I haven't seen this written about yet on the site, so I thought I might take a crack at it. According to various reports, Chinese human-rights activist Chen Guangcheng, who escaped detention about a week ago, is now under the protection of the United States government at the U.S. embassy in Beijing. The same reports claim the U.S. is negotiating the "status" of Chen, as well as that of his family & loved ones in Chinese custody. Neither the PRC or the Obama Administration are confirming or denying anything at this point.
Chen Guangcheng is a blind, self-taught lawyer/activist who revealed the People's Republic of China had forced 7,000 women into abortions or sterilizations under the "One Child Policy," and tortured & detained individuals who attempted to resist. In 2006, he was arrested, charged with "damaging property and organizing a mob to disturb traffic," convicted in a trial in which his lawyers were forbidden access to the court, and sentenced to four years in prison. According to Amnesty International, while in prison, he was "severely beaten by other prisoners on the orders of prison guards." Chen was released from prison on September 8, 2010 after serving his full sentence, but remained under house arrest at his home in Dongshigu Village (东师古村). Chen and his wife have reportedly been regularly beaten by Chinese authorities during this period of house arrest.
Chen Guangcheng's escape & reported refuge in the U.S. embassy comes in the backdrop of the Chinese Communist Party dealing with the embarrassing fall of Bo Xilai, as well as recent maneuvering by both the U.S. and China to firm up relationships in Southeast Asia. Secretary of State Clinton & Secretary of the Treasury Geithner are scheduled to visit China next week, with this incident possibly casting a shadow over those talks. Although, something interesting seems to happen every time a U.S. official visits China nowadays. Last year, the Chinese decided to take their experimental stealth aircraft for a spin just as Secretary of Defense Gates visited.
From the New York Times:
For months, Chen Guangcheng, one of China’s best-known dissidents, played a cat-and-mouse game with the phalanx of guards encircling his home. He dug a tunnel to try to escape, a friend says, but was found out. And he sneaked out a video that alerted his supporters to the beatings he said he and his wife suffered at the hands of the men who kept them virtual prisoners in their rural farmhouse.
Then last Sunday night, in an improbable escape, Mr. Chen, who is blind and reportedly weak from months of mistreatment, scaled the wall that has been built around his house, slipped past his security detail and made a desperate sprint to apparent safety in Beijing. The daring rush for freedom could not have been possible without a small network of activists who risked detention to help him and who, supporters with knowledge of the escape said, used coded messages to communicate and elude a surveillance apparatus that is one of the world’s most pervasive.
By Saturday, three activists had disappeared, including the woman who drove Mr. Chen 300 miles to Beijing and a man who admitted to meeting the dissident as he was shuttled between safe houses in the capital. The man’s wife said he was taken away by the police.
Friends of Mr. Chen, along with people in the Chinese government, say he is now inside the American Embassy in Beijing. If true, that creates diplomatic headaches for the United States just days before Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and other American officials arrive for annual talks.
That the underground network of activists was able to help Mr. Chen evade his captors and move around the capital undetected for days has undoubtedly shaken Chinese leaders, who have become increasingly determined to suppress dissent through technology and brute force. Friends say his escape was so well executed that local officials did not realize until Thursday that he was gone.
Back in December, the actor Christian Bale attempted to visit Chen Guangcheng and was himself attacked by the guards that surrounded the residence.
From BBC News:
On Friday, Hu Jia - another friend of Mr Chen and himself a prominent activist and dissident - told the BBC he had met Mr Chen in the US embassy in Beijiing in the last 72 hours, after his escape from house arrest in the eastern province of Shandong. He said Mr Chen had scaled a high wall before being driven hundreds of kilometres to Beijing. On Saturday, Mr Hu's wife Zeng Jinyan said on twitter that he had been taken away for questioning by local police... There are reports that [Chen's] brother and nephew, and others who helped him escape, have now been detained by police.
The rights group Human Rights in China quoted a source who knew about Mr Chen, and said his nephew Chen Kegui was taken away from his home by more than 30 police officers.
UN human rights chief Navi Pillay said she was concerned for the well-being of Mr Chen and his family, who live in Dongshigu town, Shandong province. "I'm disturbed to hear reports that other family members, including his brother Chen Guangfu and nephew Chen Kegui, have now been detained," she said in a statement.
Chen Guangcheng, 40, was placed under house arrest after being released from a four-year jail sentence in 2010. Reports suggest authorities only realised he had escaped on Thursday.
In his video addressed to Prime Minister Wen, delivered from a darkened room, Mr Chen said outwitting his guards had not been easy. In the appeal, posted online by Boxun, a Chinese dissident news website based in the United States, he asks that:
- Prime Minister Wen investigate and prosecute local officials Mr Chen says beat up his family members
- The safety of his family be ensured
- Corruption in general in China be dealt with and punished according to the law
The permutations of the potential Geo-political ramifications are interesting.
From the New York Times:
The case of the lawyer, Chen Guangcheng, who is believed to be in the United States Embassy in Beijing, poses a quandary for the leadership. It is a blow to officials in charge of security and legal affairs, who oversaw the controversial treatment of Mr. Chen, and then allowed him escape their grasp.
But at the same time the issue could redound to the benefit of hard-liners, who may see his escape as part of a conspiracy to embarrass China that involves the United States, several diplomats here said.
For the Obama administration, the case presents multiple headaches. Mitt Romney, the likely Republican presidential nominee, has accused President Obama of essentially being soft on China, an argument that could limit Mr. Obama’s negotiating room with the Chinese over Mr. Chen... Washington has championed Mr. Chen as a human rights activist, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton publicized his house arrest in a speech last November.
From the Chinese point of view, it would be hard to let Mr. Chen leave China, one solution that, in any case, his supporters say the lawyer does not seek.
Thus, Mr. Chen’s arrival on American property more closely resembles the episode of Fang Lizhi, a Chinese astrophysicist who fled to the American Embassy after the crackdown at Tiananmen Square in 1989 and stayed for a year, until negotiations between the administration of President George Bush and the Chinese leader, Deng Xiaoping, allowed Mr. Fang to fly to London. As part of the bargain, Mr. Fang, who died this month after years in the United States, wrote a letter promising not to engage in anti-Chinese activity.