The Human Right Activist Guo Feixiong appealed to visit his ailing wife abroad

Chinese activist Guo Feixiong issued another open letter on September 29, asking Beijing to let him leave the country to visit his terminally ill wife, Zhang Qing, in the US. Just three days ago, Zhang Qing sent a plea for help from her sick bed, calling for her husband, whom she had not seen for 15 years, to come to her side. Why is it so hard for a desperate couple to meet?

“My life is coming to the end,” Ms. Zhang said at the beginning of the letter. “I am desperate. When will I see my husband?”

The question was vague and seemed to be directed at the Chinese government, which has repeatedly blocked Mr. Guo from visiting her in the United States, as well as at everyone.

The tone of Ms. Zhang’s pleas for help is blunt and desperate, like someone who can’t swim falling into deep water and trying to grab whatever is on the surface. Guo’s letter on Monday was restrained and despairing, following a letter in January asking him to leave the country. But soon after, he was stopped as he tried to board a flight from Shanghai to the United States.

From then until this second open letter, Guo feixiong remained in hiding. Yang Zili, who has been in contact with Guo Feixiong, explained the reason to this station, “He may compromise with the authorities, the authorities may have promised him some conditions, that is, let him not speak, and then watch his national security report to the superior, hoping to put him out, so he also believed their commitment.”

Yang Zili, who is now in the US, emphasized that Mr. Guo had been hoping to be Stoic and low-key in exchange for his release. But more than 10 months of forbearance have not won concessions from The Chinese government, and Guo has still not been allowed to leave the country.

In his letter on 29, Mr. Guo called on Premier Li Keqiang to do his part by “removing the formalistic red tape” and allowing him to travel to the United States. Although Guo Feixiong just very fuzzy sets, as if just stop him going abroad “formalism official documents and correspondence”, but also is limited by the exit activist BaoLong think, actually this process there is no real application, “he does not provide you with any formalities, only oral stop you, just a matter of, you couldn’t go out.

When Guo Feixiong was stopped at Shanghai airport in late January, the Chinese authorities gave the reason that his departure could “harm national security”. ‘This is the usual practice of the Chinese government,’ Mr. Bao said. When Bao longjun’s wife, wang Yu, a rights lawyer, tried to leave the country three years ago, the Inner Mongolia government also refused to apply for a passport, saying it “endangered national security”.

“Endangering national security” seems to be a legal argument, but it is hard to find a basis in Mr Guo’s case. Guo feixiong has long defended the rights of the disadvantaged, defended Falun Gong, and demanded that Chinese officials disclose their assets, which has long been suppressed by the Chinese government.

According to public records, Guo feixiong was jailed twice before being released in August 2019 after being sentenced to five years in prison for “illegal business operation” and six years in prison for “gathering a crowd to disturb order in a public place” and “picking quarrels and provoking troubles”.

But Yang zili thinks that these are not enough to restrict Guo Feixiong to leave the country, “first illegal business, then is to cause trouble, everyone knows that these are purely imposed, unwarranted charges. And even for these crimes, he served his time, even suffered torture, and he did not say that he would fight you communists to the end.”

Yang zili stressed that Guo feixiong only asked to visit his sick wife from a human point of view. “There is no need to call for such a thing. The government has the responsibility to help its citizens. If the Communist Party fails to do this, it has lost its basic humanity.”

He cited tang Jitian, a prominent human rights lawyer, who was also turned away by Chinese authorities in June for “endangering national security” when he tried to go to Japan to care for his ailing daughter.

“Under such a dehumanizing regime, the common people are at best afraid of you, afraid of you, but if you maintain your rule in this way, how long can you last?” Yang Zili questioned.

Mr. Guo’s wife, Zhang Qing, left China for the United States in 2006 with a son and daughter because of his long history of persecution in China. Zhang was diagnosed with bowel cancer during the COVID-19 pandemic last year and has been in declining health ever since. In her letter, Ms. Zhang said the cancer had spread.

“Separated for a long time, has been 15 years, they separated the suffering of the lovesickness plus had cancer, her husband, and you won’t come to her spirit blow is very big, this kind of situation must have affected her treatment effect, so chemotherapy did not control her condition,” just a week ago in the hospital to see Mr Cheung tsing Yang Zili said so.

For Guo Feixiong this appeal can play a role, Yang Zili and Bao Longjun said they are not sure. But Zhang qing is hoping against hope. “You are my last hope, my last hope,” she said in an open letter three days ago, calling out Mr. Guo’s birth name, Yang Maodong, with a hint of reproach. “I am waiting for you to come. When will you come?”