The case is just a criminal case. It has little linkage to Sino-U.S. relations, foreign ministry spokesman Shen Guofang said Tuesday.

But since Wu’s detention on June 19, after his crossing into China from neighboring Kazakhstan, evidence has been mounting that the case is more than a simple case of crime and punishmentand that Chinese authorities have been sharply divided on how to treat him.

This is a blessing and curse for China, said an Asian diplomat. On the one hand they have been given a stick to beat the United States, but they’re not united on how to use it.’

Advertisement

Wu might have seemed a godsend for China’s leadership.

With Wu in custody, the government had an opportunity to punish the Clinton administration for having allowed the president of TaiwanChina’s archrival in international affairsto visit the United States.

And Wu was an American who was born a citizen of China, a figure viewed by the government as a traitor for having told foreigners about China’s labor camps and other human-rights violations.

I think they realized pretty quickly that having Harry Wu in custody was a great way to antagonize the United States but that it was a major problem as well, said a Chinese professor at a government-run think tank. That divided people in the government.

The division in the leadership centers on how far to go with Wu.

Should he be treated like a Chinese dissidentheld incommunicado and sentenced according to the prevailing political wind? Or should he be lightly punished and then expelled as soon as possible in an effort to turn around deteriorating relations with the U.S.?

China’s first response to Wu’s entry was to say nothing.

Advertisement*

Although an agreement with the United States calls for diplomats to be given access to arrested citizens within 48 hours, the Beijing government did not admit that Wu was in custody for four days.

When pressed, Chinese authorities seemed to concede that they were violating the agreement, by charging the United States with similar lapses.

They said that when two Chinese citizens were killed over the past 12 months in the United States, U.S. law enforcement officials failed to notify Chinese diplomats as they should have.

Finally, a U.S. diplomat was allowed to meet Wu on Monday, three full weeks after he was detained.