(Fixes spelling of “loath” in penultimate paragraph)
* No statement from Chinese or U.S. officials on Chen
* U.S. secretaries of state and treasury due in China next
week
* Supporter says Chen wants end to harassment, not exile
* Impact on US-China ties and markets unclear, but a worry
By Chris Buckley and Michael Martina
BEIJING, April 28 (Reuters) – Blind Chinese activist Chen
Guangcheng is under U.S. protection in Beijing after an
audacious escape from 19 months under house arrest, a U.S.-based
group said on Saturday, in a drama that threatens to ignite new
tensions between the two governments.
The United States has not confirmed publicly reports that
Chen, who slipped away from under the noses of guards and eyes
and ears of surveillance equipment around his village home in
eastern Shandong province, fled into the U.S. embassy.
China has also declined direct public comment on Chen’s
reported escape, which threatens to overshadow a two-day meeting
with top Obama administration officials, including Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton, in Beijing from Thursday.
But Texas-based ChinaAid said it “learned from a source
close to the Chen Guangcheng situation that Chen is under U.S.
protection and high level talks are currently under way between
U.S. and Chinese officials regarding Chen’s status.”
“Because of Chen’s wide popularity, the Obama Administration
must stand firmly with him or risk losing credibility as a
defender of freedom and the rule of law,” Bob Fu, president of
the religious and political rights advocacy group that has long
campaigned for Chen’s freedom, said in an email.
The standoff carries political risk for President Barack
Obama, whose presumptive Republican challenger in November’s
election, Mitt Romney, has painted Obama as weak on China.
“The Obama Administration will be inviting attack from the
Romney campaign … if the right course is not decided
immediately,” said Michael Pillsbury, a former senior official
in the previous three Republican administrations.
The reports of Chen’s escape come nearly three months after
a Chinese official, Wang Lijun, fled into a U.S. consulate for
over 24 hours on Feb. 6, unleashing a scandal that rattled the
ruling Communist Party a few months before it is to head into a
once-in-a-decade leadership handover.
Wang’s brief flight to the U.S. consulate led to the
downfall of top official Bo Xilai who had been openly
campaigning for a place in the inner circle of power in Beijing.
Wang was taken into custody by central government authorities
when he left the consulate.
Pu Zhiqiang, a Beijing lawyer and rights advocate, said
reliable contacts also told him that Chen took refuge in U.S.
embassy grounds. The incident will be another damaging blot on
China’s security services, following Wang’s flight, said Pu.
“Everyone knew about the suffering of Chen Guangcheng and
his family but nobody dared raised his head over this and
ignored it,” he told Reuters, referring to Chinese officials.
“Chen Guangcheng has been the most typical victim of this
lawless, boundless exercise of power,” said Pu. “But the day has
finally come when he has escaped from it.”
Chen, a self-schooled legal advocate who campaigned against
abortions forced under China’s “one child” policy, had been held
under extra-legal confinement in his village home in Linyi since
September 2010 when he was released from jail.
His confinement with his family under relentless
surveillance fanned protests by Chinese sympathisers and
criticism from foreign governments and groups.
Chen’s escape and the furor it has unleashed could add to
the headaches of China’s ruling Communist Party, which is
striving to ensure stability and authority before the leadership
transition later this year.
It also threatens to overshadow a visit by Clinton and
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who are due in Beijing next
week for the annual high-level talks between the two countries.
Asked whether any issue could force the meeting to be
canceled or postponed, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai
said, “I don’t know why you’d ask the question.”
Cui told a news conference he had “no information” on Chen.
A U.S. State Department source said on Saturday there was no
change to plans for Clinton and Geithner to attend the May 3-4
Strategic & Economic Dialogue consultations.
“We’re going,” said the source, who spoke on condition of
anonymity.
It was unclear whether the two countries might find a way to
defuse the situation – either quickly so as to avoid disrupting
the talks or over the longer term – but current and former U.S.
officials said they thought China was likely to want to find
some kind of resolution rather than jeopardize the relationship.
