Citing his "repentant behavior," China on Monday deported a Chinese-born American citizen convicted of obtaining state secrets and put him on a plane to the US nearly two years before his prison sentence expires.
Fong Fuming (
In the past, Beijing has freed Americans or US residents to coincide with visits from top-level Washington politicians. One source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that a US official who deals with human rights had arrived in Beijing on Monday.
The ailing Fong "has had his sentence reduced and was deported from China," the official Xinhua News Agency reported in a brief dispatch on Monday night.
"It's a happy surprise," said one of Fong's two sons, reached by telephone in New Jersey. He spoke on condition that his name not be used. "We're just so overjoyed that he's coming home."
Fong, an electrical engineer and one-time power official in China, long denied charges he illegally obtained documents containing state secrets and bribed government officials. He was sentenced to five years in prison in March last year after being detained for nearly two years, and was given credit for time served.
Fong was the first prisoner on Washington's list released since Ngawang Sangdrol, a Tibetan "singing nun" imprisoned since her mid-teens for political activism, was freed in October last year.
"I think the significance really is that the Chinese are returning to past practice of releasing prisoners of concern to the United States," said John Kamm, whose San Francisco-based Dui Hua Foundation works for the release of Chinese prisoners.
"We're all hoping, of course, that this will be followed by other important releases," Kamm said.
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