Pool photo by
Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner walked next to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton before a meeting on Friday in Beijing.
By JANE PERLEZ and MICHAEL WINES
Published: May 4, 2012
BEIJING — China and the United States reached a deal Friday that calls for the dissident Chen Guangcheng
to travel to the United States with his family, in what appeared to be a
resolution to an eight-day diplomatic crisis that had threatened to
strain the relationship between the two countries and left the Obama
administration open to attacks from human rights activists and political
opponents at home.
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The accord, rushed on the last full day of the visit to China by
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, enabled her to salvage a trip
tarnished by Mr. Chen’s rejection of an arrangement forged earlier in
the week by United States diplomats that called for him to remain in
China.
At a news conference here, however, Mrs. Clinton spoke cautiously about a
definitive outcome. “We are encouraged by the progress we have seen
today,” she said. “But there is more work to be done.” Moments after
Mrs. Clinton finished speaking, the State Department spokeswoman,
Victoria Nuland, released a statement saying that China was expected to
issue travel documents to Mr. Chen “expeditiously” and that the United
States would speed visa requests by his wife and two children. Mr. Chen,
a self-taught lawyer who is blind, has been offered a fellowship at New
York University, according to Jerome A. Cohen, a New York lawyer and
expert on Chinese law who has advised Mr. Chen since his escape from
house arrest nearly two weeks ago.
The statement was the coda to what was, by all appearances, a carefully
choreographed series of declarations by Mr. Chen, the Chinese government
and American officials that committed all three parties to a mutually
agreeable settlement of Mr. Chen’s future.
But the arrangement was unlikely to silence a fusillade of accusations
that the Obama administration had bungled Mr. Chen’s case by essentially
handing him over to the Chinese authorities earlier this week, without
ironclad assurances that he would be safe. And it only underscored the
degree to which Chinese violations of human rights remain a lightning
rod in the two nations’ ever more intertwined relationship, despite
Washington’s best efforts to the contrary.
It was not clear when Mr. Chen and his family would be able to leave
China, senior American officials said, but he would not be allowed to
join Mrs. Clinton, as he had requested, on her departure for Bangladesh
and India on Saturday. Still, the Americans appeared confident that the
Chinese would abide by the accord, largely because Beijing was eager to
see Mr. Chen go.
Indeed, as part of their negotiating tactics with the Chinese
government, State Department officials seemed to have used the argument
that Mr. Chen’s departure would ease a major headache for Beijing both
abroad and at home. Unlike the former Soviet Union, China has encouraged
outspoken dissidents to go into exile, knowing that they would lose
their influence inside China once they left.
Whether Mr. Chen would be able to return to China was not addressed by
American officials Friday. It is almost unheard of for Chinese
dissidents who leave China to return.
The negotiations with the Chinese government to allow Mr. Chen to leave
China were conducted privately as Mrs. Clinton and Treasury Secretary
Timothy F. Geithner attended the annual Strategic and Economic Dialogue
on Thursday and Friday.
The formal meetings were overshadowed by the crisis over the dissident,
but American officials said the forums were useful for pushing forward a
host of hot-button issues.
Mr. Geithner praised China at the closing session on Friday for
“significant and promising” currency reforms that, over time, would lead
to further appreciation of the renminbi against the dollar and other major currencies.
China announced that it would let foreigners own bigger stakes in its
securities firms and promised to limit export subsidies. The cap on
foreign ownership of joint ventures involving investment firms would be
raised to 49 percent. The two governments said they would begin talks on
limits to export credits.
In the foreign policy realm, Mrs. Clinton urged China to join Washington
in considering additional sanctions against Syria. She praised China
for supporting a United Nations Security Council resolution backing an
African Union peace plan for Sudan and South Sudan. Overall, Mrs.
Clinton said that the relationship between the United States and China
“will determine the course of history in the 21st century,” and
therefore it was up to the leaders to get it right
But behind the lofty talk, the Chen case had intensified to a point on
Friday morning where it was clear that Mrs. Clinton and her aides had
only a day to find a solution, unless she was prepared to leave China
with a very disturbing human rights case hanging over her and the Obama
administration.
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For Chinese, a Man in the News Is Much Discussed, if Not by Name (May 4, 2012)
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Op-Ed Contributor: Mr. Chen, Welcome to America (May 5, 2012)
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Op-Ed Contributor: Don’t Believe China’s Promises (May 5, 2012)
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Editorial: Chen Guangcheng’s Uncertain Future (May 5, 2012)
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Room for Debate: Are We Headed for a Cold War With China? (May 2, 2012)
Readers’ Comments
Share your thoughts.
The situation was volatile because Mr. Chen was criticizing the United
States government from his hospital bed. Under the original deal worked
out by some of Mrs. Clinton’s top officials, including Gary Locke, the
United States ambassador to China, and Kurt Campbell, the assistant
secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific affairs, Mr. Chen was to
move from his provincial home to a big city, probably Tianjin, to study
law. The Americans believed they had secured pledges that Mr. Chen and
his family would not be mistreated, and they were proud of what they
called “a new model” for a Chinese dissident to stay in China.
But after his release from the United States Embassy into a hospital for
treatment of an injured foot, Mr. Chen said he feared for his life. His
wife, who met him at the hospital, had been threatened after his
escape, he said. Moreover, he felt abandoned at the hospital, where
security officers prevented American diplomats from coming to see him.
A friend, Jiang Tianyong, said in an interview on Friday that
plainclothes police officers had abducted him and beat him when he tried
to visit Mr. Chen.
As Mrs. Clinton moved from one session to another at the high-level
gathering, she and her top aides messaged each other about how to
persuade the Chinese to fulfill Mr. Chen’s new wish to go the United
States, senior officials said.
Mrs. Clinton met the two top Chinese leaders, President Hu Jintao and
Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, at the Great Hall of the People in the late
morning on Friday. They did not discuss the Chen case, officials said.
A few hours later, the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced that Mr. Chen,
as a Chinese citizen, could apply for a passport in the same manner as
the 340,000 students who studied abroad last year. It was the first
public sign that a deal was in motion.
The Clinton entourage, aware that they needed to maximize Mrs. Clinton’s
presence in Beijing, still seemed unsure, however, whether everything
would come together in time for her scheduled news conference in the
early evening.
Criticized for not getting a written agreement in their earlier
arrangement, State Department officials made sure their statement
detailed the basic terms for how the departure of Mr. Chen would work.
The release said the Chinese government would “make accommodations for
his medical condition,” a reference to the fact that Mr. Chen is blind
and would not have to travel to his hometown for his passport
application. In most cases, Chinese citizens must apply for a passport
in their home jurisdiction. Mr. Chen had been badly mistreated by local
officials.
The statement said that once Mr. Chen had his passport, the United
States would expedite visa requests from him and his family. The
statement ended, “This matter has been handled in the spirit of a
cooperative U.S.-China partnership.”
United States officials said an American doctor visited Mr. Chen in the
hospital on Friday, and reported that his foot, injured as he escaped
his house arrest two weeks ago, had three broken bones. The hospital
staff gave Mr. Chen’s two children clothes and haircuts, the Americans
said. His son received a birthday cake. copy:http://www.nytimes.com
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