“I can’t imagine they will tank the relationship. This isn’t
the same as a spy plane incident or Tiananmen Square. I do think
they will try to manage it,” said a senior Obama administration
official who spoke on condition that he not be identified.
ChinaAid’s Fu told Reuters that Chen’s flight was not timed
to take advantage of the high-level diplomacy.
“There’s really no calculation. He was totally cut off from
the outside world and has been preparing for this moment for
months,” he said by telephone from Texas.
“Chen’s first wish is that he can be guaranteed freedom just
like normal Chinese citizens in China. To be exiled is not his
first choice,” added Fu.
U.S. economic analysts who follow China voiced conflicting
views on the potential of Chen’s standoff to disrupt bilateral
ties – and by extension the world economy.
Bonnie Baha, portfolio manager at the $32 billion DoubleLine
Capital, said “the timing couldn’t be worse” with the Clinton
trip and with Beijing “already embarrassed over the Bo Xilai
scandal.”
“Given the state of the world’s economy and the level of
economic interdependence which currently exists this certainly
has the potential to roil world markets,” she said.
But David Hale, an economist based in Chicago and veteran
China watcher, said he saw “nothing new in this and (it) will
continue so long as China remains an authoritarian country.”
“I do not think this will have a major impact on the
markets. The Obama administration will try to manage this in a
low-key way,” he said.
Hu Jia, a Beijing dissident who met Chen several days ago in
Beijing, recounted that Chen said he would not seek asylum from
within the U.S. embassy.
“If they catch him, there will be unprecedented retaliation
against him. So in the end we decided there was only one place
that could guarantee his safety,” Hu said, referring to the
embassy.
“Before making a decision to go there, he said he wanted to
stay and fight, and not request asylum,” added Hu.
Later Saturday, Hu was escorted away by a group of police,
according to his wife Zeng Jinyan. More police were likely to
come to take her away as well, she said.
“The situation is very complicated. The police are outside
right now,” Zeng said in a strained voice before ending the
conversation.
Fu said Chen’s wife, mother and daughter are “still under
tight house arrest,” while his older brother, Chen Guangfu, and
nephew have been arrested and other relatives and neighbors were
taken away for questioning.
Washington and other Western governments have criticised
Beijing’s jailing and confinement of dissidents, protesters and
other citizens who challenge Communist Party power. China says
such criticism is unwelcome meddling in domestic affairs.
SENSITIVE MOMENT
Two prominent Chen supporters, friend He Peirong and Beijing
researcher Guo Yushan, were out of contact on Saturday. Fu said
He was detained on Friday morning in the city of Nanjing but was
unaware of Guo’s fate.
“I was actually talking to her and the last words she said
were ‘the PSB has arrived,'” Fu said, referring to the Public
Security Bureau.
There was no sign of any greater than normal security around
the U.S. embassy, a fort-like compound of concrete and steel in
northeast Beijing.
If Chen is sheltering inside, that could thrust Washington
into the midst volatile leadership politics in China, recalling
the case of dissident astrophysicist Fang Lizhi. He hid inside
the U.S. ambassador’s resident with his wife after the 1989
Tiananmen crackdown, to Beijing’s outrage.
Fang settled in the United States and died recently.
Officials in Shandong said on Saturday they had no comment
on Chen’s escape. State media has made no mention of the saga.
“It is the Shandong government that has bungled this by
turning a small matter into an international affair,” said Li
Datong, a former editor at the China Youth Daily, a party paper,
who was pushed aside for denouncing censorship. “It is certainly
a loss of face for the central government.”
Economics professor Michele Boldrin of Washington University
in St. Louis said the security lapse that allowed Chen to escape
likely would make China loath to complain too loudly.
“I expect the Chinese government to follow the usual
procedure: complain loudly, use strong words for the internal
propaganda and then eventually get down to business when it is
time to do business,” said Boldrin, a research fellow at the
Federal Reserve of St. Louis.
(Additional reporting by Paul Eckert and Arshad Mohammed in
Washington, Tiziana Barghini, Jennifer Ablan and Daniel Bases in
U.S. bureaux; Writing by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Ed Lane,
Jackie Frank and Paul Simao)
