I'm ashamed to say I'd nearly forgotten Yao Fuxin 姚福信 and Xiao Yunliang 肖云良, even as Wives of Jailed Activists In China Urge U.S. Aid: Appeal Made as Cabinet Members Visit By Philip P. Pan:

Yao, 53, and Xiao, 58, are serving seven- and four-year prison sentences, respectively, for leading a series of mass protests in northeastern China's rust belt in the spring of 2002. The demonstrations, among the largest to take place in China in recent years, attracted tens of thousands of laid-off workers demanding unpaid wages and punishment for corrupt officials.

The health of both men has deteriorated in prison, and they suffer serious heart problems, their wives said. Yao has lost feeling in half of his body and has difficulty moving his right leg. Xiao is having trouble breathing and was put on a respirator twice in December, they said.

Xiao is also blind in one eye and can see no more than a foot away with his other eye because of an injury he suffered during his arrest in March 2002. Prison doctors have recommended surgery, but Chinese authorities have not granted permission for him to be transferred to a local hospital, Su said.

She and Yao's wife, Guo Sujing, 54, urged [Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans and Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao 赵小兰] to press the Chinese leadership to grant their husbands medical parole. There was no immediate response Tuesday night to a request for comment from Evans, but a spokeswoman for the labor secretary said Wednesday morning, "Secretary Chao will be bringing up this issue in her meetings with Chinese officials."

The State Department recently placed Yao and Xiao on a list of high-priority political prisoner cases to discuss with Chinese officials.

The Chinese government views independent labor activism as a threat to its authority, and it prohibits workers from forming their own labor unions, requiring them instead to join weak, party-run unions. In an unfair-trade complaint rejected by the Bush administration this year, the AFL-CIO argued that China's ban on independent unions was helping the government keep the prices of Chinese products unfairly low, which resulted in the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs. But some economists, including Nicholas Lardy of the Institute for International Economics, say China's labor pool is so large that ending the ban on unions and other violations of workers' rights would not raise Chinese wages and prices as sharply as the AFL-CIO argues.

Emphasis mine.