Wife of prominent Chinese dissident, son escape to America

SAN FRANCISCO – The pregnant wife a prominent Chinese dissident has arrived in the San Francisco Bay Area with her 4-year-old son to live for at least one year as refugees.

On Tuesday afternoon, 40-year-old Liu Xiaodong, the wife of Zhao Changqing, along with their son, arrived at San Francisco International Airport from Bangkok, Thailand. She was escorted by Jianli Yang, president of Initiatives for China/Citizen Power for China. Yang said she will live in Hayward, California, with supporters and take care of her kids.

The 47-year-old Changqing has been one of China’s leading human rights and democracy defenders since the 1989 Tiananmen Students Movement.

As a former student leader in Tiananmen Square and a prominent political “prisoner of conscience,” he has been imprisoned five times in 27 years. Yang says he was released a week ago and is living in China under heavy surveillance.