China: Chen Guangcheng Fears

Chen Guangcheng Fears Authorities Will Persecute Relatives He Leaves Behind

May 8, 2012 4:45 AM EDT

The blind activist hopes to fly to the U.S. soon in a deal struck between American and Chinese authorities but is tormented by worry for relatives, friends, and associates who will remain in China.

Blind activist Chen Guangcheng phoned me Tuesday morning sounding buoyed by hopes that Chinese authorities will allow him to travel to the U.S. for legal studies. (Chen is a self-taught legal advocate but was never allowed to take formal law courses.)

Since 1994 Chen has been at the vortex of an extraordinary Sino-U.S. drama, in which he made a dramatic escape from house arrest in Shandong, entered the U.S. embassy, and emerged under bilateral understandings that allowed him to seek medical treatment and live a "€œnormal life"€ with his family in China—€”or so he initially thought. But after discovering his wife had been tied to a chair and threatened by guards in Shandong while he was in the embassy, Chen had jittery second thoughts and decided he wanted to go abroad.

Ultimately a new deal was reached, which he expects will allow him to take a fellowship at New York University, accompanied by his family. He said a Chinese official had met with him four separate times—"we talked nearly three hours total"—to hammer out details such as how he could get a passport without having to return to Shandong, the scene of his past torments.

I asked: Any regrets?

Human-rights advocates are concerned about retaliation against Chen Guangcheng's friend and fellow activist Hu Jia, right, who met Chen secretly before the blind activist entered the American embassy, and Hu’s wife, Zeng Jinyan, who tweeted news of Chen’s escape. Above, the couple in 2007; Hu’s T-shirt bears a portrait of Chen Guangcheng (Elizabeth Dalziel / AP Photo)

"Mostly worrying about my family. Aside from that, I have no regrets," Chen told me. His most urgent concern is his 33-year-old nephew, Chen Kegui. Intruders wielding sticks broke into the rural Shandong farmhouse of Chen's brother, Chen Guangfu, and began attacking those inside shortly after Chen’s miraculous escape to the U.S. Embassy. Alarmed, Kegui brandished a knife and, official accounts say, slashed at the intruders, inflicting injuries, then fled.

The nephew is now in police custody, Chen said, while his brother was detained, questioned, and released. "My nephew's wife found a lawyer, but now it seems the lawyer himself is under house arrest and cannot take the case. I must do something to help free him—€”can you please find my nephew a lawyer?"

Kegui may face criminal charges. In an ironic twist, Chen fears Kegui may experience a replay of his own trial, which many legal analysts said was deeply flawed. "Of all of the friends and family that Chen will leave behind, his nephew is the most vulnerable," says exiled Chinese activist Bob Fu of the Texas-based Christian NGO ChinaAid, who has been in touch with Chen and has offered assistance. "Obviously there was a clash with security guards [at Chen Guangfu'€™s house], and the government can give Chen'€™s nephew the same trumped-up charges that Chen himself was found guilty of."

“Can you please find my nephew a lawyer?”

In August 2006, Chen, who'd enraged local authorities by exposing the fact that they'd illegally forced thousands of women to undergo sterilizations and abortions in the name of China's one-child-only family-planning policies, was sentenced to four years and three months in prison on charges of "damaging property and organizing a mob to disturb traffic."

The plight of Chen's nephew underscores concerns about other friends and family. Their fate remains a key yardstick for measuring the central government’s sincerity. Chen and his wife, Yuan Weijing, worry about "breaking the heart"—€”his words—€”of his 78-year-old mother, Wang Jinxiang, who lived with the couple and helped care for their daughter, now 6, all the while watching the couple endure years of beatings, harassment, his imprisonment, and a stifling (and illegal) form of house arrest. "She lived with us and could go out to buy vegetables for us. But now she'€™s terrified, and she doesn't dare go out the door," Yuan told me. "Once we leave for America, she'll be very lonely and will miss us a lot."

Chen also had relied heavily on his brother, Guangfu, who lived just a four-minute walk from Chen's farmhouse in the same village. When I first met Chen in Beijing in 2001, his brother was with him and they eagerly discussed their campaign to teach farmers about their rights. Later, Chen told me he was writing a book about his experiences, dictating to his brother, who wrote everything down.

Then there are the activists and friends who’ve lent moral and logistical support to Chen before and during his escape. When I asked him to recount how he fled from Shandong, he said he was driven for about nine hours in a truck by Nanjing-based teacher and activist He "Pearl" Peirong. (She'd disguised herself as a courier to gain access to his heavily guarded village.) But Chen declined to divulge details about how they managed to connect while he was on the run. "It was complex, very complex, to arrange. I can't tell you now because we don't know what will happen to her in the future," said Chen, "Let's make sure everyone's OK, and then we'll talk more."