Activist Chen Guangcheng: Let Me Leave China On Hillary Clinton's Plane

The Daily Beast:

I've known Chen Guangcheng for more than a decade--he's been through intimidation, beatings, jail, and extralegal house arrest--but through it all I never sensed he was scared. Now he's scared. Chen, whose case has escalated into a bilateral crisis that threatens to dominate Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to Beijing this week, was weeping as he talked to me over the phone from his hospital bed.

Read the whole story at The Daily Beast

Comments

[Shah Deeldar]

09:07 PM on 05/03/2012

This brave man should not have left the US embassy. This was very much expected. Chinese will make this man insane with Chinese water drip method.

[ineastlansing]

05:51 PM on 05/03/2012

What makes this Chinese guy think he is entitled to anything? Why do US-educated Chinese students with PhD have to wait in line for years to get H1B visas to work and live in the US while this "lawyer" guy wants to skip the line? Why do we have to give food stamp to him and his family?

[Toutenhaut]

03:06 PM on 05/03/2012

If anything, this incident shows that the US does not work very closely with dissident networks in China, elements of which clearly assumed that Clinton's visit was a perfect time to put Chen in the spotlight, and engineered his dramatic escape to give US some leverage during the negotiations. What happened yesterday suggests that they neglected to (or could not?) coordinate their efforts with our diplomats, who were caught off guard and did not share the same priorities.

Chen is stuck between a rock and a hard place, probably because he relied on bad advice and unrealistic reassurances given by his supporters, who may be well-meaning and courageous, but not exactly sophisticated or savvy, much like Chen himself.

The Chinese government actually has an opportunity to set a positive precedent by protecting Chen from his mafia-like enemies in the provincial government. After all, he has never challenged the legitimacy of the central government or the laws per se; which leaves a lot of room for the government to accommodate him. Let's not forget that Chen actually won many high profile cases while he was active, including the illegal forced abortion case that earned him the wrath of the local officials. The central government ruled in Chen's favor then, but failed to stop the vengeful shenanigans that followed; it may be in a position to do more for him this time, if the incident does not degenerate into something that forces them to take a harder line.

[LJB064]

01:03 PM on 05/03/2012

Chen shouldn't have walked out of the embassy. Once he was there, he should have stayed put.

He has friends in the press, and is not having any trouble getting his actions and statements reported, so if he had wanted to stay, and was getting pressured to leave the embassy, he could have made that known pretty broadly, and brought down some real heat on the administration.

A lot of people are speculating that the embassy pushed him out, but I haven't heard him say anything like that.

Yes, his timing made this a real hot potato for State. For that reason, I'm sure that they were relieved when he decided to take the Chinese assurances and leave the embassy, but I'm also sure that they didn't take any action that could be characterized as forcing him to leave.

Now he changes his mind and doubly complicates matters - but we can't protect him outside the embassy.

[Know-some-secrets]

01:36 PM on 05/03/2012

Are you intentionally reporting disinformation?

Once Chen was in the embassy, he was cut off from communicating with those outside, and pressured by the State Department to leave. They wanted him OUT before Hillary arrived, any way feasible, irrespective of consquences.

State Department representatives pledged they would stay with him, and then abandoned him once he left, leaving him to the Chinese authorities. His mistake was trusting the United States embasssy, and a U.S. Secretary of State who constantly proclaims herself a champion of human rights, but never ACTS on that claim.
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/asia/Alternate-Account-of-Chen-Drama-Unfolds-on-Twitter-149883735.html

[LJB064]

03:43 PM on 05/03/2012

No, but you may be. There are no independent sources for Chen's claim that U.S. officials promised to stay with him in the hospital (until when, I wonder?) - only Chen himself and his people.

The issue of the circumstances under which Chen left the embassy is much too important for our people there (some of the very best in the State Dept.) to have handled incorrectly. Whatever your personal feelings about this administration or Mrs. Clinton, they're not stupid and they're actually pretty adept at handling tough diplomatic situations (and Chen clearly put them in a tough position). I have no doubt that, had he insisted on staying, he would still be in the embassy.

