China Activist’s Future Unclear After He Exits U.S. Embassy

YankeeFan · May 2, 2012

Pretty wild story. The blind, Chinese lawyer/activist who escaped house arrest, and was protected by the US Embassy in Beijing, left the Embassy, just as Hillary Clinton and Tim Geithner arrived for talks with Chinese leaders.

He was said to have left of his own will, after US negotiators arranged for him to be reunited with his wife and kids and resettled to a new part of China.

It was said that he would not face harassment, and would be free to study law. He reportedly wanted to stay in China, did not ask for asylum, and told Secretary Clinton that he wanted to "kiss her".

It looked like a big diplomatic achievement.

But, now he's telling a different story:

But in a telephone interview with The Associated Press from his hospital bed late Wednesday evening, Mr. Chen said American officials told him while he was under American protection that Chinese authorities had threatened to beat his wife to death unless Mr. Chen left the American embassy, and that Mr. Chen therefore left under coercion.

An American official denied that account. The official said Mr. Chen was told that his wife, Yuan Weijing, who had been brought to Beijing by the Chinese authorities while Mr. Chen was in the American Embassy, would not be allowed to remain in the capital unless Mr. Chen left the embassy to see her. She would be sent back to Mr. Chen’s home village in Shandong, where no one could guarantee her safety.

“At no time did any U.S. official speak to Chen about physical or legal threats to his wife and children. Nor did Chinese officials make any such threats to us,” Victoria Nuland, the State Department spokesperson, said in an e-mailed statement. “U.S. interlocutors did make clear that if Chen elected to stay in the Embassy, Chinese officials had indicated to us that his family would be returned to Shandong, and they would lose their opportunity to negotiate for reunification.”

Mr. Chen told another media organization, Britain’s Channel 4 News, in a subsequent phone interview that he hoped to leave China and seek safety abroad, expressing regret that he no longer had American protection. American officials said he had consistently spoken of his desire to remain in China during the time he was under U.S. protection.

“At no point during his time in the Embassy did Chen ever request political asylum in the U.S.,” Ms. Nuland said. “At every opportunity, he expressed his desire to stay in China, reunify with his family, continue his education and work for reform in his country. All our diplomacy was directed at putting him in the best possible position to achieve his objectives.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/03/world/asia/chen-guangcheng-leaves-us-embassy-in-beijing-china.html?_r=1&hp&pagewanted=all
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Starman · May 2, 2012

i am concerned

YankeeFan · May 2, 2012

It's been the top story on the New York Times for a couple of days.

It's filled with international intrigue. Interesting story, whether or not you are "concerned".

Armchair_QB · May 2, 2012

Wonder how many members of the Chinese security service are breaking rocks somewhere after letting a blind guy escape.

YankeeFan · May 2, 2012

Armchair_QB said:

Wonder how many members of the Chinese security service are breaking rocks somewhere after letting a blind guy escape.
Click to expand...

Would not want to be the guy in charge of that detail.

deskslave · May 3, 2012

Like it or not, the Western world does not have the leverage to force China to shape up its human rights record. They could shoot this guy in a public square tomorrow, and all the Western world could do is say how sad it was and encourage China to do better.

That's all Britain did when China executed a mentally ill British citizen for drug smuggling. Hasn't stopped us kissing their ass in pursuit of trade.

Seriously. They have a billion and a half people and make half our stuff. The hell are we gonna do to them?

Azrael · May 3, 2012

Story changes.

www.nytimes.com/2012/05/04/world/asia/chen-guangcheng-us-embassy-china-threatened.html?_r=1&hp

And changes again.

www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/03/chen-guangcheng-leave-hillary-clinton

YankeeFan · May 3, 2012

The Times reporting from China the last month has been incredible. The best two ongoing stories in the news are coming from there, and the Times is killing it:

Injuries suffered in the course of a daring nighttime escape. A covert appeal from underground activists to top State Department officials for humanitarian protection. A car chase through the streets of Beijing to spirit a dissident to safety inside the fortified American Embassy.

Those are among the new details that emerged Wednesday from the 10-day saga of Chen Guangcheng, the blind rights lawyer who escaped house arrest in rural Shandong Province, and then, after managing to reach Beijing and come under American protection, was the subject of a series of highly unusual secret negotiations with the Chinese government.

The story involved intrigue, heroics and ultimately what some of the people involved called a betrayal. And it is a tale, related by activists, friends of Mr. Chen’s and embassy officials, that so far does not have a clear ending, with Mr. Chen expressing new fears about his safety if he remains in China.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/03/world/asia/a-car-chase-secret-talks-and-second-thoughts.html?hp&pagewanted=all
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YankeeFan · May 3, 2012

So, do we somehow negotiate with the Chinese so that this guy and his family can leave the country?

A senior Obama administration official said Thursday that the United States recognized that the blind dissident lawyer Chen Guangcheng wanted to leave China, an apparent reversal of Mr. Chen’s earlier stance that injected new uncertainty into a tense diplomatic situation that had briefly appeared resolved ahead of high-level economic talks here.

As the State Department tried to reassess options for Mr. Chen, who according to American officials had eagerly embraced a plan to remain in China, American diplomats were barred from seeing Mr. Chen at the hospital in central Beijing where he is receiving treatment for an injured foot. Speaking from the hospital, Mr. Chen has told reporters in a series of telephone interviews since being admitted on Wednesday afternoon that he and his family feel insecure in the hands of Chinese authorities, and would like to go to the United States.

“It is clear now in the last 12 to 15 hours they as a family have had a change of heart about whether they want to stay in China,” said the State Department spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland.

What had for a short time looked like a deft achievement by American diplomats on Wednesday appeared to rapidly unravel only hours after Mr. Chen’s release and thrust the dissident’s fate into the center of a diplomatic crisis between China and the United States that the Obama administration had sought to avoid during two days of high-level economic and strategic conference meetings attended here by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner. The two cabinet members spoke Thursday, along with the Chinese president, Hu Jintao.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/04/world/asia/chen-guangcheng-us-embassy-china-threatened.html?_r=1&hp&pagewanted=all
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dixiehack · May 3, 2012

The shameless ass-kissing we do for these thugs has been reprehensible over four decades and multiple administrations from both parties. And every time we tuck our tail between our legs because it is "too hard." And it keeps getting harder every time we ignore it. What if we had swallowed hard and stood for what was right in Pappy Bush's day.

They own us. Honestly we may as well strike the colors because we can't or won't stand up to them.

Double J · Dec 15, 2014

His future is about as clear as was this guy's:

Fuck China.

Michael_ Gee · May 4, 2012

It is totally in the interests of China's government to let Chen head to the U.S. ASAP. He will become instantly forgotten in his country and, I might add, in this one. It discredits him and makes them look good at the same time.
But like governments everywhere, and particularly like authoritarian governments everywhere, pretending you never made a mistake in the first place is far more important than fixing the mistake. And it's reasonably apparent there's more than one take on what to do at the highest levels of the government.

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China Activist’s Future Unclear After He Exits U.S. Embassy

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