China dissident confident of change despite jailing

WASHINGTON, Aug 21 (Reuters) A Chinese political prisoner who was released after diplomatic pleas from US Secretary Treasury Henry Paulson and other US officials said today the democratization process in China is irreversible.

Speaking publicly for the first time since being freed by the Chinese government, Yang Jianli said the Chinese people are increasingly demanding accountability.

''The tighter the grip on power, the more difficulty they will have holding on,'' Yang said at a news conference in Washington, where he was flanked by senior US lawmakers.

''Chinese people have tasted freedom and they like what they see,'' the Harvard-educated Yang said.

Yang, 44, was held in solitary confinement for 14 months before being charged with illegal entry and spying for Taiwan.

He served a five-year sentence, was freed in April and returned to the United States on Saturday.

In 2002, Yang used a friend's passport to enter China so he could observe labor unrest after Chinese authorities had refused to renew his own passport.

Yang said he noticed conditions in prison improved during his term. He said at the beginning he was forced to sit up straight without moving for four hours every day -- a practice Yang said stopped after he stood up to authorities.

He said also was constantly subjected to physical and psychological torture.

Yang thanked US Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox, a former congressman, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Lantos and House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, who asked Paulson to intervene on a recent trip to China.

While activists and Lantos are pushing China to improve its human rights policies ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Frank said lawmakers had been working on Yang's release for years.

''I wish I could say it was part of a broader trend,'' said Frank, a Democrat from Massachusetts, where Yang had lived in exile since his involvement in the 1989 Tiananmen Square democracy protests that were crushed by Chinese troops.

Now, Yang said China has issued him a passport. ''I take it as their way of admitting I have the right to go home,'' he said.

Yang was a research fellow at Harvard and founder and chairman of the Foundation for China in the 21st Century, an organization dedicated to researching political and social change in China.

Reuters CS VP0305