Yang Tianshui
Writer and social activist
Yang Tongyan (April 12, 1961 - November 5, 2017), a famous dissident writer and social activist better known as Yang Tianshui, was sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment for “subverting state power” because of his critical essays on overseas websites, as well as his political activism.
This profile is part of a cooperation with Independent Chinese PEN Center. It has been written by Secretary-General Yu Zhang and was first published in From Wang Shiwei to Liu Xiaobo - Prisoners of Literary Inquisition Under Communist Rule in China (1947-2010). It’s part of our ongoing effort to support freedom of speech and human rights.
Establishing Chinese Democratic Alliance
Yang Tongyan was born in Siyang County, Jiangsu Province. He began studying history at Beijing Normal University in 1978, and after graduating in 1982, he was assigned a job teaching at a school for the children of employees of No. 2 Construction and Installation Company of the Oil Industry Ministry in Nanjing. In September 1985, he was transferred to the provincial local gazette office of the Jiangsu Provincial Academy of Social Sciences, where he served as an assistant researcher. Starting in April 1986, he was sent down to a village in Dafeng County of Yancheng City to serve as assistant to the township head for two years, after which he returned to the gazette office in May 1988.
Yang took part in the 1989 Democracy Movement in Nanjing, and he resigned from his job in October. In May 1990, he joined Sun Zhongming, Feng Maocong, Wang Zhan, Zhang Yuxiang, Zhan Yuewei and Zhang Yanchun in establishing the underground Chinese Democratic Alliance, serving as its executive chairperson. The main points of the alliance’s guiding principles were:
1) The system maintained by the CPC is a neo-feudalistic system.
2) The Chinese Democratic Alliance is willing to join forces with all lovers of democracy and freedom to bring about the democratization of mainland China. The essential points in this undertaking are scrapping one-party dictatorship, establishing a democratic system, popularizing market economy, and strengthening and enriching the Chinese Nation.
3) Advocate genuine freedom of speech, of association and of the press.
4) Endorse the Chinese people’s freedom to develop and spread religious teachings.
5) Endorse the Chinese people’s freedom of residence, and demand that the government scrap or reform the backward household registration system and border entry and exit system that fetter the movement of our people.
6) Implement a genuine compulsory education system.
7) Scrap the evil practice of parties and mass organizations (such as the Communist Youth League and Woman’s Federation) being financially supported by the state.
8) Transform the state’s function; abandon Marxism-Leninism’s so-called repressive function, and restrict the state’s responsibility to defending the people’s safety, maintaining social order, providing public services and regulating national revenue.
9) Implement equal opportunities and other aspects of social equality and fairness.
The Chinese Democratic Alliance grew to more than 50 members in Jiangsu, Hunan, Hubei and Shanghai, but the authorities began cracking down on the organization at the end of May 1990, and Yang Tongyan was arrested on June 1. In July 1991, the Nanjing Municipal Intermediate People’s Court sentenced him to ten years’ imprisonment for “organizing and leading a counter-revolutionary clique”. Sun Zhongming and four other co-defendants were handed sentences of one to four years’ imprisonment.
Yang was sent to Nanjing’s Longtan Prison, where he continued writing. Because he refused to admit guilt, he was subjected to physical abuse, and from 1998 to 1999, he staged six hunger strikes, while also suffering from heart disease, diabetes, arthritis and other ailments.
Gaining fame as Yang Tianshui
Yang Tongyan was release upon completing his sentence on May 31, 2000. A friend helped him find a job managing a clothing factory in Dongguan, Guangdong Province, but because his sentence included four additional years’ deprivation of political rights, the Jiangsu Provincial Public Security Bureau put pressure on the factory, and Yang was fired. At the end of April 2002, the Huangjiang Branch of Dongguan Public Security Bureau detained Yang for two days and then sent him back to Nanjing. After this, he spent most of his time at home writing and compiling his prison memoirs, while also writing commentaries that he published under the penname Yang Tianshui (among others) on overseas websites such as Democracy Forum, Epoch Times and Boxun. The local authorities summoned him repeatedly and placed him under house arrest.
