The dissension among Chinese dissidents

摘要

Beijing-While Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was in China last week denouncing a Communist crackdown on dissidents, Chinese dissidents in the United States were denouncing each other. In a bitter struggle for control of the democracy movement, some of China's best-known current and former political prisoners have accused one another of egotism and treachery— and are embroiled in a $2 million lawsuit. Relations among some of these activists have been strained for years, but the feud blew up publicly in January, when two groups of Chinese dissidents got into a shoving match at the end of a U.S. congressional hearing on human rights. Immediately after the chairman of the House International Relations Committee, Republican Benjamin A. Gilman of New York, gaveled the session to a close, shouting erupted and chairs were knocked over.