You Can't Go Home Again

During his closed trial on Monday, Boston-based Chinese dissident Yang Jianli will no doubt have been asked to explain why he returned to China. It's a question Yang must have asked himself often in his 15 months of virtual isolation since he was arrested in April 2002 after entering the country using a forged passport. Why would a man of his superior intellect, a man who holds doctorates from both the University of California at Berkeley and Harvard, do something so foolish? Why would a husband, a father with two small children and a comfortable home, act so recklessly? Why...