James Kynge

I do want to make it clear that I'm not making light of being a prisoner in China.

I've known three people, all of them foreigners, who've spent time in Chinese prisons.

And I must say that in the testimony of all three of them, it is a uniquely harrowing experience.

Two of these cases I'm not allowed to talk about because they were

private conversations.

But the one that I think resonates with me is that of a man called Sidney Rittenberg, who's now passed away.

He was an American.

He was senior in the Chinese Communist Party during the time of Chairman Mao and was sentenced to 16 years in solitary confinement.

during two separate prison terms.

And I remember talking to Sidney when he was still alive, and he actually wrote a book about this called The Man Who Stayed Behind.

That was written in 2001.

So a lot of this is described in his book.

But I remember him saying that the first 12 months that he was held in prison, he was held in a completely dark cell.

And he was in solitary confinement for the entirety of his 16-year duration.

And his book and what he spoke to me and other people about was the self-disciplined regime that he decided he had to evolve to survive.

mainly to maintain his sanity.

And it involved a lot of reading and learning poetry by heart and then reciting those poems so that he didn't lose his mind.

What's your reflection, either on the prisons or these two that have been sentenced, Alice?

You mentioned the elite rocket force.

I mean, this is an extraordinary thing that the head of the rocket force of China, the guy in charge of the nuclear missiles, is now in prison.