Clinton arrives in Beijing, but blind lawyer's case casts shadow

Human rights lawyer Chen Guangcheng escaped from house arrest and is presently being sheltered in the US embassy; his status is sure to impact Secretary Clinton's arrival for high-level talks.

|
Vincent Thian/AP
Chinese police guard the hotel Secretary Hillary Clinton is staying at in Beijing. Her presence for high-level talks is sure to be complicated by the US embassy sheltering Chen Guangcheng, a blind lawyer and human rights activist who escaped from Chinese custody.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived Wednesday in Beijing, where a tense human rights showdown awaits over the fate of a blind Chinese lawyer said to be under U.S. protection after escaping from house arrest.

The issue of Chen Guangcheng's future threatens to overshadow this year's round of high-level strategic and economic talks between the world's two biggest economic powers. Those talks begin Thursday.

Publicly, the U.S. and Chinese governments have said nothing about the Chen case. Neither side wants the biggest human-rights issue between the two since Tiananmen Square to damage a working relationship between the world's top importer and exporter, and between the world's biggest military and the fastest developing.

Clinton's only event on Wednesday before the talks begin on Thursday is a dinner with Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo. Aides traveling with her refused to discuss the Chen case or say whether Clinton would raise the matter with Dai.

Chen, a 40-year-old lawyer who exposed forced abortions and sterilizations as part of China's one-child policy, was delivered into the protection of U.S. diplomats in Beijing late last week, according to fellow activists. They say American and Chinese officials are intensely discussing his fate, which could mean getting political asylum in the United States or staying in China, which Chen has told some activists he prefers.

Questioned on Chen's future, President Barack Obama on Monday dodged the issue at a Washington news conference, declining to confirm that he was under U.S. protection in China or that American diplomats were attempting to negotiate an agreement for him to receive asylum.

"Obviously, I'm aware of the press reports on the situation in China, but I'm not going to make a statement on the issue," the president said. "Every time we meet with China the issue of human rights comes up."

The Obama administration has signaled that the global economy, North Korea, Iran and Sudan — issues in which millions of lives are at stake — are more important in U.S.-Chinese relations. And it is refusing to say if Chen will even be a topic of discussion this week.

The president's options are limited. Pressing the issue too hard may prompt a backlash from China, which the U.S. relies on for foreign capital and support in trying to lead the global economic recovery, deal with North Korea and Iran's nuclear programs and prevent a potential war between Sudan and South Sudan.

But facing a tough fight for re-election in November, Obama cannot afford to ignore the situation. Doing nothing to help a visually impaired, self-taught lawyer who has fought against forced abortions and corruption in China would open Obama to attacks from his presumed Republican opponent, Mitt Romney.

Romney and several Republican lawmakers already have demanded that Obama not back down to Beijing. Handing over Chen without adequate safeguards would also draw intense criticism from the human rights community in the United States, one of Obama's core constituencies.

"The U.S. government has a moral obligation to ensure that Chen Guangcheng, his family and any who aided his Houdini-like escape from house arrest are either granted asylum in the United States or are not mistreated if any of them choose to stay in China," said Frank Jannuzi, head of Amnesty International's Washington office.

Bob Fu of the Texas-based group ChinaAid, who has been in touch with people close to Chen, said Tuesday he had no direct word from the lawyer's wife and two children, but understood from people living in the same locality that they were still at their home in Shandong province.

Chen's older brother, Chen Guangfu, is still missing, he said. Rights activists say the brother was detained last week.

But Chen's nephew, Chen Kegui, has contacted a human rights lawyer and does not appear to be in custody, Fu said. He had reportedly gone missing last Friday after a confrontation with men outside his house in the same village.

The key to resolving the situation may well rest with an aging cadre at the top of China's Communist Party, who could either promise protection for Chen and his family in China or allow him to leave the country, possibly even to Hong Kong or Macao, as they prepare for their own leadership transition later this year.

Activists say Chen prefers to stay in China if his safety and that of his family can be guaranteed. That would require national leaders to step in and protected Chen from local officials, who've kept him and his wife confined at home since his September 2010 release from four years in prison on charges that supporters say were fabricated.

The ouster of powerful Chinese politician Bo Xilai following a deputy's visit to the U.S. consulate in Chengdu in February has already embarrassed the party. It doesn't want to lose more face over Chen, whose case was raised repeatedly by American officials, including Clinton, until the information blackout began last week.

Clinton also declined to talk Monday about Chen but said she would raise human rights issues at the upcoming meetings in Beijing.

"A constructive relationship includes talking very frankly about those areas where we do not agree, including human rights," she told reporters.

Human rights talk has angered Beijing for decades and it has criticized the U.S. approach as lecturing. Clinton made waves on her first trip abroad as secretary of state when she said human rights could not dominate the entire agenda with China at the expense of other pressing issues. Her comments drew fire at the time, but the relationship has clearly evolved as global priorities have shifted.

China in the 1990s was in need of foreign investment and diplomatic partners and was willing to send jailed dissidents into exile to get them. But Beijing sees little need for such concessions now, with its diplomatic clout and coffers bulging with foreign exchange.

Activists said the top U.S. diplomat for Asia, Kurt Campbell, had been in intensive discussions in Beijing to strike a deal over Chen before Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's arrival. Those efforts were continuing Tuesday, according to activists.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Clinton arrives in Beijing, but blind lawyer's case casts shadow
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2012/0501/Clinton-arrives-in-Beijing-but-blind-lawyer-s-case-casts-shadow
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe