• Burmese
Sunday, July 13, 2025
No Result
View All Result
NEWSLETTER
The Irrawaddy
25 °c
Yangon
  • Home
  • News
    • Burma
    • Politics
    • World
    • Asia
    • Myanmar’s Crisis & the World
    • Ethnic Issues
    • War Against the Junta
    • Junta Cronies
    • Conflicts In Numbers
    • Junta Watch
    • Fact Check
    • Investigation
    • Myanmar-China Watch
    • Obituaries
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Opinion
    • Commentary
    • Guest Column
    • Analysis
    • Editorial
    • Stories That Shaped Us
    • Letters
  • Junta Watch
  • Ethnic Issues
  • War Against the Junta
  • In Person
    • Interview
    • Profile
  • Books
  • Donation
  • Home
  • News
    • Burma
    • Politics
    • World
    • Asia
    • Myanmar’s Crisis & the World
    • Ethnic Issues
    • War Against the Junta
    • Junta Cronies
    • Conflicts In Numbers
    • Junta Watch
    • Fact Check
    • Investigation
    • Myanmar-China Watch
    • Obituaries
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Opinion
    • Commentary
    • Guest Column
    • Analysis
    • Editorial
    • Stories That Shaped Us
    • Letters
  • Junta Watch
  • Ethnic Issues
  • War Against the Junta
  • In Person
    • Interview
    • Profile
  • Books
  • Donation
No Result
View All Result
The Irrawaddy
No Result
View All Result
Home News Asia

US Searches for Solution in Chinese Activist Case

Charles Hutzler by Charles Hutzler
May 4, 2012
in Uncategorized
Reading Time: 5 mins read
0 0
A A
US Searches for Solution in Chinese Activist Case

Chen Guangcheng

2.3k
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

BEIJING—US officials searched for a solution on Friday after a blind activist they had sheltered reversed course and asked to leave China with his family, deepening a diplomatic standoff while US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is in Beijing.

The demand by Chen Guangcheng to leave China abandons an arduously negotiated agreement, and reaching a new one will be even more challenging, if not impossible, because he left the protection of the US Embassy on Wednesday. He is now in a Beijing hospital, ringed by Chinese police.

US officials said they would speak with Chen and his wife again on Friday, then approach the Chinese with possible options. They did not say what those options could be, or if they expected to visit Chen in person. They were unable to do so on Thursday, when they spoke to him by telephone.

RelatedPosts

Myanmar Junta Airstrikes Kill 25 on Friday

Myanmar Junta Airstrikes Kill 25 on Friday

July 12, 2025
322
Parading Comedians and Machines for Election Circus; Rousing the Military Vote; and More

Parading Comedians and Machines for Election Circus; Rousing the Military Vote; and More

July 12, 2025
293
Anti-Coup Icon Explains Urgent Call for NUG Reform

Anti-Coup Icon Explains Urgent Call for NUG Reform

July 11, 2025
261

Clinton, in Beijing for previously set annual talks on global political and economic hotspots, was expected to have raised Chen’s case when she met President Hu Jintao on Friday, although neither mentioned Chen in remarks at the start of the meeting when media were present.

“We have developed a very open and honest relationship where we can discuss our differences and we remain committed to bridging those differences whenever and wherever possible,” Clinton said.

Clinton also met Premier Wen Jiabao and was to hold a news conference later on Friday.

Chen last week escaped his rural home where local officials had kept him under house arrest for years. He made it to the US Embassy, where he stayed for six days before the US and China reached a deal that would allow him to stay in China, as he had requested. But hours after leaving the embassy Wednesday he said he and his family would not be safe unless they left the country.

He has told friends and foreign media he felt scared and wanted to go abroad. He even used his cell phone to call in Thursday to a congressional hearing in Washington, telling lawmakers he wanted to meet Clinton. “I hope I can get more help from her,” Chen said.

Chen’s high-profile effort to keep his case in the public eye increased pressure on Washington and embarrassed Beijing as it hosted Clinton and other US officials.

Taken aback at Chen’s change of heart, US diplomats spent much of Thursday trying to confirm the family wanted to leave, and eventually said they would try to help him. Still, it remained unclear how they might do so now that he has left the embassy, or whether the Chinese would be willing to renegotiate a deal that both sides thought had been settled a day earlier.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Mark Toner confirmed US officials weren’t able to see Chen in person Thursday but spoke twice with him by telephone, and once with his wife, Yuan Weijing, outside the hospital.

“It’s our desire to meet with him tomorrow or in the coming days,” Toner said. “But I can’t speak to whether we’ll have access to him. I just don’t know.”

Earlier, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said US officials would continue to work with Chen and his wife to try to find a satisfactory new solution. “We need to consult with them further to get a better sense of what they want to do and consider their options,” Nuland said.

In a phone call from his hospital room in Beijing, Chen told lawmakers: “I want to meet with Secretary Clinton. … I want to thank her face to face.”

He also expressed fears for the lives of his other family members, including his mother and brothers, and voiced concern that people in his home village were suffering retribution for helping him.

“I want to thank all of you for all your care and all your love,” he concluded, speaking in Chinese that was translated into English by a rights activist at the hearing.

A self-taught lawyer, the 40-year-old Chen became an international human rights figure and inspiration to many ordinary Chinese after running afoul of local government officials for exposing forced abortions and sterilizations carried out as part of China’s one-child policy.

Until his escape last week, his nearly seven years in prison and abusive house arrest with his wife, six-year-old daughter and mother fueled outrage and added to his stature—and in turn upped the stakes for Washington in helping him.

Chen said throughout his stay at the US Embassy that his desire was to remain in China with his family, and US diplomats said that was their goal in negotiations with Chinese officials.

After several days of talks, US officials said they extracted a guarantee that Chen would be relocated outside his home province to a university town where he could formally study law. US officials said they would periodically monitor his situation, though they did not specify how.

But hours after a gleeful Chen left the US compound, he changed his mind, driven in part by his wife’s tales of abuse and retribution in the days after Chen managed to escape from his rural farmhouse.

Under the deal that brought him out of the embassy, the family was reunited and taken to Chaoyang Hospital, where Chen was treated for a foot injured in his escape. There, Chen’s wife told him what had happened after local officials discovered he was gone.

She “told him his family was tied to chairs and interrogated by police, and that his nephew attacked somebody and is on the run outside and might be in life-threatening dangers,” said Li Jinsong, Chen’s lawyer. “These things undoubtedly have left an impact on him.”

Chen also felt abandoned by the US, finding no embassy staff at the hospital to assure his protection.

On Thursday, Chen sent a message through a friend clarifying that he does not seek asylum from the US but wants to travel or study in the US temporarily. He mentioned he was considering an invitation to visit New York University.

In the Chinese language statement released via email and on the Internet, Chen said he was grateful to Clinton and other US officials and did not feel pressured or forced to leave the US Embassy and did so of his own free will.

An activist lawyer and friend of Chen’s, Jiang Tianyong, was taken away and beaten by state security agents when he tried to visit Chen at the hospital on Thursday evening, causing him hearing loss in one ear, Jiang’s wife said.

Another activist, Zeng Jinyan, who tweeted her conversation with Chen late Wednesday, said in postings Thursday that state security agents told her not to discuss the case anymore.

The unraveling of the deal that set Chen free puts Washington and Beijing at odds at a time both governments are trying to contain their ever-sharper jostling for influence around the world.

Having involved itself in the fate of an activist of Chen’s stature, the Obama administration can ill afford to abandon him and risk election-year criticism. China’s authoritarian leadership is also in the midst of a once-a-decade transition to younger leaders in which taking a hard line against dissent and foreign meddling is politically safe.

Among the issues to be resolved is whether China will negotiate over its citizens, and if it lets the Chens go, whether they will be allowed to return.

With Chen no longer at the embassy, Washington seemed to have little sway. China’s authoritarian government dislikes human rights negotiations in general, seeing its treatment of its citizens as a domestic affair. In Chen’s case, the Foreign Ministry has criticized the US for bringing a Chinese citizen into the embassy and harboring him.

Your Thoughts …
Charles Hutzler

Charles Hutzler

Similar Picks:

Exodus: Tens of Thousands Flee as Myanmar Junta Troops Face Last Stand in Kokang
Burma

Exodus: Tens of Thousands Flee as Myanmar Junta Troops Face Last Stand in Kokang

by Hein Htoo Zan
November 28, 2023
98.5k

Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army troops are opening roads and pathways through forests for people to flee Kokang’s capital as...

Read moreDetails
Burning Alive in Myanmar: Two Resistance Fighters Executed in Public
Burma

Burning Alive in Myanmar: Two Resistance Fighters Executed in Public

by The Irrawaddy
February 7, 2024
89.9k

People’s Defense Force says junta troops told every household in the village to send one member to witness the double...

Read moreDetails
Another Entire Junta Battalion Raises the White Flag in Myanmar’s Northern Shan State
War Against the Junta

Another Entire Junta Battalion Raises the White Flag in Myanmar’s Northern Shan State

by The Irrawaddy
November 29, 2023
87.1k

Brotherhood Alliance member says it now has complete control of Kokang’s northernmost section after the junta’s Light Infantry Battalion 125...

