Gao Jia, the American-born son of a well-known Chinese dissident artist, has missed first grade because his parents have been stopped from leaving China.
This was meant to be the summer Gao Jia finished first grade in New York and spent his school break playing with friends near his home on Long Island or drawing with his father, Gao Zhen, a Chinese artist known for his irreverent caricatures of Mao Zedong, the founder of modern China.
Instead, the outgoing 7-year-old U.S. citizen with spiky hair and a mischievous grin has been stuck in China for nearly a year while his father stands trial on charges relating to artwork produced long before his son was born.
Jia has been trapped by the system of exit bans that Chinese law enforcement has used with increasing regularity since Xi Jinping became China’s leader in 2012. The exit bans are used to prevent dissidents and their families from leaving the country and to pressure them into silence, according to human rights groups. The family’s difficulties began a year ago when Gao, 69, was arrested while visiting family in China. Authorities raided the studio he kept on the outskirts of Beijing and confiscated dozens of sketches and sculptures.
The U.S. permanent resident has been held in detention for a year on charges of “slandering heroes and martyrs.” Prosecutors claim satirical statues he made nearly 20 years ago damaged Mao’s reputation.
His family soon discovered they too were trapped. When his wife, Zhao Yaliang, tried to return to their home in New York with their son last September, she was told by immigration authorities she could not leave the country on national security grounds, despite not being charged with any crime.
Immigration officers at the border said that only her son could leave. “You must be joking,” Zhao recalls replying. “My child is so young, how can he go alone?” Mother and son have been stuck in China since then.
China’s Ministry of Public Security did not respond to a request for comment.
Whether Jia himself is technically under an exit ban is “immaterial” because “he cannot leave China without his mother,” said John Kamm, executive director of the Dui Hua Foundation, a China-focused human rights nonprofit based in San Francisco.
Kamm said that preventing a child from leaving is a move “of such an egregious nature” that even someone like him, who has seen it all, finds it “outrageous.” He has been engaging with the Chinese government to improve treatment of political and religious prisoners in China since the 1990s. While most of those subject to bans are Chinese nationals, similar restrictions have also been imposed on foreigners — most of them ethnically Chinese.
A U.S. citizen who works for the Commerce Department has been stuck in China for several months, people familiar with the matter told The Washington Post in July. The U.S. bank Wells Fargo suspended travel to the country after an executive who is a U.S. passport holder was subject to an exit ban, the Wall Street Journal reported that same month.
In China’s opaque legal system, those subject to bans often are unaware of the restriction until they try to leave the country.
That was the case for Zhao, 47. Initially, police told Zhao she must stay in China for questioning and that she could leave when their investigation concluded if she promised not to talk to media and to “behave” when back in the United States.
Later, the story changed. Officers said they were waiting for approval from “higher-ups.” That approval never came.
“From their perspective, my child and I were the best hostages,” Zhao said. “They know with us in their hands, Gao would cooperate.”
Gao is facing up to three years in prison for three sculptures he and his brother, who now lives in the U.S., made in the 2000s, a time of relative openness. He intends to plead not guilty, said a friend, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid reprisals from the Chinese authorities.
The artwork in question critiqued the upheaval of the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and ’70s, when Mao encouraged violent young Red Guards to take the socialist revolution into their own hands. As many as 2 million died in the turmoil, including Gao’s father.
The sculptures were meant to be provocative: “Miss Mao” shows Mao as a topless woman with distorted, babyish features, while “The Execution of Christ” depicted a firing squad of life-size Mao statues aiming rifles at Jesus. But Gao denies they were defamatory, the friend said.
Gao is accused of breaking a law that wasn’t even enacted until nearly a decade after these artworks were first exhibited. In 2018, China criminalized acts that “distort, smear, desecrate” or otherwise “damage the reputation and honor of heroes and martyrs.”
Since then, the law has been used repeatedly to silence those who challenge the Chinese Communist Party’s official version of history. In 2022, authorities jailed a journalist for seven months after he mocked Chinese soldiers who froze to death in the Korean War. But Gao’s case is one of the first to apply to art produced long before the law was enacted.
Gao, who is a Christian, maintains that his artwork was not intended to defame Mao but rather to explore, through cartoonish depictions of a symbolic figure, the concepts of original sin and repentance, his family said.
For Zhao, who was not married to Gao when he made the statues, it makes no sense that her leaving with her child would “endanger state security,” as officials claimed.
After splitting their time between China and the U.S. for years, the couple moved to New York in 2022 so that Gao could be closer to his daughter from an earlier marriage and Jia could attend school in the United States.
Gao still intended to travel to China regularly to visit his studio and a cafe he owns in the 798 art district of Beijing.
