Relatives: Chinese Dissidents Missing

Tue Jul 23, 6:37 PM ET

By PAUL WILBORN, Associated Press Writer

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Three Chinese pro-democracy activists, including a prominent exiled dissident, disappeared during a trip to Vietnam and have not been heard from in almost a month, a family member said Tuesday.

Wang Bingzhang, who lives in the United States, was traveling with Zhang Qi, a U.S. resident, and Yue Wu, who lives in France.

In 1998, China expelled Wang after he ended nearly two decades in exile and returned under an alias to help dissidents form an underground opposition party.

"We really don't know where they are or who got them, so I am really worried at this point," said Wang's daughter, Wang Qingyan, of the Los Angeles suburb of San Gabriel.

She said she last heard from her father in an e-mail on June 20, but he gave no details of his travels.

State Department spokeswoman Nancy Beck said Tuesday that the U.S. consulate in Vietnam is looking into Wang's whereabouts.

The Chinese and Vietnamese embassies in Washington did not immediately return calls Tuesday.

The three activists told friends they were going sightseeing along the border between Vietnam and China, Wang Qingyan said.

On June 26, Wang Bingzhang called a friend in Cambodia, promising to call him again in three days, the friend said. The next day, the friend said, he received two calls from Wang's cell phone, but there was no one on the line when he answered.

The friend, Fang Yuan, reached Tuesday at his home in Australia, said he believes Wang was arrested trying to sneak into China.

"He was thinking about breaking into China for a long time and preparing for it," Fang said.

Wang was a medical student in China when he started speaking out against the Communist government and was jailed in 1966 and 1967, eventually going into exile in Canada in 1979. He lived in New York during the 1980s, publishing the pro-democracy magazine China Spring and organizing the Chinese Alliance for Democracy.