By EDWARD EPSTEIN

Dissident Finally Free

For 60 years, writer Wang Ruowang-- called the grandfather of the Chinese dissident movement-- was a communist true believer. But for 48 of those years, he was in trouble with authorities for his support of democracy. First it was the Kuomintang government that jailed him. Then it was the communists. Finally, the Tiananmen massacre of June 1989 killed whatever faith Wang had left in communism.

Recently, the 75-year-old Wang landed in San Francisco on his first trip to the United States. For

the past few years, he had been under house arrest in his apartment in Shanghai, but he was finally

granted a visa to go abroad, in part because of American pressure. He plans to spend at least a year in

New York as a guest scholar at Columbia University.

“The Chinese Communist Party is doomed,” says Wang. "It can't reform itself. I believed it could, but that was before 1989. That thought has now completely disappeared from my mind."

Wang's prescription for China is Western-style multiparty democracy. "I'm very optimistic about China's future. I see a unified a multiparty system, a free market system. It also would give (Inner) Mongolia, Tibet and SinJang autonomy." Those regions, populated by ethnic minorities, have grown restive under Chinese control.

Hong Kong, Taiwan, Models for China

He sees Hong Kong as a good economic model for all of China and Taiwan as a good political role model. The Kuomintang regime on Taiwan now allows a free press to flourish puts up with a strong opposition party and has loosened restrictions on the movement of people in and out of country.

Wang's optimism for the future arises from his tough years in jail and work camps. "They let me get together with ordinary people who were locked up with me. Through their eyes, I saw what was really going on.... I learned from my experience, day by day....If I were still foolish enough to believe the communists, I'd say l' m a real dummy."

Wang also says China's vast peasantry, some 800 million strong, has lost faith in the communists

“They may not know the meaning of democracy, but they want to be masters of their own destiny.”

Amazed at America's Freedom of Speech

Wang's most memorable experience so far in the United States came this week when he was watching Chinese-language news on TV. He saw a reporter asking the president of the United States about reports that he had engaged in a sexual affair. Wang marveled at the reporter: "He asked that question so calmly, so peacefully. In China, could anyone ask such a question of a leader? Never."