Chen Guangcheng is in the US embassy in Beijing!!

Well now.. I knew that..but in any endeavor mistakes are made...I'll leave it at that.

gjy2105 said:

From the very beginning, he had always clearly stated that he wished to remain in China.

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Indeed, which I confirmed in my last post.

I wouldn't be surprised to find out that his home detention was just a case of local or regional officials going under the radar of national officials who have more important things to deal with.

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Unfortunately that would say something about the competency of these "national officials". Chen's detention was well reported in the international media and even in parts of the Chinese social media network. You would have thought someone would have realised what was going on after two years.

I think it's more likely that either they knew about the detention but didn't care, or they knew about it but they couldn't act because the decision-makers were divided on how to proceed (i.e. some supported the detention and those that opposed it weren't going to act unilaterally).

So, why did Chen leave the embassy? Here's a .

The U.S. State Department sought on Wednesday to counter reports that Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng may have left the U.S. embassy in Beijing because of physical or legal threats to his family, saying that it never discussed any such threats with him.

"At no time did any U.S. official speak to Chen about physical or legal threats to his wife and children. Nor did Chinese officials make any such threats to us," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in an emailed statement.

"U.S. interlocutors did make clear that if Chen elected to stay in the Embassy, Chinese officials had indicated to us that his family would be returned to Shandong, and they would lose their opportunity to negotiate for reunification," she added.

In a report from Beijing, the Associated Press cited Chen as saying that a U.S. official had told him that Chinese authorities threatened to beat his wife to death if he did not leave the American Embassy.

ChinaAid, a U.S.-based rights advocacy group that has been the main source of information about Chen, also said the blind dissident made the decision reluctantly because of a "serious threat to his immediate family members" by China's government.....

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I think both stories could be right. If I was Chen and the government said I had to leave the embassy or my family would be sent back home, I would fear the consequences of that happening would be that they would be attacked by the same people that had attacked them in the past. That doesn't mean the government was saying they would order Chen's family to be attacked. But it doesn't really matter who would be responsible. If Chen and/or his family go back to their village, it's unclear how their safety will be guaranteed - unless the national authorities were pulling the strings all along.

The details are dubious. Chen's "friends" said he wants to go to the US which contradicts what they said before that he didn't seek to leave but just get treated normally like everyone else. The US says Chen never asked for asylum. Why did he do this in the first place? Like his family wasn't going to be threatened so he forgot to take them with him? Then you have the contradiction of earlier reports that his family was with him. I like the part that he went to the hospital to get treated for injuries suffered in his escape. Yeah I bet it was as simple as he got into a car and left. A blind man successfully evaded a manhunt through the woods in police state China as reported yesterday. There was an earlier report that he escaped due to a ruse about his health. So under house arrest he was able to move around without a government minder? Maybe if he can get to the US, he can pitch a new TV show where he'd be the blind lawyer that knows kung fu and fights crime.

Hollywood already done that ,"Daredevil (2003)".

OK, so now Chen says the US stabbed him in the back, and he wants to leave the country. It seems the intrigue is not over by far, and will still be an issue when Clinton starts the meetings. Will be interesting to follow.

So you want to set up business that sells US passports? It might just happen that the Mexicans and Cubans think it's safer to be a Chinese dissident in order to enter the USA.

Maggern said:

OK, so now Chen says the US stabbed him in the back, and he wants to leave the country.

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Did he use the expression "stabbed in the back"? As I understand it, the situation is that he thought there was a way he could ensure his family's safety by leaving the embassy. He's now concerned that the only way to guarantee their safety would be to leave China.

As you say, we'll have to see what happens next.

I heard on NBC news that Chen spoke to Hillary by phone from the hospital and he cried talking to her and wanted to kiss her. Now you read this CNN article, it doesn't sound like he spoke to Hillary at all. A blind man scaled 8 walls on his own? In the video the reporter said he didn't have help until he was outside? Outside what? I think this is the same guy that went along with Christian Bale. The reporter got this on audio. From what? His cell phone with a video camera?

So unless the media is totally making this up, then Chen is purely an attention seeker. He didn't know leaving his family behind that they would be persecuted in the oppressive China he's fighting against? Oh. Maybe was so naive that he thought they would be okay while he makes it big being as a celebrity in the US.

Mr T said:

Did he use the expression "stabbed in the back"? As I understand it, the situation is that he thought there was a way he could ensure his family's safety by leaving the embassy. He's now concerned that the only way to guarantee their safety would be to leave China.

As you say, we'll have to see what happens next.

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Well all I've read is a norwegian article in the main newspaper aftenposten, which quotes AP and reuters. According to the article, Chen left the embassy when the Americans got guarantees for his safety. Alledgedly, he was surprised and felt stabbed in the back (they say so in the article, but I don't think it was a direct quote) as there were no american officials to escort him to the hospital. Once out, he also received threats to his family, and consequently announced he wanted to leave the country. But considering how this story now is so full of contradictions, I think it'll be better to play the waiting game. The Chinese and American diplomatic delegations know what's actually going on, and they'll figure something out together I guess.

They got it from here. So he felt abandoned by the US. I guess the US just wanted to get the case out of the way, and getting some kind of confirmation from some Chinese officials that his security would be tended to, had no problem sending him off. Question is, is this what happened? And what happened then?

gjy2105 said:

Frankly, he was a naive fool for putting all his hopes on the U.S. as a savior. He should've gone to the Norwegian embassy instead.

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Haha. Yeah why not, it's not like that relationship can get any worse anyway.