AMERICAN embassy officials in Beijing didn’t exactly throw out the welcome mat when one of China’s leading human rights activists showed up on their doorstep last week seeking refuge. But having allowed him inside and sheltered him for several days while they negotiated his fate with Chinese authorities, the US made itself responsible for his safety, and it must honour that commitment…. Chen Guangcheng, a blind, self-taught lawyer and fierce critic of China’s forced-abortion policy, told officials he had travelled 400 miles to Beijing after escaping de facto house arrest in a provincial town. Advised that if he sought political asylum in the US he might spend years cooped up inside the embassy before he could depart and be reunited with his family, he agreed to leave after diplomats assured him they had secretly worked out a deal with Chinese officials that would allow him and his family to remain safely in the country.
There is some dispute over whether Mr Chen’s decision to quit the embassy was entirely voluntary or whether he was pressured to go in order to avoid a messy diplomatic crisis on the eve of the arrival of a high-level US delegation led by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton…. Embassy officials strenuously deny Mr Chen was coerced….
What no one disputes is that the agreement between the US and China over what would happen to Mr Chen broke down almost immediately…. Mr Chen telephoned friends that government security police had surrounded the building and … his wife … told him she and other family members were being threatened and harassed. His lawyer says he now wants to come to the US because he fears for his safety and that of his family. Meanwhile, China’s foreign ministry has issued a strongly worded statement denouncing what it called US interference in China’s domestic affairs.
The case presents the administration with a delicate but potentially explosive diplomatic situation that will require the utmost finesse to resolve…. All … issues could be pushed to the side if the dispute devolves into an angry public controversy over China’s human rights record and its harsh treatment of political dissidents like Mr Chen.
It’s unfortunate that this issue has come up at a time when US-China relations are already strained over a broad range of disagreements regarding trade and security. Yet the US must remain firm in its commitment to human rights, however much China may insist that its internal affairs are none of our business. We need to make clear to the Chinese that we expect them to abide by the terms of the agreement they reached with us regarding Mr Chen’s status. Otherwise, how can we ever trust them to negotiate in good faith?... — (May 3)