Page 2 of
2 The
anatomy of Chen's change of
heart By Peter
Lee
Because of Chen's work opposing forced
sterilization and forced abortion, he has a
natural core of support from Christian and
right-to-life advocates. However, the
anti-abortion angle is soft-pedaled in the
campaign for Chen as part of a successful effort
to garner support across the political spectrum
from the freedom, democracy, and human rights
constituencies as well.
The communal
whipping boy for all these interest groups is the
US State Department, which is viewed as a sinkhole
of appeasement.
Truth be told, the Chen
Guangcheng deal was perhaps not the State
Department's finest hour, although the
participants doubtlessly and justifiably regarded
it as a remarkable piece of
diplomatic heroics pulled
together under intense time and political
pressures.
Professor Link commented to
Asia Times Online:
I think the idea of letting him be a
"regular citizen" in Tianjin while the world
watched was not a bad idea, and comported with
what he originally said he wanted. But I also
think the deal was rushed through too fast (for
obvious reasons) and that it would have been
better to spell things out in writing before
hitting the "go" button.
The deal was
apparently more of a rushed handshake than a
carefully negotiated treaty, and the embassy
fumbled the handover badly, depositing Chen, his
cell-phone, and his burgeoning doubts at the
hospital without a US minder.
Moreover, no
matter how carefully thought out the deal was, the
possibility of a high-profile collapse posed a
risk to Obama that, one might think, his political
advisers would have found unacceptable in an
election year.
Therefore, when it came
time to drive the new Chen Guangcheng narrative,
it was natural to throw the State Department and
the deal it had negotiated under the bus.
The most suitable tool for taking down the
State Department, particularly during a Democratic
administration, is its Republican critics in the
House of Representatives.
Although the US
Congress was in recess, an emergency session of
the Congressional Executive Commission on China
was convened by its chairman, New Jersey
congressman Frank Smith, an ardent supporter of
Chen and friend of Fu's.
Testimony was
taken from Bob Fu, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty
International, Women's Rights Without Frontiers,
and other sympathizers.
Bob Fu took the
lead in dumping on the embassy and the State
Department, wondering if there had been "a
shameful deal" between the US and China and darkly
alleging (in his written statement) that the US
government might not want Chen Guangcheng to ever
gain his freedom:
If Chen Guangcheng has been
betrayed, then neither the Chinese nor the US
side want the day to come when Chen Guangcheng
will be free to reveal the truth. Therefore we
hope congress will investigate the facts so that
the public can know which is the responsible
party ... [3]
The committee and
witnesses worked themselves up into a lather of
mutual admiration and indignation while waiting
for "the call" from Chen Guangcheng.
It
reached the committee at 3:00 am Beijing time,
highlighting the choreographed nature of the
exercise. After a private phone huddle between
Chen, Smith and Bob Fu, Chen was put on
speakerphone.
He acquitted himself with
dignity and, in a development that was overlooked
by the media in the excitement of his call,
apparently contradicted Fu's statement that " at
the present time there is one fact that is clear
and undeniable ... Chen Guangcheng in a telephone
call to me clearly expressed his desire to leave
China with his family ..."
In his comments
broadcast to the hearing room, Chen instead seemed
to leave some wiggle room, perhaps to reserve the
right to speak for himself instead of having his
US surrogates do it for him:
In the agreement of the United
States and China, China promised to protect my
constitutional rights as a free citizen. Since I
am a free citizen, I have the right to leave and
re-enter the country. Now I want them to realize
their promise. I may need to have a recreation
journey in the US...
According the
translation, anyway.
In his Chinese
remarks, Chen said:" I wish" - then paused and
corrected himself - "maybe I wish" ... [wo
xiwang ... wo keneng xiwang] ... "to
make a recuperative journey to the United States
for a while ..." [4]
Then Bob Fu asked: Is
there anything you want to say to Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton now visiting China?
Chen tactfully resisted the temptation to
amplify the betrayal-by-State Department meme,
saying:
I would like to see her [laugh] to
get more help from her. Also I want to thank her
face to face.
The laugh sounds to me
like an embarrassed chuckle, giving the recent
confusion: it was initially reported that Chen
said he wanted to kiss Secretary Clinton (ie an
expression of gratitude), then Chen stated what he
had really said was that he wanted to see Clinton
(because of his anxiety).
Representative
Smith then rephrased Chen's remarks into an easy
to consume but rather misleading soundbite,
characterizing Chen's statement that he might want
to come to the US, and that he wanted to talk with
Clinton as:
... your plea that the Secretary of
State, who did not meet with you in the embassy,
go to your hospital room and meet with you, and
your family and your supporters need to be on a
plane coming to the United States for, as you
put it, that rest that you so richly
deserve.
Not unsurprisingly, Clinton,
whose State Department and embassy in Beijing were
subjected to a withering and, it would appear,
less than honest barrage of criticism from Chen
and his supporters (such as the rather ludicrous
suggestion repeated by Fu that an unnamed embassy
staffer compelled Chen to leave the embassy by
passing on a threat from the Chinese government
that his wife would be beaten to death if he
didn't) to justify his subsequent cold feet on the
deal, chose to forego the pleasure of presenting
herself at Chen's bedside for a conciliatory
grip-and-grin or, for that matter, expending
further political capital trying to organize a
freedom flight charter for Chen, his family, and
the Chinese dissident community to the United
States.
To what one suspects is the Obama
administration's infinite relief, the Chinese
government continued to be obliging in the matter
of Chen. In place of the original stay-in-China
deal, it indicated it was willing to see Chen
travel to the United States for study; the most
recent report from Chen is that Chinese officials
are assisting him with his application.
Indeed, the Chinese government will be
happy to see the back of Chen if he indeed decides
to visit the United States. Exile is the usual
recipe for irrelevance for Chinese dissidents. The
key question is probably not, will Chen make it to
the United States? It will be, will Chen ever make
it back to China, re-energized and with a solid
base of foreign support, to re-ignite his
human-rights crusade within the country?
Talking to Asia Times Online, Bob Fu
shrugged off the implications for Chen's work if
he came to the United States and subsequently
sought asylum (which would render return to China
under the current circumstances impossible),
saying "It's a global village" and commenting that
China Aid had been effective in its chosen sphere
despite an inability to operate inside China
directly.
If Chen had gone through with
the original deal, it would have been a
fascinating experiment in human-rights engagement
between the United States and China. It might also
have strengthened moderate and liberalizing forces
with the Chinese Communist Party by demonstrating
that a higher level of domestic dissent could be
tolerated if matched with a decreased fear that
the US government would exploit it for purposes of
geopolitical gain.
Many serious observers
of China see no evidence that China's political
and legal system is evolving even as China's
economy and military roar ahead. And Chen's
hesitation about serving as the guinea pig for
this program - and staking his own future and that
of his family on such an unproven and risky
enterprise - is understandable.
In any
case, the final chapters of Chen Guangcheng's
career in China have yet to be written.
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