In Texas, Fu was dumbfounded by news of Chen’s arrest. He sprang into action to alert the State Department, and his associates in Thailand, who quickly located her in the jail.
According to Fu, U.S. officials made it into the facility on March 3 while Chen was in court, found Chen’s daughters and stayed with them while they searched for the mother. Finally, through their Thai contacts in the jail, the Americans located her and convinced Thai officials to let them whisk her out the back, said Fu and another person with knowledge of the operation, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak publicly.
The family piled into a car and sped through Bangkok’s congested streets headed for the airport while Fu, 12 time zones away, frantically tried to book flights and prepare the family’s requisite U.S. paperwork.
But the Chinese agents were not far behind.
Despite her deportation order, Chen was stopped at the airport by Thai immigration officials who explained that they were under immense Chinese pressure to prevent her departure. In an hours-long standoff at the airport, the person with knowledge of the operation said, the confrontation between the Chinese, American and Thai officials nearly boiled over into a physical clash.
Chen and Fu declined to explain what happened next, citing diplomatic sensitivities, other than that the family eventually made it to the U.S. on March 17.
It is unclear whether Chen was housed in the U.S. Embassy in the intervening weeks or whether and how a deal was negotiated to allow Chen’s departure from Thailand.
A spokesman for China’s foreign ministry said Monday he was not aware of the matter. The Ministry of Public Security did not respond to faxed requests for comment. Thai and U.S. authorities declined to comment on Chen’s experience.
Justin Higgins, a State Department spokesman for East Asia, said that in general the U.S. “urges China to release all of the lawyers and activists detained in the July 9, 2015, crackdown and remove restrictions on their freedom of movement and professional activities.”
It’s unusual for U.S. officials to take such bold action to help Chinese citizens — in Chen’s family’s case, human rights workers say. But the citizenship of Chen’s younger daughter, who was born 4 years ago in the U.S. while Xie was studying in the country on a sabbatical, was likely a key factor.
Compared to previous years, when China’s diplomacy with its neighbors touched mostly on economic and national security issues, Beijing increasingly demands foreign governments’ cooperation when it hunts for fugitives, even those whom other countries may view as political dissidents.
“China is exporting its human rights abuses beyond its borders,” said Susan Shirk, chair of the 21st Century China Center at the University of California, San Diego, and former deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asia.
“The Thai government has always tried to maintain good relations with the U.S. and with China,” Shirk said, “but these kinds of cases make that balancing act very difficult.”
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The U.S. may be changing its stance on China, given Trump’s effusive praise for Xi and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s recent remarks that Washington will not force human rights issues on other nations. Yet Chen’s case suggests that America is still willing to confront China on thorny rights issues, at least when U.S. citizens are involved.
“This administration appears to be more muscular, more assertive, and we’re seeing ‘Putting Americans First’ play out,” said John Kamm, the founder of the Dui Hua Foundation in San Francisco who has advised U.S. administrations on Chinese human rights issues. “But what I’m hoping is that ‘Putting Americans First’ doesn’t mean putting other people last.”
Kamm noted that two U.S. citizens — Texas businesswoman Sandy Phan-Gillis and aid worker Aya Hijazi — were released by China and Egypt, respectively, in recent weeks in response to high-level pressure from U.S. officials. Yet the U.S. notably did not sign onto a letter from 11 Western countries who, spurred by Xie’s allegations, protested the torture of Chinese human rights lawyers, he added.
Now safe in Texas, Chen said she wanted to thank the State Department and the Trump administration. But her sense of relief has been tempered by a painful reckoning of the ruin and chaos she left behind.
Xie’s trial, held Monday, was finished at midday without any witnesses called. A government-appointed defense lawyer represented him. Xie pleaded guilty and asked the court to grant him a lenient sentence based on his repentance.
Chen Jiangang, Xie’s former lawyer who helped release his account of torture, was detained last week in a Chinese province near Myanmar, human rights observers say.
The relatives of Chen who were pressed by the government to travel to Thailand have had their passports confiscated upon their return to China. They have been repeatedly interrogated, and their jobs have been threatened, she said.
The electricity at Chen’s apartment has since been cut, forcing her elderly father to move back to his village. Authorities have emptied her Chinese bank accounts, she said.
For now, Chen and her daughters are living off the charity of her supporters. The former professor plans to seek a job, a home, and school for the girls. Chen said she was happy to start over in America. She has little money, but still has her voice.
“All the things we tried to expose, all the articles we used to write about the truth of 7-09 — the harassment, the torture, the denial of our children’s schooling, the forced evictions — we were always smeared so quickly,” she said.
“If I’ve escaped the country, they can’t control the situation anymore. Now, what can they do?”