Read moreDetails
Depleted Myanmar Military Urges Deserters to Return to Barracks
Burma

Depleted Myanmar Military Urges Deserters to Return to Barracks

by The Irrawaddy
December 4, 2023
59k

The junta said deserters would not be punished for minor crimes, highlighting the military’s shortage of troops as resistance offensives...

Read moreDetails
As Myanmar’s Military Stumbles, a Top General’s Dissapearance Fuels Intrigue
Burma

As Myanmar’s Military Stumbles, a Top General’s Dissapearance Fuels Intrigue

by The Irrawaddy
April 19, 2024
47k

The junta’s No. 2 has not been seen in public since April 3, sparking rumors that he was either gravely...

Read moreDetails
Enter the Dragon, Exit the Junta: Myanmar’s Brotherhood Alliance makes Chinese New Year Vow
Burma

Enter the Dragon, Exit the Junta: Myanmar’s Brotherhood Alliance makes Chinese New Year Vow

by The Irrawaddy
February 12, 2024
44.8k

Ethnic armed grouping says it will continue Operation 1027 offensive until goal of ousting the junta is achieved. 

Read moreDetails
Load More
Next Post
KNU Believes Burmese Govt is Trustworthy

KNU Believes Burmese Govt is Trustworthy

Thai Army Increases Troops by DKBA Border

Thai Army Increases Troops by DKBA Border

No Result
View All Result

Recommended

‘Reforms Are Not Optional’: Prominent Activist Urges NUG to Act Before It’s Too Late

‘Reforms Are Not Optional’: Prominent Activist Urges NUG to Act Before It’s Too Late

3 days ago
1.1k
Trump’s Tariffs to Hit Myanmar’s Garment Manufacturers Hard

Trump’s Tariffs to Hit Myanmar’s Garment Manufacturers Hard

4 days ago
1.1k

Most Read

  • Myanmar Junta Deploying Conscripts in Major Push to Reclaim Lost Territory

    Myanmar Junta Deploying Conscripts in Major Push to Reclaim Lost Territory

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Myanmar Junta Chief Thanks Trump for Shutting Down VOA and RFA

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Chinese Investment Reshapes Myanmar’s N. Shan as MNDAA Consolidates Power

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Myanmar Junta Airstrikes Kill 25 on Friday

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Parading Comedians and Machines for Election Circus; Rousing the Military Vote; and More

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0

Newsletter

Get The Irrawaddy’s latest news, analyses and opinion pieces on Myanmar in your inbox.

Subscribe here for daily updates.

Contents

  • News
  • Politics
  • War Against the Junta
  • Myanmar’s Crisis & the World
  • Conflicts In Numbers
  • Junta Crony
  • Ethnic Issues
  • Asia
  • World
  • Business
  • Economy
  • Election 2020
  • Elections in History
  • Cartoons
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Editorial
  • Commentary
  • Guest Column
  • Analysis
  • Letters
  • In Person
  • Interview
  • Profile
  • Dateline
  • Specials
  • Myanmar Diary
  • Women & Gender
  • Places in History
  • On This Day
  • From the Archive
  • Myanmar & COVID-19
  • Intelligence
  • Myanmar-China Watch
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Food
  • Fashion & Design
  • Videos
  • Photos
  • Photo Essay
  • Donation

About The Irrawaddy

Founded in 1993 by a group of Myanmar journalists living in exile in Thailand, The Irrawaddy is a leading source of reliable news, information, and analysis on Burma/Myanmar and the Southeast Asian region. From its inception, The Irrawaddy has been an independent news media group, unaffiliated with any political party, organization or government. We believe that media must be free and independent and we strive to preserve press freedom.

  • Copyright
  • Code of Ethics
  • Privacy Policy
  • Team
  • About Us
  • Careers
  • Contact
  • Burmese

© 2023 Irrawaddy Publishing Group. All Rights Reserved

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • Burma
    • Politics
    • World
    • Asia
    • Myanmar’s Crisis & the World
    • Ethnic Issues
    • War Against the Junta
    • Junta Cronies
    • Conflicts In Numbers
    • Junta Watch
    • Fact Check
    • Investigation
    • Myanmar-China Watch
    • Obituaries
  • Politics
  • Opinion
    • Commentary
    • Guest Column
    • Analysis
    • Editorial
    • Stories That Shaped Us
    • Letters
  • Ethnic Issues
  • War Against the Junta
  • In Person
    • Interview
    • Profile
  • Business
    • Economy
    • Business Roundup
  • Books
  • Donation

© 2023 Irrawaddy Publishing Group. All Rights Reserved

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.