The Taking Of Andrew's Mother

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The woman's name was a frosty interlude amid the pleasantries of George W. Bush's meeting with China's Vice Premier Qian Qichen. The woman is Gao Zhan, 40, a sociologist at American University in Washington who has been held by Chinese authorities since mid-February. Bush bluntly told Qian of his "extreme concern" about Gao. He was echoing similar statements by Secretary of State Colin Powell, who called the case "particularly outrageous."

Gao's ordeal began as she, her son Andrew, 5, and her husband Xue Donghua approached the Northwest Airlines counter at Beijing airport on Feb. 11 to return from a three-week vacation. Suddenly, some 15 plainclothes security agents appeared and separated the family. "We didn't even have a chance to look at each other," says Xue. The agents blindfolded Xue and drove him to a house where they interrogated him for 26 days. On March 8 they took him to Andrew, who, because of the abrupt and prolonged break, did not recognize him at first. "He was looking at me, and then he figured it out. We embraced and cried."

Gao and Xue are Chinese nationals awaiting their swearing-in ceremony as U.S. citizens. But Andrew was born in America, and is already a citizen. His detention, therefore, violated a consular agreement between the U.S. and China to inform each other of citizens' detentions within four days. That explains part of the U.S. outrage. But the case, at least the fourth in the past six years, gave the Bush Administration a welcome chance to put teeth into its proclaimed interest in human rights.

Beijing insists that Gao "is suspected of activities that undermine state security," but now the incident has led to a diplomatic embarrassment. "Nothing this woman could have done is worth the black eye it gave to Qian," says a Clinton senior White House official.

China's leaders are vulnerable at a number of pressure points. They are trying to persuade Washington to spurn Taiwan's requests for an advanced antimissile radar system and are desperately trying to win this July's vote by the International Olympic Committee for China to be host to the 2008 Summer Games. Gao's lawyer, Jerome Cohen, therefore holds out hope. "When a dispute gets to that level, intelligent leaders won't want to damage themselves over a nothing case," he says. China may also be particularly sensitive now, as news broke last week of the defection in December of a high-ranking Chinese officer in New York.

At home now, amid the jumble of toys and papers strewn about their comfortable town house, Xue Donghua and Andrew are inseparable. "He used to be a very open child," the father says, "but now he is very sensitive--he won't leave me." A pile of newspapers, recording his pleas for Gao's freedom, lie on the floor. "We'll save them for her, so she can see what we have been doing," Xue says.