Zhao had just received a reentry permit and was in the process of applying for a green card when they decided to visit China last summer for the trip that resulted in her husband’s detention. Jia was born in the U.S. when Zhao, who is also a photographer and artist, was in the country working on an exhibition. When Gao is released, the family still intends to return to the U.S., she said, and Zhao plans to continue pursuing her green card application.
Soon after being stopped at the airport in September, Zhao attempted to visit the U.S. Embassy in Beijing to ask for help. Police stopped her before she could enter the compound.
The U.S. Embassy in Beijing said it was concerned about reports of the Chinese authorities harassing Gao’s family, including subjecting his wife to an exit ban that was effectively preventing their U.S. citizen son from returning to the United States.
“We oppose any exit ban that prevents a U.S. citizen child from departing China,” an embassy spokesperson said in an emailed response to questions.
After that, state security agents monitored her apartment day and night for a month. Later, the surveillance eased but police warned her not to try to leave again.
By February, Jia had missed months of first grade. Zhao complained to the state security officers assigned to her case and they found him a space at a local school in Yanjiao, the town in Hebei province near Beijing where her husband is being held.
After a year in a relaxed American preschool, her son found the restrictive classroom environment tough. The Chinese primary school enforces “really strict control, as if the kids are monsters in a cage,” Zhao said.
Zhao has lost over 17 pounds and gained many more gray hairs from depression, she said. She was devastated when a substitute teacher slapped her son.
Her son has coped better than she has, Zhao said. He likes practicing Chinese characters and learning about the mystical beasts in the ancient Chinese text “The Classic of the Mountains and Seas.” And he draws a lot, just like his dad.
Sometimes, when Zhao gets frustrated with all of Jia’s homework, which is often too hard for him to understand without help, he will tell her to wait for his father to come home.“Dad is more patient than you are. He never loses his temper,” Zhao recalled her son saying. “But I can forgive you, Mum, because soon Dad will come home and you won’t have to do this. You can relax and go out for coffee.”
七歲紐約客因父親的政治藝術滯留中國
高嘉，一位著名中國異見藝術家的美國籍兒子，因父母被阻止離境而錯過了小學一年級。
2025 年 8 月 19 日
