MCLC: Chen now wants to leave China

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: Chen now wants to leave China
***********************************************************

Source: NYT (5/3/12):
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/04/world/asia/chen-guangcheng-us-embassy-chi
na-threatened.html

Activist, Out of Embassy, Now Says He Wants to Leave China
By JANE PERLEZ 

BEIJING ‹ The United States recognized that the blind dissident lawyer,
Chen Guangcheng, had changed his position and now wanted to leave China, a
senior Obama administration official said on Thursday. His apparent
reversal 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.

³It 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,² 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.
Chen¹s release and thrust the dissident¹s 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.

During her speech, Mrs. Clinton urged China to protect human rights,
saying ³all governments have to answer our citizens¹ aspirations for
dignity and the rule of law.²

Mr. Chen¹s dramatic reversal from wanting to stay in China after his
escape nearly two weeks ago from harsh house arrest in easterm China and
his six-day stay at the American Embassy left the administration
struggling to come up with a new solution that would satisfy Mr. Chen, and
be amenable to the Chinese government.

A key question facing the Obama administration will be the reaction of the
Chinese government if Mr. Chen insists on leaving China.

If Mr. Chen requested asylum in the United States, he would have to get a
passport, and apply for a visa. Another possibility would be Mr. Chen
leaving China and going to a third country.

For his part, Mr. Chen suggested leaving the country with Mrs. Clinton.
³My fervent hope is that it would be possible for me and my family to
leave for the U.S. on Hillary Clinton¹s plane,² he said in an interview
with the Daily Beast
<http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/05/02/activist-chen-guangcheng-
let-me-leave-china-on-hillary-clinton-s-plane.html>.

The Chinese government, which issued a harsh statement Wednesday
criticizing the United States for its handling of Mr. Chen, skirted the
issue on Thursday. A Foreign Ministry spokesman, Liu Weimin, said at a
regular briefing at the ministry that Mr. Chen was a free person and, as
far as he knew, was living in his town in Shandong Province.

The circumstances of Mr. Chen¹s departure from the American Embassy on
Wednesday were also still in dispute. The American ambassador, Gary Locke,
reiterated Thursday that Mr. Chen had not been coerced into leaving the
embassy on Wednesday and insisted that the dissident lawyer had left of
his free will after a plan had been worked out with the Chinese government
that he and his family could relocate to a city close to Beijing where he
would pursue his law studies.

On Wednesday evening, American officials said they would do all they could
to see Mr. Chen starting early Thursday morning. By not being able to talk
to Mr. Chen in person, the administration was unable to determine a
precise path forward for him, a senior official said.

Whether the Chinese government was actively preventing American officials
from visiting Mr. Chen in the hospital, even during visiting hours that
start at 3 p.m. local time on Thursday, was not immediately clear. But the
longer the American officials were cut off from personal contact with Mr.
Chen the more difficult it could become for the United States to reach a
solution that satisfied the Chinese authorities.

American officials spoke to Mr. Chen by telephone Thursday, and met with
his wife, Yuan Weijing, at a location near the hospital, the official said.

Blind since the age of 1, Mr. Chen is one of the most high-profile human
rights dissidents in China. Mrs. Clinton has mentioned his case in public,
and the Chinese authorities are aware that he has managed to attract a
wide range of Chinese followers who admire his efforts to stop enforced
abortions.

Mr. Chen, 40, served four years in prison on what supporters said were
trumped up charges of disrupting traffic and damaging property. After his
release in 2010, Mr. Chen was placed under house arrest with his wife and
daughter. His eldest son went to school elsewhere and was reunited with
Mr. Chen at the hospital on Wednesday.

One explanation for Mr. Chen¹s reversal was his meeting with his wife at
the hospital Wednesday for the first time since his escape from their home.

In the telephone interviews with reporters, Mr. Chen, said his wife had
vividly described threats against her and their two children by security
forces surrounding their house in Shandong.

After a harrowing 300-mile journey from his hometown to Beijing, six days
sequestered in the American Embassy, and a sudden release into a large
Chinese public hospital where he did not have the protection of the
American officials he seemed to expect, Mr. Chen was likely traumatized,
his steely demeanor in tough times finally punctured.

Mr. Chen had plotted his escape over several months but suffered an
immediate setback when he injured his foot after jumping over a fence at
night while fleeing his home. By the time he reached Beijing, where he was
kept for days in a series of safe houses, his foot was causing severe pain
and he hobbled as he walked.

Since his arrival at the hospital, he appears to have been bombarded with
advice by telephone from supporters and advisers, many of them apparently
angered by the plan for him to remain in China.

His lawyer, Teng Biao, who confirmed Mr. Chen¹s change of mind, sent a
message via Twitter asking reporters to stop calling Mr. Chen because the
family needed rest and ³need to make more important calls.²

The American officials who negotiated with the Chinese Foreign Ministry to
allow Mr. Chen to stay in China, said they consulted frequently with him
about the plan to for him to stay in China, but they did not speak at
length to his wife, an American official knowledgeable about the process
said. In retrospect, that may have been a mistake, the official said.

In a telephone interview on Thursday, Ms. Yuan said that her husband had
left the American Embassy voluntarily, but circumstances had changed after
his departure.

Under the original plan, China promised to ³guarantee his freedom and
rights, and the U.S. made some efforts,² she said. ³But after he¹s out,
the situation has not been optimistic and has not been improved.² She said
communications with their extended family had been cut.

³We can¹t get in contact with our family,² she said.

Edy Yin contributed research.