Feeling "compelled" to leave the embassy because of fear for his family's safety (while clearly a potent motivation) is not the same as being pressed to leave by U.S. authorities. If defection was his plan all along (which the facts don't bear out), then some thought should have been given in advance to the location of his family members before he went to the embassy in the first place. If, as seems more likely, he's now having second thoughts, I think he is delusional about what help the U.S. can possibly give him in his current circumstance.

This is a sad situation, but I don't think you have adequate grounds to lay blame at the feet of the administration or the State Department..

[Veritas is Pro Life]

12:56 PM on 05/03/2012

Too bad for Mr. Chen that he is so actively pro- life, that has certainly sealed his fate as far as the Big O is concerned. Since this administration has no issue with killing babies, they will clearly not help this hero. He and his family are in my prayers. Veritas.

[zanzy]

08:10 AM on 05/03/2012

Just let him coome here, I mean, he'll want to go home quickly when he realizes what American really is.

[Libshateme]

08:05 AM on 05/03/2012

Sorry Chen. You won't be going anywhere for a very long time. If the O admin threw you under the bus your chances are ZERO.

[Know-some-secrets]

08:52 AM on 05/03/2012

Interesting. It is always "the Obama Administration" when the State Department screws up, and "Hillary Rodham Clinton" personally, if they do anything right. The buck always stops with the president, I guess.

We are fortunate Hillary isn't and never will be President.

[Cacey]

08:05 AM on 05/03/2012

Given the fact that US prisons hold thousands of foreign nationals who have broken our laws ranging from the assasin of RFK to Pollard, the Israeli spy to Mexican killers, I find the comments calling for our protection of Chen interesting to say the least. I particularly find it interesting as I suspect that most had never heard of Chen until this story broke.

[Knightro829]

08:04 AM on 05/03/2012

This story just becomes more and more bizarre. I think it's patently obvious at this point that Chen did not think his grand plan through.

[LCLiberal]

08:00 AM on 05/03/2012

Our government has no trouble launching unilateral wars of intervention in sovereign countries where we have no business interfering, yet an instance where a noted human rights activist is literally delivered into our protection is treated as a burden and left up to the brutal Chinese authorities to determine his fate? The basic rights of freedom know no borders. China ought not to be appeased by the United States. Turning this man over to his nation's government probably means certain death. www.sunstateactivist.org

[JJK]

08:00 AM on 05/03/2012

I feel incredible empathy for this guy. If you look at his background, it's really quite simple, so in many ways he had nothing to prepare him for what has happened to him. I feel like he could be my son and I just want to protect him from what has now befallen him.

He tried to play on the world stage and discovered that those are very perilous boards on which to trod.

He put two very powerful countries, with major issues and billions of dollars at stake, into an almost impossible situation and was more or less discarded by one and is now at the mercy of the other.

I'm not sure how else this could have ended, as I posted immediately after he fled to the US Embassy, but I still feel deeply for him

[John Tutle]

07:55 AM on 05/03/2012

So, Obama is busy taking credit for what the Navy Seals did a year ago while at the same time throwing this guy under the bus in China.

Watch the lefties on this blog twist themselves into knots trying to blame everybody but their lord and savior, Obama, for this.

Our embassy has alibied that they abandoned this guy at the hospital cause they were really tired. Gaungcheng climbs walls and swims rivers blind to get away from his captors, after being beat and abused, and they are tired from driving him to the hospital?

I wonder of "Tingles" Matthews is getting another thrill up his leg over this. I think this is going to break really bad for Gaungcheng and his family in China.

[lightningbolt]

07:54 AM on 05/03/2012

The US was doing the right thing initially, but I'm sure the Chinese decided to flex their trade muscle and threaten the US with something if they do not abandon Chen inside China. The Chinese government is run by a criminal gang.

[Ethernum]

07:48 AM on 05/03/2012

China will never allow their citizens to do tourism around the world because most of them could never come back to China, only the member of the chinese communist party are traveling.

[Moses the Raven]

07:40 AM on 05/03/2012

under the bus