China may let activist leave country
Fellowship at New York University awaits blind human-rights campaigner
BEIJING – The United States said Friday that China had indicated it would let blind activist Chen Guangcheng and his family leave the country soon, raising hopes of a resolution to a damaging diplomatic crisis.
State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said China would expedite travel documents for the rights campaigner, who escaped house arrest and fled to the U.S. embassy, where he spent six days before emerging Wednesday.
“The Chinese government has indicated that it will accept Mr. Chen’s applications for appropriate travel documents,” Nuland said in a statement.
“The United States government expects that the Chinese government will expeditiously process his applications for these documents. The United States government would then give visa requests for him and his immediate family priority attention.”
Chen has been offered a fellowship by New York University, where, according to U.S. officials, he could be accompanied by his wife and two children.
The U.S. government statement appeared to be deliberately vague in hopes of giving China a face-saving way out of the crisis. Officials declined to give a time frame or to say whether they had firm assurances from the Chinese government.
Beijing earlier said Chen was free to apply to go abroad, after the activist said he feared for his and his family’s safety in China and wanted to go to the United States to study.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she was “encouraged” by that development.
“Progress has been made to help him have the future that he wants. We will be staying in touch with him as this process moves forward,” Clinton said.
The activist, who spent four years in jail after exposing forced abortions and sterilizations under the “one-child” policy, unleashed a diplomatic furor with his flight from his home.
During interviews with Chinese officials in hospital on Thursday and Friday, he made “detailed allegations” about abuse under house arrest, a U.S. official said on condition of anonymity.
“The Obama administration is putting a lot of pressure on the Chinese to make sure this story will end up nicely for Chen Guangcheng,” said Jean-pierre Cabestan, politics professor at the Hong Kong Baptist University.
“I think the (Chinese) foreign ministry is going to arrange a deal.”
The United States has scrambled to contain the growing diplomatic row over Chen, which disrupted the annual Strategic and Economic Dialogue and threatened to hurt cooperation on Iran, Syria and key economic issues.
In extraordinary scenes on Capitol Hill, Chen phoned in to a congressional hearing on his case Thursday to ask lawmakers for help to travel to the United States and appealed directly to Clinton.