FREE--AND STILL FEISTY

By RON STODGHILL II/DETROIT

Although Dr. Thomas Royer, chief medical officer of Detroit's Henry Ford Hospital, doesn't normally handle admissions, he made an exception when a call came in from Dr. Connie Mariano, who is Bill Clinton's personal physician. It wasn't the President who needed treatment but someone who would soon be getting just as much attention: Wei Jingsheng, China's most renowned dissident. The White House had been tipped off that Wei, who had spent most of the past 18 years in prison, would soon be released, and the Administration was helping make arrangements to whisk him away to the U.S. Since he was ailing and China was granting him a "medical parole," one of his first stops after leaving prison needed to be a hospital. And since the only nonstop route from Beijing to the U.S. on an American carrier was a Northwest Airlines flight to Detroit, Henry Ford was chosen to receive the celebrated patient. There was only one catch. "It's possible," warned Dr. Mariano, "that no one will be paying for this."

But Wei's lack of medical insurance didn't seem very important after he arrived last week, making Henry Ford the focal point of a major international news story. While a hospital spokeswoman kept the crowds of reporters at bay, doctors gave the 47-year-old exile a thorough going-over. He was suffering from high blood pressure, and he needed glasses, but otherwise he was remarkably healthy for someone incarcerated so long in a country not noted for humane treatment of prisoners.

Soon Wei was showing just a touch of the spirit of defiance that got him into such trouble back in China. He was caught smoking against doctors' orders and later demanded a speedy release from the hospital. By the time he flew to New York City late in the week for his first public appearance, he was the same outspoken champion of freedom who won admiration around the world for daring to stand up to China's communist leadership. At a press conference held in the New York Public Library, Wei said, "Those who enjoy democracy, liberty and human rights... should not allow their own personal happiness to numb them into forgetting the many others who are still struggling against tyranny, slavery and poverty." In an interview with TIME on Saturday, Wei said that China's leaders view human-rights concessions as a tool of diplomacy: "They are using political prisoners as hostages in international politics. It is an evil, hoodlum method."

The Clinton Administration considered Wei's release to be a payoff from its policy of "constructive engagement" with China. Wei was such a leading light of the dissident movement--and thus considered so dangerous by the Chinese government--that his supporters sometimes feared he would never go free. A former electrician in Beijing, Wei first gained notoriety with a 1978 essay advocating that Deng Xiaoping broaden his campaign to carry out "Four Modernizations"--of industry, agriculture, science and the military--to include democracy as a "fifth modernization." The next year, after writing a wall poster that accused Deng of being a dictator, Wei was arrested.

Even behind bars, though, he could not resist needling Deng in a series of letters that were smuggled out of jail and published overseas. "Your problem," Wei wrote Deng in 1987, "is that you have too much ambition, too little talent and you're narrow-minded." And on Nov. 11, 1989: "You say, 'We are not afraid of going it alone, and no one has the right to interfere in our domestic affairs.' You unscrupulous schemer! Do you think that treating the people of China as a joke makes you some kind of hero? It's time to loosen the strings."

Wei was released briefly in 1993, before his speeches and writings got him thrown into the slammer again. Only in recent years has he seemed less of a threat, obviously weakened and sometimes listless, wasting away in a cold cell.

The Clinton Administration has quietly lobbied for Wei's freedom, especially in the past two years, and stepped up the pressure before and during President Jiang Zemin's visit to the U.S. last month. Jiang made no promises concerning Wei at the summit with Clinton; to let him go too close to the meeting would have resulted in a loss of face for the Chinese leadership. Earlier this month James Sasser, the U.S. Ambassador to China, said he was "personally disappointed" that Jiang's tour across America had not brought the release of political prisoners, but in the same week he got word that Wei would soon be out of jail.

The U.S. embassy closely guarded the secret, lest premature publicity embarrass the Chinese and cause them to change their minds. Coach reservations, later upgraded to first class, on the Northwest Airlines flight to Detroit were made in the name of Mr. and Mrs. Woo Chan Lee.

At around 6 p.m. on Nov. 15, Wei was sitting in his cell at the Nanpu New Life Salt Works Prison north of Beijing, when a prison official came in and ordered him to pack up immediately. He was given a down jacket and a suitcase but had to leave behind most of his books and letters. Meanwhile, security officers picked up Wei's closest relatives--his father, stepmother, elder sister, younger brother and a niece--and drove them to a People's Liberation Army border guards' hostel that was a stone's throw from Beijing International Airport.

Wei arrived at the hostel in a Jeep Cherokee at 4:30 a.m. on Nov. 16, giving him less than six hours to see his family before he would board the Northwest flight and go into exile, perhaps forever. There was picture taking and excited chatter about family news. Some of the group were worried about how Wei's father, Wei Zilin, 79, would react, since he was once sternly critical of his son's activism. But, says younger son Xiaotao, "the old man controlled himself quite well."

All too soon, it was time to go. At the airport, Wei met briefly with Sasser, who asked the dissident if he was leaving voluntarily and explained that he might never be able to come back. Just before the 10:30 a.m. departure time, Woo Chan Lee, a U.S. embassy employee, strode to the gate not with his wife but with a tired-looking man in a down jacket. Only then was the Northwest crew told about the important passenger they would have on board the flight.

Exhausted as Wei was by the 13-hour trip and the medical exams, he needed only a few days' rest before stepping out into the spotlight. At the New York press conference he spoke of those he left behind. "I have waited decades for this chance to exercise my right to free speech," he declared, "but the Chinese people have been waiting for centuries." Wei seemed confident that he had not seen the last of his homeland. "I certainly plan to go back," he said. "I never planned to leave." In fact, he added, "I'd be willing to return to China under almost any circumstances." Except perhaps one: "No one wants to go back to jail."

--With reporting by Jay Branegan/Washington and Jaime A. FlorCruz/Beijing

With reporting by JAY BRANEGAN/WASHINGTON AND JAIME A. FLORCRUZ/BEIJING