On May 28, 2004, Yang was placed under administrative detention for 15 days because he had posted “essays damaging to China’s honor and not conducive to social stability” on the Internet. He then joined the Independent Chinese PEN Center. By this time, he had published nearly 200 pieces of writings on the Internet, including essays, poems and fiction.
On December 24, 2004, while living temporarily in Hangzhou, Yang was given a “verbal summons” to the police station, where he was held for 15 hours. The following day, he was sent back to Nanjing, where he was detained on suspicion of inciting subversion of state power. The Writers in Prison Committee of PEN International issued a “Rapid Action Network” alert in early January 2005, and the President of PEN International, Jiri Grusa, made an official appeal and protest on Yang’s behalf, while ICPC legal advisor Guo Guoting began making representations on behalf of Yang’s family.
On January 24, 2005, Yang was released on bail pending trial for a year. He continued writing, but was taken away by the Nanjing police on December 23, 2005, and held in an undisclosed location until his formal arrest on January 20, 2006. Following a secret trial on May 16, the Zhenjiang Municipal Intermediate People’s Court in Jiangsu Province issued a verdict:
From May to December 2002, the defendant Yang Tongyan, using the pennames Yang Tianshui, Zhonghua Lei and others, posted a large number of essays on Epoch Times, Boxun and other overseas websites..., which vilified the leadership of the Communist Party of China with the intent of overthrowing the current state regime and socialist system.
In March 2005, in an election for a “democratic transitional government” carried out on the overseas website Velvet Action of China, the defendant Yang Tongyan was elected a member of the secretariat of “First Provisional Transitional Government of Democratic China,” and a Jiangsu member of the Work Committee for the Peaceful Handover of Provincial and City Governments. He also published essays on the Epoch Times website promoting the Velvet Action as “epoch-making in its use of a new form of democracy movement; the ‘Democratic China Transitional Government’ it generated through free elections on Internet is a legitimate government”, and so on.
In April 2005, the defendant Yang Tongyan, in adherence to the program and constitution of the hostile organization the Chinese Democracy Party, secretly organized a “preparatory committee for the Jiangsu-Anhui branch of the China Democracy Party”, and further developed its membership.
In February 2005, the defendant Yang Tongyan accepted 500 euros in funds from Sheng Xue, a vice-chairman of the overseas Federation for a Democratic China, and others. In December that year, he accepted 500 Australian dollars from Sun Liyong, based in Australia. Part of the funds he accepted were used to support Wang Wenjiang, a criminal imprisoned for endangering state security, and his immediate family.
... Yang Tongyan is therefore found guilty of subveting state power and sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment, with an additional four years’ deprivation of political rights.
PEN International and other international rights organizations have expressed great concern for Yang Tongyan’s welfare, and the ICPC has helped engage legal counsel for Yang. He has been adopted as an honorary member of several overseas PEN centers, and was awarded ICPC’s Writers in Prison Award in 2006 and the PEN American Center’s Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award in 2008.
In Nanjing Prison, Yang suffered abuse due to his refusal to admit guilt. He had multiple physical ailments and went on hunger strike, but his repeated requests for medical parole was all refused.
Four month before his sentence completion on December 22, 2017, Yang Tongyan was diagnosed with a later-stage brain tumor on 12 August, and based on the doctors’ recommendation, was released on medical parole four days later. Soon after he returned his sister’s home, Yang was transported to a specialized hospital and underwent brain surgery several days later. On 5 November, he died at the age of 56.
Bibliography
1. “Yang Tongyan’s (Yang Tianshui) Criminal Verdict”, 2006.
2. Zhonghua Lei, “A Few Words on Jiangsu’s Democracy Movement”, 2004.
3. Yang Yinbo, “Record of an Interview with Yang Tianshui”, 2004.
4. Liu Lu, Lan Fang, “The Behind-the-Scenes Story of the Yang Tianshui Case”, 2006.
5. Chu Yichu, “Yang Tianshui, Choosing to be Imprisoned Twice”, 2006.
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