原本這個夏天，高嘉應該在美國紐約讀完一年級，並在長島的家附近和朋友玩耍，或者和他的父親，一位以對現代中國創始人毛澤東的戲謔漫畫而聞名的中國藝術家高兟一起畫畫。
然而，這位活潑開朗、留著刺猬頭、笑容頑皮的 7 歲美國公民，卻在中國滯留了近一年，而他的父親正因其兒子出生前創作的藝術品而受審。
自習近平於 2012 年成為中國領導人以來，中國執法部門越來越頻繁地使用出境禁令制度，而高佳正是這個制度的受害者。據人權組織稱，出境禁令被用來阻止異議人士及其家人離開中國，並以此向他們施壓，迫使他們保持沈默。高兟，69 歲，一年前在中國探親時被捕，他們一家人的困境也由此開始。當局搜查了他在北京郊區的畫室，沒收了數十幅素描和雕塑。
這位美國永久居民因“誹謗英雄烈士”罪名被拘留了一年。檢方聲稱，他近 20 年前創作的諷刺雕塑損害了毛澤東的名譽。
他的家人很快發現他們也被困住了。去年 9 月，他的妻子趙雅亮帶著兒子試圖返回他們在紐約的家時，被移民當局告知，盡管她沒有被指控任何犯罪，但基於國家安全理由，她不能離境。
邊境移民官員表示，只有她的兒子可以離開。“你一定是在開玩笑，”趙雅亮回憶她當時回答道。“我的孩子這麽小，怎麽能一個人走？”從那時起，母子二人就一直被困在中國。中國公安部沒有回應置評請求。
總部位於舊金山的中國問題人權非營利組織“對話基金會”（Dui Hua Foundation）的執行董事康明凱（John Kamm）表示，高嘉本人是否在技術上受到出境禁令的限制是“無關緊要的”，因為“沒有他的母親，他無法離開中國”。康明凱說，阻止一個孩子離開是“如此惡劣的舉動”，就連他這樣見多識廣的人都覺得“令人髮指”。自 20 世紀 90 年代以來，他一直致力於與中國政府交涉，以改善中國政治犯和宗教犯的待遇。雖然大多數受禁令影響的是中國公民，但類似的限制也對外國人——其中大多數是華裔——實施過。
今年 7 月，《華盛頓郵報》援引知情人士的話報道稱，一名在美國商務部工作的美國公民已被困在中國數月。當月，據《華爾街日報》報道，美國富國銀行（Wells Fargo）一名持有美國護照的高管受到出境禁令的限制後，該銀行暫停了前往中國的差旅。
在中國的法律體系中，那些受到禁令的人通常是在試圖離境時才意識到這一限制。
47 歲的趙雅亮就是這種情況。最初，警方告訴趙，她必須留在中國接受訊問，如果她承諾不與媒體交談並在回到美國後“行為端正”，調查結束後她就可以離開。
後來，說法變了。警官們說，他們正在等待“上級”的批准。但這個批准從未到來。
“在他們看來，我和我的孩子是最好的人質，”趙說。“他們知道，只要我們掌握在他們手中，高兟就會配合。”
高兟面臨最高三年的監禁，罪名是他和他的弟弟（現在居住在美國）在 21 世紀 00 年代創作的三件雕塑，那是一個相對開放的時期。一位不願透露姓名的朋友表示，為了避免受到中國當局的報復，高兟打算做無罪辯護。
這些有爭議的藝術品旨在批評 20 世紀 60 年代和 70 年代的文化大革命，當時毛澤東鼓勵年輕的紅衛兵將社會主義革命掌握在自己手中。在那場動亂中，多達 200 萬人死亡，其中包括高兟的父親。
這些雕塑原本就具有挑釁性：“毛小姐”將毛澤東描繪成一位赤裸上身、面部扭曲、像嬰兒一樣的女人，而《基督的處決》則描繪了一支由真人大小的毛澤東雕塑組成的行刑隊，用步槍瞄準耶穌。但這位朋友說，高兟否認這些作品是誹謗性的。
高兟被指控觸犯了一項在他創作這些藝術品近十年後才生效的法律。2018 年，中國將“歪曲、醜化、褻瀆”或“以其他方式損害英雄烈士名譽、榮譽”的行為定為犯罪。
自那時起，該法律被反覆用來壓制那些挑戰中國共產黨的官方歷史版本的人。2022 年，一名記者因嘲笑在朝鮮戰爭中凍死的中國士兵而被當局判刑七個月。但高兟的案件是首批將該法律應用於在此法生效很久之前創作的藝術品之一。
高兟是一位基督徒，他的家人說，他堅持認為他的藝術品並非旨在誹謗毛澤東，而是通過對一個象征性人物的卡通化描繪，來探索原罪和懺悔的概念。
對於趙雅亮來說，她在高兟創作這些雕塑時還沒有嫁給他，官員們聲稱她和孩子的離開會“危害國家安全”是毫無道理的。
多年來，這對夫婦一直往返於中國和美國之間，直到 2022 年，他們搬到了紐約，這樣高兟以離他與前妻的女兒更近，高嘉也可以在美國上學。
高兟仍然打算定期前往中國，以拜訪他在北京 798 藝術區的工作室和他擁有的一家咖啡館。
去年夏天，他們決定前往中國探親，結果高兟被拘留。當時趙雅亮剛獲得回美證，正在申請綠卡。高嘉出生在美國，當時趙雅亮（她也是一名攝影師和藝術家）正在美國舉辦展覽。她說，當高兟獲釋後，他們一家仍打算返回美國，而她也計劃繼續辦理綠卡申請。
去年 9 月在機場被攔下後不久，趙雅亮試圖前往美國駐北京大使館尋求幫助。但警方在她進入大使館大院前就將她攔下。
美國駐北京大使館表示，他們對中國當局騷擾高兟家人的報道表示擔憂，包括對他妻子實施出境禁令，這實際上阻止了他們的美國公民兒子返回美國。
一位大使館發言人在一封電子郵件回覆中說：“我們反對任何阻止美國公民兒童離開中國的出境禁令。”
此後，國家安全人員對她的公寓進行了長達一個月的晝夜監視。後來，監視有所放鬆，但警方警告她不要再試圖離開。到 2 月份，高嘉已經錯過了數月的一年級課程。趙雅亮向負責她案件的國家安全人員抱怨，他們為他在燕郊的一所當地學校找到了一個名額，燕郊是河北省靠近北京的一個小鎮，高兟被關押在那里。
在輕鬆的美國學前班待了一年後，她的兒子發現這個限制性的課堂環境很艱難。“中國的這所小學實行‘非常嚴格的控制，仿佛孩子們是籠子里的怪物’，”趙雅亮說。
趙女士說，由於抑郁，她瘦了 17 斤多，白頭髮也多了不少。當一位代課老師打了她的兒子時，她感到心都碎了。
趙女士說，她的兒子比她更能適應。他喜歡練習漢字，並學習中國古籍《山海經》中的神獸。他還畫了很多畫，就像他的父親一樣。
有時，當趙女士對高嘉的家庭作業感到沮喪時——這些作業對他來說常常太難，沒有幫助他無法理解——他會讓她等爸爸回家。
“爸爸比你更有耐心。他從不發脾氣，”趙女士回憶起兒子的話。“但我可以原諒你，媽媽，因為爸爸很快就會回家，你就不用再做這些了。你可以放鬆一下，出去喝杯咖啡。”
轉載自《華盛頓郵報》
