Blogs » Politics » Chen Guangcheng has landed in the US
Blogs » Politics » Chen Guangcheng has landed in the US |
- Chen Guangcheng has landed in the US
- Translation: Chen Guangcheng’s Brother Says He, Villagers First Thought Chen Was Dead
- Chen Guangcheng Arrives in New York
- Blind Chinese Activist Departs for U.S.
- The Future of Sino-US Relations: Ask Andrew Nathan
- The Daily Twit (@chinahearsay Twitter feed) – 2012-05-19
- Hexie Farm (蟹农场 ): The Kiss of Freedom
- TV Host Applauds “Cleaning Out Foreign Trash”
| Chen Guangcheng has landed in the US Posted: 19 May 2012 07:34 PM PDT For seven years Chen Guangcheng has been silenced in China for his role in opposing illegal forced abortions in Shandong province, that ended today with his arrival in the US. Even after his escape from thugs in Linyi, the gov't in Beijing kept him in a tightly guarded hospital room. Finally, he will have a chance to talk openly about his experiences and the situation facing hundreds of other activists in China. I hope you will take a moment to reflect on the power of that image – a man once tortured and imprisoned, now is able to stand in front of the world. I wanted to say that he was no longer afraid of the Chinese gov't and their reprisals, but much of Chen's extended family are still facing harassment from officials in Linyi. Even 10,000 miles away from Beijing, he is reminded that "opportunities and risk exist at the same time," and is not yet truly free from the authorities. Image is from NYT, read their full article here Video of Chen's speech in NY from New Tang Dynasty |
| Translation: Chen Guangcheng’s Brother Says He, Villagers First Thought Chen Was Dead Posted: 19 May 2012 06:07 PM PDT [Below are translated excerpts of a Chinese-language article (available here) that originally appeared in iSun Affairs, Issue 19, 2012. It details the stunning escape of activist Chen Guangcheng from his home in Dongshigu Village, part of Linyi municipality. Many thanks to iSun Affairs for its permission. Section headings and nicknames have been added by Tea Leaf Nation.]  The Brother, Chen Guangfu When he heard of Chen Guangcheng's (hereafter, "CGC"'s) escape, Chen Guangfu had not seen his brother for over a year. He didn't greet the news with happiness, but with suspicion and fear. "My first thought was that they had intentionally let him escape" Chen Guangfu (hereafter, "the Brother") couldn't believe that a blind man could manage to escape under such close monitoring. "My first thought was that they had intentionally let him escape, so that they would create a car accident while my brother [CGC] was at it, kill my brother, and end the whole thing." The Brother wasn't the only one who thought this way. A few days later, when the news of CGC's escape spread further, many villagers couldn't bring themselves to believe it, either. "Everyone thought the officials must have killed CGC and only pretended that he had escaped," a man from Dongshigu Village said. But after the news was confirmed, the Brother immediately called Beijing scholar Guo Yushan (hereafter, "the Scholar") for help. CGC, hiding out in Xintai The Scholar also reacted to the news with surprise and disbelief. After repeated confirmation, the Scholar dispatched a car to take CGC to Beijing. [The Scholar had previously given CGC help when CGC earlier went to Beijing to seek redress for his grievances.]  "Pearl," or He Peirong He Peirong (known online and hereafter as "Pearl"), from Nanjing, happened to be with the Scholar at that time. After hearing the news, she drove to Linyi to find CGC. [Pearl had visited CGC in his village in 2011.] It was April 22 when Pearl arrived at Linyi. But CGC had already escaped from Linyi by then through the help of Chen Hua, and was hiding in Xintai, Shandong [about 130 km away]. Chen Hua (hereafter, the "Neighbor") is a Dongshigu native and a close neighbor of CGC's. In 2006, the Neighbor could no longer put up with the guards' close monitoring of CGC, and got into a conflict with them. The Neighbor was detained for ten days because of this. The Brother asked the Neighbor's father to take Pearl and himself to Xintai in Pearl's car. They finally found CGC. The brothers met for the first time since over a year, but they had little time to lose talking to each other. Pearl drove CGC away [to Beijing] immediately. In CGC's village, a rude (and belated) awakening for authorities The American Embassy already knew of CGC's entry into Beijing by April 26. In Dongshigu Village, however, in and out of CGC's house, the guards still had no idea that their subject was no longer there. One week later, the local government finally caught up