[Chinese version also available: GB/Big5]

Ladies, gentlemen, and friends:

Greetings! I am delighted to be able to meet with friends from the world press here today.

I would like to say a few words before entertaining your questions. I would, first, like to thank the many groups and individuals both inside and outside China and around the world for the concern and support they have shown over many years for democracy and human rights in China and for me in particular. I wish also to thank the governments of the United States and other democratic countries, and human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch/Asia, Human Rights in China, Amnesty International, and the Human Rights Committee of the New York Academy of Sciences for their tireless efforts in seeking my release. I am grateful as well to the City University of New York for its cooperation in arranging this press conference.

Nonetheless, my feelings rights now are mixed. On the one hand I am naturally delighted to breathe free again, especially since I can now live and study in a free country like America. But on the other hand, I feel disturbed at having been forced to leave my own country, to live separately from my family, relatives, and friends, and all of my compatriots, without knowing when, if ever, I will be allowed to see them again.

The Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit has given me attentive care and a thorough physical examination. The results show that, except for a chronic cough brought on by mild asthma, I suffer no serious health problems. Accordingly, while I continue to follow doctors' orders regarding the cough, I hope to find a university where I can continue my education. Some friends have already begun making inquiries for me.

I will have two goals during my time in America: the first will be to complete my education, and the second to do what I can to promote the democratization of China and to improve the state of human rights in China. The reason why I list my education first is that I am acutely aware that I still have considerable growing room for my understanding of things and for the development of my personal character. I know that if I really want to do well with my second goals -- that is, pressing for political progress in China -- there can be no substitute for solid educational grounding.

My ideal for myself is to become an independent and free-thinking intellectual. I hope that some day I will make a scholarly contribution of some kind. But I also feel strongly that intellectuals have a natural duty to be concerned about matters of society; indeed, I feel that to criticize authority and dictatorship, and to stand up for freedom and tolerance, is an unshirkable responsibility of the intellectual.

I feel that my country now stands at a crossroads: will it move toward democracy and prosperity, or go stumbling toward chaos and collapse? The duty to answer this question, I feel, rests with every Chinese person, and will be decided by the daily-life choices that every Chinese citizen makes. I just happen to be more zealous than some. Whatever methods I might use, and whatever achievements I might attain, my goal is not going to change. I plan to devote my entire life to the struggle for democracy in China. I hope to continue using three criteria for measuring the worth of my actions: have I been responsible 1) to the Chinese people, 2) to history, and 3) to my own conscience?

Today, as I speak at this spot in one of the freest cities on earth, I feel a special duty to speak for the courageous people who remain trapped inside some of the least free of spots in the whole world -- the cells of the Chinese prison system. It would be wrong if the world's concern for me and for a few famous dissidents were to draw attention away from the legion of less known Chinese political prisoners. These include Liu Nianchun, Li Hai, Gao Yu, Liu Xiaobo and many, many others. The outcry of world opinion has always been immensely important inside China. Let us resolve to work together until every last one of China's political prisoners has regained his or her freedom.

I dream of a day in China when the ideas of freedom, democracy, human sympathy, tolerance, and equality have pervaded people's hearts and minds and have radically transformed the patterns of social life. When that day comes, we can cease our tears, forget every painful memory, and watch China advance toward a magnificent and brilliant new day. If we all work hard for that day to come, it will, I believe, come.

Thank you.

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