The Drama of Chen Guangcheng,
I have to admit an anticlimax feeling when the drama of Chen Guangcheng with some hyped-up twists ended so without climax.
I talked to my family in Beijing about Chen’s case. They are as puzzled over his intention as all of us. “What did he want?” “Leave the country? Go ahead.” To be sure, it is not difficult to get out of the country with the help of US Embassy in China. The Embassy has in the past quietly helped many Chinese dissidents to get out of the country without making an international drama.
Some people think he wants the highest level of attention, which he certainly got.
Meanwhile, I have doubt over what he claimed or what the media has been telling. It is extremely difficult to enter the heavily guarded US Embassy in Beijing. The fact he could sneak in without being discovered reveals the fact that he was not as powerless and helpless as he claimed, that he does have many powerful friends who are in the position to do what he wanted, that is, leaving the country.
One thing is clear: that is, he wants to come to the U.S., specifically on Hillary Clinton’s airplane, but he has not taken the legal and normal (also difficult) way as thousands of Chinese who are already here have taken, myself included. That is, applied and being admitted by an university, applied and being given visa by the US embassy in China, not an easy task.
I fully agree that China has a long way to go regarding her human rights. Yet, China is like the U.S. in that she faces many urgent issues, such as, large scaled air and water pollutions, which have caused spikes in cancer morbidity in many regions, health care, inequality, unemployment, poverty, hunger, social unrest, etc. By forcing China to clear her air and water, not only millions of Chinese people would benefit, the whole world would, too.
On the bright side, I am glad to see Chinese government put a happy ending to this drama. It is like saying, “No big deal. Go wherever you want as long as there is a country that accepts you. We don’t care.” On this, I don’t think many government can be this generous.
One step further, I feel a little bit uneasy. How will he, a 40-plus-year-old non-English speaker, make a living here in the U.S? Finding a job is even a challenge to educated and fully competent young Americans. Is he going to depend on assistance from some human rights organization or church?
For now, let us hope we have a different drama in the future.
Tom Ryan
Crossroads, Kansas City
1 year agoChen has a choice of some sweet book deals, film options, and interview junkets.
Kent Mueller
1 year agoYanwen, why do you say so few governments would let him leave? I’m not sure there are any freely elected governments that would object to his leaving. It is only the tyrannical, oppressive non-freely elected governments that would cause a problem, right?
Or, please list the freely elected governments that would be less magnanimous as the Chinese.
Yanwen Xia
Overland Park
1 year agoHi Kent, I admit that I don’t know anything about the rules, the roles and the defined functions of an embassy in a country, but I am pretty sure habouring dissindents is not one of them. Imagine what the U.S. or British or Russian or any government would do if one of their dissidents sneak into a foreign country’s embassy and ask his/her government for permission (passport in this case) to leave the country together with a visiting foreign government official. I have a hard time accepting this as a normal diplomatic practice.
Ok, one step back, we don’t know the conditions under which the Chinese government agrees to let him go. One possible explanation is the two sides bargained secretly and agreed upon some deal, in which Chinese government might gain something for exchange of a passport of Chen. If that were the case, I would take back the word generous.
Yanwen Xia
Overland Park
1 year agoTom, I agree this provides a rich and attractive material for some kind of book, starting from his escape from his house arrest, adventure into US embassy, agreeing to be admitted into a hospital, a such change of mind once he was admitted, the interactions, communications, tensions among high level officials, and ending up on Hillary Clinton’s airplane, etc.
George Hunsucker
Northland
1 year agoDoes it bother you Yanwen that your country practices infanticide?