Bound for the US
Blind Chinese activist and family leave Beijing for Newark, New Jersey.
BEIJING: A blind Chinese activist was hurriedly taken from a hospital and boarded a plane that took off for the United States, closing a nearly month-long diplomatic tussle that had tested Us-china relations.
Chen Guangcheng, his wife and their two children were on United Airlines Flight 88, which took off late yesterday afternoon from the airport here.
Chen had said he had left the hospital where he’d been staying and expected to leave for Newark, outside New York City.
“Thousands of thoughts are surging to my mind,” Chen said, sounding hurried but calm. To his supporters and others in the activist community, Chen expressed gratitude and indicated that he hoped to return.
Chen and his family were driven up to the plane in a minibus and Chen was seen being pushed in a wheelchair on the tarmac and then onto an elevator that took them up to a sky bridge that was connected to the plane.
Chen and his family’s departure to the United States marks the conclusion of nearly a month of uncertainty and years of mistreatment by authorities for the selftaught legal activist who made a daring escape from abusive house arrest in his village last month.
Chen sought the protection of US diplomats at the American Embassy here, triggering a diplomatic stand-off days ahead of unrelated talks on global hotspots and economic imbalances led by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
After days of negotiations, the sides announced an agreement in which he and his family would be allowed to travel to the United States for him to study.
The departure of Chen, his wife and two children seemed hastily arranged and entirely orchestrated by Chinese and American officials with no apparent input from the activist. — AP