Asa Hutchinson: “I will quote a portion of that editorial today from the Washington Post: Li Hai, 44, a former teacher at the Chinese…”

“I will quote a portion of that editorial today from the Washington Post: Li Hai, 44, a former teacher at the Chinese Medical College, is serving a nine-year sentence in Beijing's Liangxiang Prison. His crime: assembling a list of people jailed for taking part in pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in 1989. From the Beijing area alone, he documented more than 700. Of those, 158--mostly workers, rather than students--received sentences of more than nine years and are presumed still held. Many were sentenced to life in prison, from a 22-year-old named Sun Chuanheng to a 76-year-old named Wang Jiaxiang. Li Hai himself was convicted of ``prying into and gathering . . . state secrets.'' We thought of Mr. Li as we read President Clinton's explanation in Newsweek yesterday of ``Why I'm Going to Beijing.'' Mr. Clinton wrote of the ``real progress--though far from enough'' that China has made in human rights during the past year. . . . Tomorrow Mr. Clinton will leave for China, the first president to visit since the Tiananmen massacre. His aides promise that he will speak out on human rights while there, and there is a chance he will meet with the mother of a student killed in Tiananmen. The first could be valuable if his remarks are broadcast on Chinese television; the second, an important symbol, especially because many relatives of Tiananmen victims continue to be persecuted and harassed. But Mr. Clinton's remarks, above all, should be honest.…”