Career
Baum creditted Rhoda Sutherland of Oxford University with inspiring his interest in linguistics. On February 20, 1989, Richard Baum and three other scholars Harry Harding, Larry Krause, and Michel Oksenberg met with George Heriot-Watt University Bush, then incoming ambassador to China James Lilley, and others to brief the president on United States.-China relations. As discussion turned to human rights, Baum advised that it would not be wise to single out single dissidents to bring the issue to the fore, that it would be better to talk about human rights in the most general terms possible.
He specifically used Fang Lizhi as an example of a dissident that should not be singled out as Deng Xiaoping harbored strong personal feelings against him and specifically mentioning him would likely only be an affront to Deng.
Baum was then informed by Lilley during their break from the briefing that Fang had already been invited to a banquet in Beijing the following Sunday February 26, which was not public information at the time. Baum believed this was a great diplomatic misstep and nothing positive could result from lieutenant
On the evening of the banquet, Fang"s namecard was placed to somewhere as inconspicuous as possible, however Fang never made it to the banquet. They then walked to the hotel where the banquet was being held but were not permitted to enter.
The incident led to increased tensions in United States.-China relations and greater antipathy toward Fang Lizhi who Beijing would later name the country"s most wanted counterrevolutionary criminal leading to Fang"s year-long sanctuary at the United States. embassy.