Late every afternoon, a couple of English-language newspapers arrive in hotels for foreigners in Beijing. On some, very rare, occasions they fail to appear. Then you can be sure they contain sensitive news that the authorities do not want to reach even those few Chinese in the capital who might get their hands on them.
Yesterday was one such day. The missing newspapers, the In- ternational Herald Tribune and the South China Morning Post (Hong Kong) carried accounts of the release and exile to the US on Sunday of China's leading dissident, Wei Jingsheng. No word of this major international story was to be found in the officially-controlled Chinese media yesterday, in keeping with a policy of denying publicity to those who advocate western-style democracy or human rights in China.
In any event Wei Jingsheng, unlike Sakharov or Solzhenitsyn in the former Soviet Union, was virtually unknown to the Chinese masses as a voice of conscience.
Outside of the capital, few had heard of him. Those Beijing residents who did get the news learned it from Chinese language broadcasts of Voice of America and the BBC, according to a local businessman.
The South China Morning Post said the release of Mr Wei gave further retrospective substance to the Sino-US summit and raised hopes for the meeting next year between President Jiang and President Clinton.
But the paper said it would be premature to judge that Mr Wei's release signalled a change in attitude towards political dissent on the mainland. Many observers believe Mr Wei's release on medical parole has deprived China's tiny and demoralised pro-democracy movement of a potent symbol. While in prison he was a focus for critics of China's human rights record. Traditionally, when dissidents are sent into exile, they lost their high profile. For Beijing what appears like a concession is in fact something of a diplomatic coup, diplomats in the Chinese capital said. The action is being welcomed by grateful international leaders, including Mr Clinton, who had been almost pleading with China to make a gesture to justify their policies of engagement to enhance trade.
"Everyone in the West knows about Wei Jingsheng today, but interest will quickly wane and there is no one left now of his stature," said one envoy. Mr Wei was jailed in 1995 for 14 years. He had earlier served all but six months of a 15-year sentence for his role in the 19781979 Democracy Wall and for leaking secrets to a foreign reporter. The release touched off a flurry of activity among China's scattered pro-democracy activists. Qin Yongmin in Wuhan wrote to the Chinese President, Mr Jiang Zemin, pleading for the release of other pro-democracy campaigners.
"Wei only exercised his citizen's rights and therefore he should not have been arrested in the first place," wrote Mr Qin, an associate of Mr Wei during the Democracy Wall movement, who was jailed for seven years in 1981.
"But releasing him shows you have taken an important step in improving China's human rights." Now, he pleaded, Wang Dan, Li Hai, Zhou Guoqiang, Liu Nianchun and Liu Xiaobo should also be released.
Wang Dan (28), is now China's most prominent dissident and may soon follow Mr Wei into exile. He was jailed for 11 years in 1996.