with the news. Led by the chief of Shuanghou town, Zhang Jian, a group of people went to CGC's house to verify his escape. They got hold of Yuan Weijing [CGC's wife]. On the early morning of April 27, Linyi Public Security Bureau snatched the Brother away. They tortured him through sleep deprivation, and interrogated him about the details of his brother's escape. Villagers were "very afraid, but they all stepped forward"  No need--Chen Guangcheng freed himself, with a little help The Brother was grateful for the villagers' help. He tried to protect them and claimed responsibility for all. But he soon realized that the government had already gotten hold of enough information and arrested everyone who was [even tangentially] involved: The Neighbor and his father, as well as Liu Yuancheng and his wife [a villager from a nearby village who had earlier helped CGC] were interrogated for two straight days and two straight nights. Even Zhang Shunxiang, who had merely told the Brother that CGC had escaped [but had given no help], was arrested. Villagers were all "very afraid, but they all stepped forward to help regardless," the Brother said. After two days and three nights of interrogation, the Brother was released on the night of April 29. He now enjoyed the former treatment of his brother CGC: Prohibited from leaving his house, with spotlights and monitoring cameras right outside his wall. The nightmare isn't over, at least not for some After his escape, CGC went to the American Embassy in Beijing to seek asylum. He released a video online in which he expressed his concern: "With my own liberation comes my worry for my family's safety… they are still in the hands of the monsters who have been persecuting them for a long time. I am afraid that they will double the dose of their retaliation against my family due to my escape." High-level intervention from both the Chinese and the American governments made it possible for CGC to reunite with his wife and two children in Beijing. But CGC's nightmare still came true. One week after his escape, guards from Dongshigu Village realized their negligence. CGC's other family members, as well as villagers who had helped him are now overshadowed by local authorities. [For our Chinese-language readers, a brief note about iSun Affairs: 可通過iPad、Android平板下載阅读陽光時務，或登錄官網了解詳情：http://www.isunaffairs.com]         |
| Chen Guangcheng Arrives in New York Posted: 19 May 2012 06:18 PM PDT Following his sudden departure last night from his hospital in Beijing, legal activist Chen Guangcheng arrived in New York and greeted the media near New York University, where he is expected to take up a fellowship. From CNN:
Passengers, including reporters, on the flight were not permitted to speak with Chen and his family, but a New York Times reporter did have a brief interview with him:
See also a report by Melinda Liu in the Daily Beast. Hexie Farm drew a cartoon depicting Chen's flight to the U.S. Read much more about Chen Guangcheng via CDT. © Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us  |
| Blind Chinese Activist Departs for U.S. Posted: 19 May 2012 11:51 AM PDT By JOSH CHIN Chen Guangcheng leaves Beijing for New York.  A van with covered windows Saturday leaves the hospital where Chen Guangcheng was recuperating in Beijing. BEIJING—Blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng left China for the U.S. on Saturday, bringing to an end an episode that strained relations between Washington and Beijing and put Chinese human-rights issues under an intense spotlight. Mr. Chen, his wife and their two children left Beijing on Saturday on board United Airlines flight 88 to Newark. In a brief interview with The Wall Street Journal on Saturday before they left, his wife, Yuan Weijing, said they had left the Beijing hospital where they had been staying without any interaction with Chinese officials. She said they received passports shortly after arriving at the airport. "They came in and told us to get everything together at 12:30 and we left at 1 o'clock," she said. Ms. Yuan said U.S. Embassy officials were nearby at the airport. White House officials hailed word that Mr. Chen was en route to the U.S. Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser, said the administration is "pleased with the efforts" made by the U.S. and Chinese governments "to reach this resolution." The U.S. and China have been negotiating over the past two weeks to hammer out a deal to allow Mr. Chen to leave China with his family to study in the U.S. Mr. Chen in recent days has described visits by Chinese officials to fill out paperwork related to the effort. His departure would bring to a close a nearly monthlong period of uncertainty for Mr. Chen and the governments of both China and the U.S. Mr. Chen became the center of an international imbroglio after he escaped 19 months of home confinement in a daring nighttime breakout. Mr. Chen is set to study abroad, most likely at New York University, rather than seek asylum. "I look forward to welcoming him and his family tonight, and to working with him on his course of study," said Jerome Cohen, co-director of New York University's U.S.-Asia Law Institute, in a statement Saturday in New York. But Mr. Chen leaves behind a host of questions, including the fate of his family members as well as those who helped him escape. It also leaves open whether Mr. Chen will be as effective a human-rights campaigner outside China, where his reach will be limited due to tight restrictions on media and the Internet there. While acknowledging that some high-profile Chinese dissidents in the past have seen their influence wane after leaving China, Phelim Kine, a senior Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch, said he was optimistic Mr. Chen could still have an impact given the ease of communication through the Internet and social media. "We are at a new point of interconnectivity in terms of the ways in which people from outside can still have influence inside the Chinese firewall," he said. Still, Mr. Kine was adamant that the activists' leaving China shouldn't be considered a complete victory. "This isn't the time for [the U.S. and other governments] to stop and let out a sigh relief," he said. "There are relatives, friends and supporters of Chen Guanghceng who are very much vulnerable to reprisals." The U.S. needed to continue to pressure China to live up to its promise to investigate and hold accountable local authorities in Shandong who kept Mr. Chen and his family locked up without charge, Mr. Kine said, since the failure to do "gives a green light to continue those abuses against others." Officials at China's Foreign Ministry couldn't be reached for comment. In a statement, China's state-run Xinhua new agency said Mr. Chen "has applied for study in the United States via normal channels in line with the law." Mr. Chen's nephew, Chen Kegui, faces charges of attempted murder in Yinan county in Shandong after injuring local officials with a knife. His family says Chen Kegui reacted in self-defense when officials and heavies burst into their home looking for Mr. Chen. Attorneys who have attempted to visit him have been turned away by local officials, they said, adding that they were told that Chen Kegui had already been provided with legal representation. Officials in Yinan haven't returned calls for comment. "They're just making up excuses," Mr. Chen, the activist, said in an interview earlier this week. Meanwhile, activists who have been in contact with Mr. Chen say they continue to be monitored. A number were held and questioned regarding what they knew of Mr. Chen's escape and have all since been released. Activist Zeng Jinyan, the wife of fellow activist Hu Jia, has said on her Twitter account that public security officials this month warned her not to leave her home. Mr. Chen is one of China's best-known human-rights activists. A self-taught law advocate who had been blind since childhood, Mr. Chen had been celebrated locally for defending the rights of disabled people. He ran afoul of local authorities around his home village of Dongshigu, near the city of Linyi in China's eastern Shandong province, for protesting forced abortions and sterilizations under the auspices of China's one-child policy. In 2006 he was sentenced to four years in prison for charges including intentional destruction of property and gathering crowds to obstruct traffic—charges that his supporters say were trumped up by local officials. Mr. Chen had been kept under virtual house arrest since his release from prison in 2010 despite a lack of fresh charges, with plainclothes guards surrounding his house and forbidding him or Ms. Yuan from leaving. Supporters and others who attempted to visit him were often violently turned away—including "Batman Begins" actor Christian Bale, who famously tried to visit Mr. Chen in December—though in October their daughter was allowed to attend school. He escaped from his de facto house arrest on April 22 in a dramatic nighttime flight, leaving his wife and children behind and injuring his foot while scaling a wall. With the help of other activists he made his way to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, which he entered April 26. His arrival—which came days before a major summit in Beijing involving