Bush visit unlikely to lead to releases

China commonly frees political prisoners before major state visits, but a human-rights activist said yesterday that changing attitudes meant there may be no releases ahead of US President George W. Bush's trip next month.

The releases are seen as giving Beijing bargaining power before visits as a gesture of goodwill, but John Kamm, whose Dui Hua Foundation works to free Chinese political prisoners, said that thinking may be changing.

"There has been a change since the new leadership started," he said, referring to Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) becoming president in 2003.

"There is a new thinking and I have heard that the new leadership is less inclined to do it," Kamm told the Foreign Correspondents' Club.

But in a departure from the pattern set by former president Jiang Zemin (江澤民), there were no publicized releases before Hu visited the US last month.

One major release in the past year, that of Rebiya Kadeer, an ethnic Uighur businesswoman from Xinjiang, did come days before Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited China in March.

Kadeer had been sentenced to eight years in prison for "illegally providing state intelligence abroad" after she sent newspaper clippings to her husband in the US.

Kamm, a former chemical company executive who describes himself as being "in the prisoner list business," scours newspapers and official records for names of prisoners whom he presents to the Chinese government with requests for information.

Lists compiled by the foundation detail over 10,000 individuals who have been detained for political or religious offenses since 1980. More than 2,500 are either known or strongly believed to be currently jailed. The situation was not improving, he said.

"It's moving forward and backward at the same time in different rates and different places. It's hard to conclude it's getting better and better," he said.

Kamm called on the international business community to keep up the pressure on human-rights issues, saying it often helps release political prisoners or improve their treatment in jail.

"They can raise the issue. They can speak honestly about the importance of human rights to their people," he said.

He said surveys have shown that the principal concern of trading with China for many Americans was its rights record.

"The American people feel this way, so if China wants to improve its image in the US, it has to do something about human rights," Kamm said. "Political prisoners who are asked about by foreigners become important prisoners. Important prisoners must be reported to the central government."