“I think that we are now in the position to call on the Bush administration to escalate the pressure that they have put on the Chinese government,” Genser said.

“Now that we have this international validation I think we have a much easier case going to other nations,” he added.

Genser said he will encourage Yang’s case to be a topic of discussion in high level meetings between the leaders of the United States and the People’s Republic of China.

“We are going to urge that the case be raised in those high level meetings and if not we are going to want an explanation,” he said.

Genser described China’s handling of the Yang case as another illustration of the lack of transparency in the Chinese government, much like the manipulation of numbers in the recent SARS epidemic.

This lack of transparency has been a point of contention in the expanding efforts at diplomatic and economic cooperation between the United States and China, and Genser said the Yang case is only making things worse.

“I think the Chinese are, by their actions, putting in play an unnecessary irritant in the relationship between the United States and the People’s Republic of China,” he said.

Instead, the organization works to free “prisoners of conscience,” Genser said. In Yang’s case, Freedom Now is advocating only adherence to national and international law.

“We are not asking for anything more than that they comply with their own laws,” he said.

In a statement, the Chinese government accused Yang of “illegally crossing the state frontier” and said he “might also have committed other offenses.”

He added that Freedom Now has previously won freedom for clients shortly after similar U.N. working group opinions, although the decision itself may not “necessarily” have been the reason for release.

Ramsey Professor of Political Economy Richard J. Zeckhauser ’62, who advised Yang’s thesis and last year organized a letter of support that eventually received the signatures of 34 Kennedy School Professors, said China’s handling of the case could eventually effect the country economically.

“Ultimately it will have an impact, if enough people get concerned,” Zeckhauser said. “People will say, ‘The Chinese are unreliable. Do I want to go do business in China? Maybe I’ll get detained if they don’t like what I’ve done.’”

Yang is the president and founder of the Foundation for China in the 21st century, an organization funded in part by the National Endowment for Democracy.

Yang’s wife, Fu, could not be reached for comment.

—Staff writer David B. Rochelson can be reached at rochels@fas.harvard.edu.