The Latest Twist: Chen to Attend University in US
4 May 2012
BEIJING — Confusion has dominated the air in Beijing in the wake of Chen Guangcheng’s dramatic escape from police custody in Shandong Province, his period under the protection of the US Embassy in Beijing, and the delicate and intense negotiations on his behalf between American and Chinese diplomats.
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After a week of fraught diplomacy and Hail Mary passes in the name of US-Sino relations, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton sought to clarify things on Friday in Beijing. Addressing the topic for the first time since she arrived on Wednesday, she said the US was encouraged by the progress that had been made but, “there is more work to do.”
A senior American official said that the secretary of state has been directly involved in negotiations. An agreement was reached just minutes before she took the stage to face reporters.
As it stands, Clinton said that Chen confirmed his change of heart, saying he wants to come to the US with his family to study. Acknowledging the subject for the very first time, the Chinese Foreign Ministry released a statement on its website saying, “As a Chinese citizen, if he wants to study abroad he can go through the normal channels to the relevant departments and complete the formalities in accordance with the law like other Chinese citizens.” It was the most positive sign from the Chinese so far.
At the last accounting, the US diplomats exhaled after the latest twist of events that appears to have avoided a diplomatic meltdown and more suffering for a human rights activist and his family. While there are indications that Chen and his family may well travel to the US in the near future, it is worth taking a moment to reflect on the anatomy of a diplomatic near miss that observers say caused the greatest crisis of US-China relations in decades.
On Wednesday in Beijing, photos released by the US showed a smiling Chen surrounded by top-level diplomats who say they felt elated they had reached a deal with Chen and the Chinese on his future. In what would have been an unprecedented diplomatic arrangement, the US side was told by their Chinese counterparts that Chen would be permitted to remain in China with his family and enter a university to pursue legal studies.
US officials say that from the start of the negotiations on his future, when asked if he wanted asylum in the US, Chen consistently refused. In numerous media interviews, friends and fellow activists reiterated that this was his view. In some ways, asylum would have been the easier option for both China and the US. Had Chen accepted asylum, for example, China would have essentially silenced the activist who, like dissidents before him, would have likely had difficulty continuing his anticorruption struggle so distant from his cause. From the US perspective, there are ample precedents for granting asylum under similar circumstances—an arguably a “cleaner” solution in this case, especially given that the US would find it complicated to monitor Chen’s safety were he to remain in China.
In any case, in apparent deference to Chen’s desire to remain in China, the US pursued an arrangement that would allow him to remain. As recounted on Thursday in Beijing, US Ambassador Gary Locke spoke of the delicate negotiations and the tense moments leading to Chen’s transfer to Chaoyang hospital. With only top-level officials in the room, Locke spoke to Chen about the decision ahead. “He knew the stark choices in front of him,” Locke told reporters. “He knew and was very aware that he might have to spend many, many years in the embassy. … And he was fully aware of and talked about what might happen to his family if he stayed in the embassy and they stayed in the village in Shandong Province.”
The deal had come down to this: Chen was offered a choice of seven universities. At one time, the US had suggested a university in Shanghai where New York University plans to open a law school. The Chinese rejected that location as too closely tied to a Western organization. But the idea of study in Tianjin, a city just 69 miles southeast of Beijing (and the US Embassy) appeared to satisfy all sides. Still, Chen wanted an act of good faith from the Chinese. He requested that his family be brought to Beijing. The Chinese agreed and placed his wife, Yuan Weijing, and the couple’s two children, on a high-speed train from Shandong Province. “The Chinese government didn’t want to go through the trouble unless they thought he might agree to the plan,” Lockesaid. When they arrived, Chen spoke to his wife. But he was still unconvinced. At that point, according to US officials, the Chinese informed them that unless he made a decision—in other words, unless he left the embassy—they would send his family back to Shandong.
That became the key turning point in the emerging drama. For it was then, in an emotionally charged moment for everyone involved, that Chen agreed. Following protocol that demanded Chen voluntarily agree to leave, Locke asked Chen several times if he was ready to leave, and Chen said, “Zou”—“Let’s go.”
Photos released showed a happy group: Chen and the top-level diplomats he had spent the previous six days with debating his future. The elation would not last long.
Within hours after Chen entered the Beijing hospital and being reunited with his family, Zeng Jinyan, the wife of Hu Jia, a close friend and fellow activist, began Tweeting that things were not as rosy as they appeared. Specifically, she claimed that Chen never told the secretary of state, “I want to kiss you!” when he left the embassy. Instead, she claimed, Chen said, “I want to talk to you.” Overnight, Chen spoke to several media outlets. The Associated Press reported that Chen said he only left the embassy because the Americans informed him the Chinese said they would kill his wife if he refused. In subsequent interviews, he backed off that comment and said only that he left because he was told if he did not, the Chinese would return his family to Shandong Province.
The US acknowledges that to be true. It is worth noting that the abuse Chen claims to have suffered—and is widely believed to have taken place—came at the hands of local authorities in Shandong and not national authorities in Beijing. So for Chen to interpret his family’s return to Shandong as a threat is not unjustified. At the same time, US officials say that as the clock ticked down Chen spoke to his wife once more. In that conversation, according to US Embassy officials, she pleaded with him to leave the embassy and told him that their family needed him with them. According to Locke, “She said, ‘We need to keep the struggle going. We have to take it a step at a time. It might not be everything we want but it is a step.’”
Throughout the night and into Wednesday, reports of Chen’s apparent change of heart emerged in multiple media outlets. Teng Biao, a friend and human rights lawyer, posted a transcript of a conversation he had with Chen in which he strongly urged him to reconsider. Teng told Chen he had to take advantage of Hillary Clinton’s presence in Beijing—she is here until Saturday—and warned Chen that he was underestimating what the Chinese government was capable of doing to him, despite promises from the US that it would be able to offer safeguards against any abuse.
The Chinese have been brief; a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry demanded an apology from the US for allowing Chen to enter the embassy and cautioned the US away from interfering in domestic affairs.
It would take an extraordinary measure for Clinton to make a further appeal, even more so for President Obama to do so. Throughout her time here, Clinton has emphasized the importance of the relationship between the two but did not mention Chen until today.
In the last week, Chen’s supporters have largely become unreachable; cell phones are turned off or calls are ignored, and accounts for the Chinese microblogging site Weibo have been blocked. Reports are that several activists are being monitored. There was one positive sign: He Peirong, the activist who drove Chen to Beijing and subsequently went missing, resurfaced via her now un-blocked Twitter account to write that she was back home in Nanjing and “safe.”
As of this writing, Chen’s fate–despite today’s diplomatic repair work—remains uncertain and much is unclear. Perhaps China will grant Chen his “freedom,” but, at a minimum, the signs indicate the government is intent on silencing his cause.
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