, and the province has provided its office space.

A number of Fuzhou residents said the newspaper's portrayal of Huang did not fit the man they knew as a hard-working and apparently sincere county official. He did not exhibit signs of wealth, they said, and according to a friend, his wife complained that they did not have enough money to purchase their rental apartment. But other residents here said that, after reading all the charges brought against him, they have concluded Huang must have been guilty of at least some crimes.

Li, 41, diminutive with steel-rimmed glasses and a calm demeanor, was taken into custody soon after Huang and was initially accused of helping Huang write the open letter and promote it in articles posted on overseas Web sites frequently used by Chinese dissidents. His wife Bao, 37, said he has been in police custody ever since. She said she and their daughter, Li Sidi, 15, have not been allowed to see him.

Bao said in an interview that she and her family had tried to enlist local officials and other influential friends to intervene in Li's behalf. But in the atmosphere created by the crackdown, nobody would stick his neck out, she said. "We tried to get at the truth," she added, with tears in her eyes. "We went to many friends and relatives, but they were afraid to help. They said there was nothing they could do."

Bao denied she was Huang's mistress, saying the accusations were "abhorrent." Instead, she described a relationship in which she and Huang's wife were friends and their children played together. Li and Huang's collaboration grew from the family connection, she explained.

"Huang appeared to be a good official," she said. "He looked out for the people around him, and he was very easygoing. He spoke some words that others did not dare to speak. So they wanted to punish him."

Mo, the lawyer, said his requests to see Li also were initially refused, with officials citing a regulation against visits to prisoners whose cases involve state secrets. But later, after the original charges were dropped in favor of the dengue fever reports, Mo said, he was allowed to confer with Li twice to prepare a defense.

Li appeared in court Thursday with his hands cuffed behind his back and the number 0798 stenciled on the back of a gray prison-issue vest. Waving two-handed because of the cuffs, he greeted his wife and surveyed the courtroom for family and friends.

In the two-hour trial, Mo contested the formal charges and avoided the political context. The dengue fever report, on the Boxun Web site, was written by people who run the site, with his information only a tip, Li said. Moreover, the report turned out to be true, he added, with the provincial government shortly afterward acknowledging the outbreak.

The black-robed judges, following Chinese practice, took arguments from Mo and the prosecutor under advisement and said they would announce a verdict later. In the Chinese system, with the party as final arbiter, an overwhelming majority of trials result in a guilty verdict.

As Li was marched out of the courtroom on his way back to Fuzhou No. 2 Detention Center, former colleagues stood in the doorway and said, "Take care, take care."

Researcher Jin Ling contributed to this report.