DR XU ZERONG (DAVID TSUI) - MEDIA COVERAGE

FROM: South China Morning Post, Monday 27 May 2002

High price for baring war's secret

Glenn Schloss

Academic Xu Zerong was jailed for writing about Chinese links to the Malaysian insurgency, believes human rights activist Paul Harris. Xu went to St Antony's College, Oxford, seen as a recruiting ground for MI6 spies.

Languishing in a mainland jail is an academic described as a renowned historian. Dr Xu Zerong has also been labelled a British spy. Xu, who holds Hong Kong permanent residency, was working as a researcher at Guangzhou's Zhongshan University when arrested in mid-2000 for allegedly selling state secrets. He was sentenced in January to serve 13 years.

While an international outcry erupted over the jailing of Hong Kong-based academic Li Shaomin last year, which led to his early release, Xu's case has failed to generate much publicity. It has aroused the attention of human rights groups and academic colleagues but there have been few ripples of the type which would likely influence mainland authorities into reconsidering the jailing of Xu.

Now, following an extensive investigation, the Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor has concluded that the likely cause of Xu's problems with the authorities was an article he wrote for a Chinese-language magazine, Yazhou Zhoukan, nearly two years ago.

His article claimed that a radio transmitter and facilities were built in Hunan province in 1969 and continued to broadcast propaganda for 12 years to assist communist insurgents in Malaysia. It had been widely believed that the broadcasts originated from Malaysian jungles.

Xu's report also took China to task for apparent double standards in foreign policy: berating nations which criticise its human rights record for interfering in internal affairs while having previously supported revolutions abroad.

''Communist China's support for international revolution is based on the rationale of `class above sovereignty' [that is, the interests of the international proletarian class are above a nation's sovereignty], which indeed bears the same intrinsic logic as `human rights above sovereignty' promoted by the United States,'' Xu's report said.

''To criticise the `human rights above sovereignty' principle will be extremely hard if communist China does not cover up the fact that it had previously been marketing `class above sovereignty'. This might be the reason for China to mask its support for international revolution.

''In the '60s and '70s, resources worth about US$50 billion [HK$390 billion at today's exchange rates] were appropriated by the Chinese communist Government to support international revolution. Should not the people who provided that money have the right to know where it went?''

The article then outlines Xu's visit in May 2000 to the ''ruins'' of the Voice of Malayan Revolution radio station and a transmitter hidden in a tunnel near Changsha, the capital of Hunan province.

He cited a Mao Zedong quote written on a tunnel wall: ''The righteous struggles of the people in countries around the world are and will be firmly supported by the 650 million people in China.''

Xu also speculates on the reasons for building the station and its 50,000-watt transmitter. Eighty Malayan Communist Party members, 100 mainland Chinese assistants and a company of soldiers providing security manned the station.

He believed there were fears the transmission tower could have been spotted by ''foreign spy planes'' in Guangdong, Yunnan or Guangxi provinces - all closer to Malaysia. Changsha was a traditional meeting place for Southeast Asian communists visiting China as well as being linked to supply lines for the region.

The Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor's findings place importance on the article as a cause of his troubles, with the potential to overshadow the two offences he was actually jailed over: illegally Providing state secrets by sending abroad reference material about the Korean War that was classified as ''top secret'', and engaging in the illegal publication of periodicals and books on the mainland.

The monitor's May newsletter carries an English translation of the article along with a commentary saying it had information that Xu was imprisoned because of the article, rather than the Korean War material.

''The article itself is very startling,'' said Paul Harris, a barrister and founding chairman of the watchdog group. He believed Xu's problems partly arose from comments in the article about China's sponsorship of revolution abroad.

''One can see that is political dynamite because of its reported comments to other countries that human rights transcend no boundaries,'' said Mr Harris.

He conceded Xu's research into Beijing's role in the Korean War could also have been an issue.

St Antony's College at Oxford University - where Xu studied for his PhD - criticised his detention and said it had received information from various sources regarding the allegations. The main charge apparently was that he obtained four 1950s-era publications on the Korean War which he photocopied, microfilmed and sent to the director of an international relations institute in South Korea. He was allegedly paid US$2,500.