MCLC: what now for Chen Guangcheng

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: anne henochowiz (annemh at alumni.upenn.edu)
Subject: what now for Chen Guangcheng
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Osnos has real insight into a case that gets muddier by the minute. He
points out specifically that the US does protect Chinese dissidents and
ensure their safety, but that this case may also set a precedent for
future activists/asylum seekers. I wonder is list members have thought
about whether the US embassy truly is the "100% safest place" in Beijing?
I find myself wondering if another embassy--Norway's, for example--would
have been a better choice. Or if it or another country will become the new
refuge.

Anne

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Source: The New Yorker (5/3/12):
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/evanosnos/2012/05/chen-guangcheng-lea
ves-us-embassy.html
 

What Now for Chen Guangcheng?
from Letter from China
By Evan Osnos

For China, the United States, and the extraordinary blind dissident-lawyer
Chen Guangcheng, the story is not remotely over. A first verdict on the
deal that arranged his exit from the U.S. embassy will be rendered in a
matter of hours, but the final one will not come for years.

After escaping from the stone farmhouse where he had lived under house
arrest, Chen, on Wednesday, crossed yet another barrier‹perhaps the most
surprising of all‹when he exited the American embassy where he had sought
protection. From there, the case became confusing. State Department
officials said that Chen had opted not for exile, but for life with his
family elsewhere in the country; Ambassador Gary Locke accompanied him to
a hospital for treatment suffered during his escape. But when the
Associated Press interviewed Chen from his hospital room, Chen said that a
U.S. official told him Chinese authorities would beat his wife to death if
he refused to leave the American Embassy. At the hospital, Chen was
clearly was out of the umbrella of American protection. Britain¹s Channel
4 <http://www.channel4.com/news/blind-chinese-dissident-leaves-us-embassy>
news quoted an interview with Chen in which he said,

<<Nobody from the [U.S.] embassy is here. I don¹t understand why. They
promised to be here.>>

Chen¹s lawyer, Teng Biao, told the Washington Post that he spoke with Chen
several times and Chen ³felt his safety is threatened²: ³In fact, from his
language, I can tell that the decision to leave the is embassy was not
one-hundred percent his idea.²

American officials adamantly denied that Chen did not leave want to leave
the embassy. They released photos of him smiling with Ambassador Locke;
one of the negotiators of his departure, State Department assistant
secretary Kurt Campbell, said in a statement:

<<I was there . . . Chen made the decision to leave the Embassy after he
knew his family was safe and at the hospital waiting for him, and after
twice being asked by Ambassador Locke if he ready to go. He said,
³Zou²‹let¹s go. We were all there as witnesses to his decision, and he
hugged and thanked us all.>>

This is not the mood the U.S. wanted‹or the mood it expected even a few
hours earlier. With Hillary Clinton and Timothy Geithner set to begin
strategic and economic talks Thursday, the United States had faced the
diplomatic equivalent of a ticking parcel on its front step, and, from the
look of it, had succeeded in defusing it. The State Department¹s legal
adviser, Harold Koh, and Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and
Pacific affairs, Kurt Campbell, worked out a deal that, we¹re told, allows
Chen to get medical treatment, and then move elsewhere in China with his
family to enroll in a university. He was offered seven destinations, and
he chose the port city of Tianjin. In a briefing, State Department
officials pledged that the U.S. would monitor Chen¹s case closely. ³We
understand that there are no remaining legal issues directed at Mr. Chen
and that he will be treated like any other student in China,² one official
said. ³Chinese officials have further stated that they will investigate
reported extralegal activities committed by local Shandong authorities
against Mr. Chen and his family.² Hours later, things got complicated‹and
this case is likely to get thornier in the months and years ahead.

The U.S. regularly monitors dissidents in China by staying in touch,
checking on relatives, reminding Chinese officials that people are paying
attention to political prisoners. This arrangement, however, suggests a
new level of supervision, in which the U.S. has staked its name to the
safety of Chen¹s family. ³We were true to our values,² a U.S. official
said. That may be true, bit it will be incumbent on the U.S. to maintain
its vigilance ‹beginning with demanding fair and decent treatment for
Chen¹s relatives in Shandong, whose fate in the hands of authorities
remains unclear. (Some reports suggested that a nephew, Chen Kegui,
remains in custody.) In addition, Chen¹s accomplices in his escape,
including He Peirong and Guo Yushan, deserve the highest level of U.S.
attention in the years ahead.

The U.S. sought to frame this as an isolated incident, and it was indeed
unprecedented‹but unprecedented events have a way of becoming precedents.
Right now, the resolution of this case is percolating through the ranks of
China¹s many political dissidents, and they will take lessons from it,
including whether to expect protection from America.

There are several ways to read the Chinese government¹s approach. By
domestic political standards, it has landed a triple lutz by allowing Chen
to exit the embassy, but we don¹t yet know who made the decision, how much
support it enjoys, and what, exactly, that decision entails: What will
happen to other dissidents who, perhaps inevitably, take this case as an
example? It¹s not yet clear how the Chinese government will play this to
its public. At one point Wednesday, China demanded an apology
<http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2012-05/02/c_131564125.htm> from
the U.S. for having ³interfered in the domestic affairs of China, and the
Chinese side will never accept it.² Within hours, however, Chen was out.

There is clearly some indecision, and, for the moment, an attempt to
impose calm. Hillary Clinton and Timother Geithner are set to begin
negotiations with China in the morning on a range of political and
economic issues. In the background is the extraordinary Chen Guangcheng,
in a hospital in Beijing. Now it¹s time to learn more about how he got
there, and where he goes next.