China Says Dissident Can Apply to Leave for Study Abroad
By MICHAEL WINES
Published: May 4, 2012
Beijing Says Dissident Can Apply to Study Outside China
By MICHAEL WINES
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In a two-sentence statement posted on the ministry’s Web site, a
spokesman, Liu Weimin, stated that should Mr. Chen wish to study abroad,
he “can apply through normal channels to the relevant departments in
accordance with the law, just like any other Chinese citizen.”
Speaking later at a press briefing, Mr. Liu said he was certain that
“competent Chinese authorities will handle his application in accordance
with the law.”
The announcement came hours after Mr. Chen, in a four-point statement
conveyed by telephone to a friend, insisted that he did not want to seek
political asylum in the United States but that he had been invited to
attend New York University and hoped “to go to the United States and
rest for several months.”
That would give Chinese officials a face-saving opportunity to allow Mr.
Chen and his family to leave China in the same manner as do scores of
thousands of Chinese students every year, according to Jerome A. Cohen, a
New York attorney and expert on Chinese law who discussed the proposal
with Mr. Chen this week.
Mr. Chen has been in a central Beijing hospital receiving treatment for
an injured foot since Wednesday, when he left the United States Embassy
under an agreement between American and Chinese diplomats that would
have allowed him to study law in Tianjin, a major city on China’s
Pacific coast. The diplomatic crisis erupted after Mr. Chen came to
believe that the Chinese government would not honor the bargain and
began telling friends from his hospital bed that he feared for his and
his family’s safety.
Mr. Chen’s subsequent pleas for help from Secretary of State Hillary
Rodham Clinton — repeated in an urgent telephone call played on speaker
during an emergency congressional hearing in Washington on Thursday —
frayed the fragile deal American officials had struck with the Chinese
only one day before the start of high-level talks between China and the
United States.
American diplomats have worked frantically to recoup but since Wednesday
they have been barred by the Chinese even from visiting Mr. Chen in his
hospital room. American diplomats sought on Friday to deliver a package
including food and two cellphones to Mr. Chen, Reuters reported. They
were forced to leave it outside, the news agency said.
Senior American officials have privately acknowledged missteps by
diplomats rushing to wrap up negotiations on the Chen case before two
days of economic and security talks, led by Mrs. Clinton and Treasury
Secretary Timothy F. Geithner. Those included a failure to guarantee
access to Mr. Chen at the hospital or to gain firm assurances from
Chinese officials on how he would be treated.
The diplomatic miscues in China have become an issue for President Obama
on the campaign trail in the United States as his Republican rival,
Mitt Romney, seized upon the apparently bungled release of Mr. Chen.
Republican lawmakers and rights activists have accused the Obama
administration of leaving one of China’s most prominent dissidents at
the mercy of the Chinese police.
In a telephone conversation with The Associated Press, Mr. Chen said his
wife was being followed by men who are recording her movements on video
and that his own conversations with American officials were being cut
off after a couple of sentences.
The Obama administration has been bombarded with criticism from human
rights activists and its Republican critics that it had botched its
handling of a major human rights case and placed one of China’s most
famous rights activists in jeopardy.
Mr. Chen’s initial remarks have fueled those attacks. In a telephone
conversation on Thursday with The New York Times, he said that Chinese
government guarantees of his safety were “empty talk” and that he had
left the embassy the previous day in part because of Chinese threats
that his family would be harmed if he did not agree to leave.
“The U.S. Embassy treated me well,” he said, “but the U.S. government was not proactive enough.”
In brief telephone conversations with news services on Friday, Mr. Chen
continued to express concern for his and his family’s safety. But he has
backed away from earlier implicit criticisms of American efforts to
assist him, instead expressing deep gratitude for diplomatic help from
the United States.
Related
Times Topic: Chen Guangcheng
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Dissident’s Plea for Protection From China Deepens Crisis (May 4, 2012)
-
U.S. Stresses Concessions From China (May 4, 2012)
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For Chinese, a Man in the News Is Much Discussed, if Not by Name (May 4, 2012)
Senior American officials have privately acknowledged missteps in the handling of the case.
In posts on Twitter and a Chinese microblog, a friend who assisted in
Mr. Chen’s flight to the American Embassy, Guo Yushan, said Mr. Chen had
told him he was “totally astonished” by the crisis his earlier
statements had provoked. Mr. Guo said he had talked at length with Mr.
Chen late Thursday and posted a summary of their talk on Friday.
“He never complained, either directly or indirectly, that the United
States Embassy forced or induced him to leave the embassy. He left the
embassy voluntarily and appreciates very much the United States
Embassy’s help during the past week,” he wrote.
Mr. Chen “has much respect for China-U.S. diplomatic efforts,” he wrote,
and “is very much aware of the importance of diplomacy between the two
countries and the seriousness of all agreements that have already been
reached.”
Chinese authorities continued on Friday to monitor friends and
supporters of Mr. Chen. One activist who had vanished after Mr. Chen
entered the embassy, He Peirong, reappeared and stated in a Twitter post
that she was safely at home.
But a second close friend, Jiang Tianyong, said in an interview Friday
that plainclothes police abducted him, interrogated him through the
night and beat him about the ears after he attempted to visit Mr. Chen
in the hospital early Thursday evening.
“My hearing is severely damaged,” he said, “especially my left ear, which is nearly deaf.”
Dissidents in China routinely report such treatment, but are typically
kept in their homes and out of view during officials visits like this
week’s delegation of American officials led by Mrs. Clinton.
The two governments have been juggling one of the most disruptive
diplomatic issues in years since Mr. Chen, a blind lawyer and rights
activist who has exposed abuses of China’s one-child policy, escaped
house arrest in Shandong Province late last month. Helped by friends, he
made his way 300 miles to Beijing, where American officials secretly
brought him to the embassy.
Angry and embarrassed, Chinese officials berated the Americans for
giving Mr. Chen sanctuary and demanded an investigation. But the
state-controlled news media has said little on the matter until Friday,
when a handful of newspapers published commentaries accusing the United
States of using Mr. Chen’s situation to smear China’s reputation.
Similar broadsides were notably absent from the Communist Party’s major
official publications, suggesting that party leaders want to play down
the issue.
The United States appeared to share that view. At the Great Hall of the
People on Friday, Mrs. Clinton and President Hu Jintao exchanged
cordialities before cameras without mentioning the diplomatic tiff that
has dominated what was supposed to be a working visit by American
officials.
“We believe that the China-U.S. relationship is stronger than it’s ever been,” Mrs. Clinton told Mr. Hu.
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