U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as well as senior Chinese officials—prompted an intense round of negotiations between U.S. and Chinese officials. Beijing has heavily criticized the U.S. for allowing Mr. Chen to enter the Embassy, saying it violated China's sovereignty. On May 2, Mr. Chen left the protection of the U.S. Embassy under a deal that would allow him to remain in China and study law in a location far away from Linyi, while Chinese officials pledged to look into his allegations of mistreatment at the hands of local officials there. But hours later, while in a Beijing hospital, Mr. Chen changed his mind and told other activists as well as foreign reporters that he feared for his and his immediate family's safety and hoped to go to the U.S. "to rest for a while." That set off a firestorm in Washington, opening the Obama administration to criticism that it abandoned a vulnerable human-rights activist. Obama administration officials have said they were trying to accommodate Mr. Chen's wishes to stay in China and that his shift was unexpected.  |
| The Future of Sino-US Relations: Ask Andrew Nathan Posted: 19 May 2012 10:28 AM PDT Xiaomi (twitter: xiaomi2020) is organizing an interview with Andrew Nathan, an internationally renowned expert on US-China relations from Columbia University. Submit a question or vote on a question that's already been asked here. Xiaomi is one of the organizers of Yizhe, a group which translates western journalism on China. Written by Andy Yee · comments (0) |
| The Daily Twit (@chinahearsay Twitter feed) – 2012-05-19 Posted: 18 May 2012 08:59 PM PDT
© Stan for China Hearsay, 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us |
| Hexie Farm (蟹农场 ): The Kiss of Freedom Posted: 19 May 2012 09:07 AM PDT
In his latest contribution to his series for CDT, cartoonist Crazy Crab of Hexie Farm celebrates the news that activist Chen Guangcheng is reportedly on a flight headed for the U.S. after his long saga involving a dangerous escape from de facto house arrest, refuge in the U.S. embassy, and then two weeks in a hospital in Beijing while his fate was decided. When Chen spoke with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton upon his departure from the embassy, it was reported that he told her, "I want to kiss you!" Later, Chen clarified that he had said, "I want to see you."
© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us  |
| TV Host Applauds “Cleaning Out Foreign Trash” Posted: 19 May 2012 02:09 AM PDT Since 2000, Yang Rui has been the host of English-language CCTV 9′s 'Dialogue' talk show and as such, in James Fallows' words, part of "the face the government wants to present to the outside world." From a 2009 profile in Germany's Der Spiegel:
On his Weibo account on Wednesday, Yang showed a different side [zh]. Josh Chin's translation at The Wall Street Journal reads:
The post met with criticism and ridicule from many Sina Weibo users. Charles Custer gathered and translated some responses at ChinaGeeks:
Even the state-owned English-language tabloid Global Times paired its translation of Yang's outburst with some dissenting comments:
Many have wondered whether Yang will now struggle to find foreign guests to appear on his show, with some urging an active boycott. Custer and others went further, quickly putting together a bilingual flyer to be distributed on weibo, calling for Yang's firing. In response, Yang insisted that he stood against xenophobia, and had been referring only to a small minority of "foreign hooligans" [zh]; but that given his reaction, perhaps Custer was one of them, and his background should be investigated by the Public Security Bureau. "What kind of journalist sets police on to critics?" wondered The Guardian's Jonathan Watts. As Custer noted at China Geeks, Yang's post fits a wider trend:
Beijing's campaign against illegal foreign residents has indeed taken what many feel is an alarming tone. Its "cleaning up" rhetoric has been widely embraced, while a group of web companies including Sina and Baidu is encouraging users to report and publicise bad behaviour by foreigners, whether their papers are in order or not. Relatively trivial incidents risk being blown out of proportion: the verbal abuse flung at a female Chinese train passenger by Russian cellist Oleg Vedernikov was certainly obnoxious, but might ordinarily not have dominated the front page of the Beijing Morning Post. The apparent wave of anti-foreign sentiment, and various parties' vigorous stoking of it, has fed suspicions of ulterior motives. From Global Post:
© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. |
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