* Obama: China stronger if improves record on rights
* Blind dissident said to want to stay in China
* Clinton to raise human rights in Beijing
* China, US governments keep silence on Chen issue
By Arshad Mohammed and Chris Buckley
WASHINGTON/BEIJING, May 1 (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton left on Monday on a high-stakes trip to
Beijing, where a blind dissident is reportedly holed up in the
U.S. embassy in a drama threatening to overshadow top-level
meetings between the two governments.
Dissident Chen Guangcheng, according to one of his helpers,
will demand to stay in China and press on with his campaign for
reform, adding to tension between Beijing and Washington that
poses risks for both governments as well as to relations between
the world’s two biggest economies.
Both governments have scrupulously avoided official comment
on the Chen case and neither has confirmed that he is under U.S.
protection in Beijing.
Chen’s audacious escape from house arrest, under the watch
of the world’s largest domestic security apparatus, was a
“miracle” of planning and endurance, said Guo Yushan, a
Beijing-based researcher and rights advocate who has campaigned
for Chen and helped bring him to the Chinese capital after his
escape.
But he said the 40-year-old, self-taught lawyer wants to
stay in China and campaign for reform.
“He was adamant that he would not apply for political asylum
with any country. He certainly wants to stay in China, and
demand redress for the years of illegal persecution in Shandong
and continue his efforts for Chinese society,” said Guo on
Monday, speaking in his first long interview since he was
released from days of police questioning.
Chen, who campaigned against forced abortions as part of
family planning, was confined to his village home in the eastern
province of Shandong since September 2010, after release from
jail on charges he rejected as spurious.
U.S. President Barack Obama nudged China to improve its
human rights record, saying the two countries’ relationship
“will be that much stronger and China will be that much more
prosperous and strong as you see improvements on human rights
issues in that country”.
POLITICAL AMMUNITION
But at a news conference, he walked a fine line between not
saying anything that would make it harder to resolve Chen’s case
while conveying U.S. concern for human rights and appreciation
for wider cooperation with China.
It is a politically fragile period for both countries.
Obama, in this presidential election year, wants to avoid
giving any political ammunition to his Republican foes who
already accuse him of being too soft on China and have demanded
he ensure Chen and his family are protected from persecution.
In Beijing, the ruling Communist Party is gearing up for
leadership changes later in the year but the carefully
choreographed planning has already been jolted out of step by
the downfall of top official Bo Xilai, in a case linked to the
apparent murder of a British businessmen.
Before leaving, Clinton promised to press China’s leaders on
human rights, an issue that has dropped down the agenda between
the two countries in the more than two decades since the 1989
Tiananmen Square crackdown.
Clinton ducked a question about Chen, but hinted that she
would not be shy about the matter in Beijing.
“A constructive relationship includes talking very frankly
about those areas where we do not agree, including human
rights,” she told a news conference.
The Chen case has already distracted attention from this
week’s two-day talks, which U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy
Geithner will also attend amid some progress in long-standing
disputes over currency, trade and market access.
The talks also give Washington a chance to win more Chinese
co-operation on international issues including pressuring Iran
and North Korea over their nuclear programmes, halting Syria’s
continued crackdown on unarmed protesters and reducing tensions
over competing territorial claims in the South China Sea.
Analysts said Chen appears to have two options: going into
exile or getting the Chinese authorities to allow him to live in
freedom within China, a challenge at best.
Yang Jianli, who runs the U.S.-based pro-democracy group
Initiatives for China, said he believed that both the United
States and China would prefer that Chen go into exile but that
he did not think the dissident would.
“He is not the (kind of) person who will give in,” Yang
said. “He is so determined to stay in China.”
Bob Fu, whose religious and political rights advocacy group
ChinaAid has been a source of information about Chen, suggested
the most plausible solution would be for him to leave China for
the United States with his family, ostensibly for medical care.
Fu, who said he has spoken with senior U.S. diplomats in
China about Chen’s case, suggested the dissident ultimately may
have little choice.
“At the end of the day, that is the only option that is
left, if he wants safety and freedom for himself and his
family.”
