Who is The Imprisoned Poet (Jean-Claude Julien) from Mao II and what is their importance?

This is the individual whose captivity and imprisonment Charlie Everson wants Bill to help achieve. Portrayed by Everson as a young idealist, as interested as Bill (used to be?) in awakening people to broader truths of being human, narration portrays him in imprisonment as losing that sense of idealism, his mind and experience reduced to immediate, day to day survival and retention of sanity.