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A HONG KONG lawyer, allowed to leave China in 1992 after being sentenced to 15 years' jail for spying, has returned to the mainland to do business.

  Hanson Wong Yin is managing director of five companies - three have their headquarters in Beijing and Shenzhen, dealing with computer products.

  A Harvard-trained lawyer, Mr Wong resigned from his job as a lawyer in the United States in 1979 to become a legal adviser in Beijing.

  The job, which offered him a monthly salary of $70 yuan (about HK$63) at first and $700 after six months, allowed him access to 'highly confidential' information.

  It also gave him a seat in some of China's negotiations with overseas countries and firms, one being the controversial Daya Bay nuclear plant project.

  Mr Wong was arrested in 1982. He had resigned and was taking four cases of documents through Customs for clearance to Hong Kong. He was sentenced to 15 years' jail, but in 1985, the National Security Bureau decided to treat him 'preferentially' by offering him a flat and a domestic helper in Beijing.

  During the 'house arrest', Mr Wong was allowed to travel to Shenzhen to begin his computer software business before his release to Hong Kong in early 1992.

  Yesterday, a confident Mr Wong said he had no difficulties, either psychologically or physically, returning to the mainland to do business.

  Mr Wong is in Beijing as one of the organisers of the Pollution in the Metropolitan Environment Conference.

  His family and friends were concerned about his first return to China but Mr Wong said he was well prepared.

  'I did not struggle at all. Looking back on the 10 years in jail, I regard myself as a victor in my insistence on the rule of law. Seldom do prisoners convicted by the communists end up like me,' he said.

  He was referring to the Supreme People's Court decision to withdraw his charges in 1989.

  But Mr Wong, 43, said he had returned to China with different feelings.

  'I was a legal adviser to officials in the top echelon before, but now, I make my trips to get business done,' he said.

  Mr Wong admitted that his feelings towards the country had been given a low priority, but added: 'The important thing is that my work does benefit the development of the country in one way or another.

  'To judge whether one's life is rich, is largely to do with whether one has suffered ups and downs,' he said.

  Mr Wong refused to speculate whether his imprisonment had anything to do with a power struggle between Chinese leaders.

  'I know nothing about the problems at the top level,' he said.



Years in prison cast no shadow