"committed very serious crimes but have so far shown no willingness to repent." By comparison, Liu Gang, convicted of subversion, and Chen Xiaoping, convicted on the same charges as Wang and Chen Ziming, received more lenient sentences. Liu received six years because, according to the Xinhua News Agency, "he acknowledged his crimes and showed willingness to repent." Chen Xiaoping was released "for voluntarily giving himself up to police and showing willingness to repent", according to the news agency. Others have offered different reasons for the discrepancy in sentencing. Merle Goldman, a Boston University professor of Chinese history, argued that Wang and Chen "represent a new revolutionary class in China, and that is why the regime is so worried about them." A Western diplomat argues that the Chinese government "needed somebody to blame for millions of people marching on the streets, and in public it's come down to blaming these two guys." Andrew Higgins, a reporter covering the trial, suggested the importance of the trial was not the sentence but the verdict, which served "to show that the People's Liberation Army crushed not a popular revolt but a planned conspiracy." Beijing Higher People's Court later rejected appeals of the three sentences. Wang's letter of criticism After the trial, in a letter smuggled out of prison, Wang criticized both his trial and the response of fellow protesters. About his trial he stated: As a matter of general principle I find it absolutely impermissible and insupportable that the charge of "viciously attacking" [the party] should once again be used in our republic, as a means of denying and repudiating the lawful rights of citizens. So when the public prosecutor accused me, on the grounds merely that I had opposed the leadership, of committing the crime of counterrevolution, I became very angry. I could not just limit my defense to saying, "I do not oppose the leadership", and felt obliged to defend instead "the lawful right to oppose the leadership." Of his fellow protesters he stated: "It grieves me to see that, when confronted with the consequences, so many of the leaders and initiators of this movement dared not take responsibility for it and sought to defame it.... In this way [they] can suffer less pain themselves, but what of the dead, lacking any way to defend themselves [and] cannot rest in peace?" Release and re-imprisonment On April 23, 1994, the Chinese Government released