Chen Guangcheng, who is in Taipei right now as part of an 18-day trip to meet with politicans and human rights activists, spoke to media on Monday but notably refused to follow-up on his claim that New York University kicked him out due to pressure from Beijing.

According to Reuters, Chen “bristled” when asked.

“Why do you keep asking about NYU?” he asked. “I’ll wait till a more suitable time to talk.”

If he would have said this — “I’ll wait till a more suitable time to talk” — a week ago instead of writing the following in a statement published by the Wall Street Journal –

In fact, as early as last August and September, the Chinese Communists had already begun to apply great, unrelenting pressure on New York University, so much so that after we had been in the United States just three to four months, NYU was already starting to discuss our departure with us.

– we might have been spared this entire sad saga in which a human rights champion seems like he’s grown into a new role as ungrateful, puppet dissident.

Chen was also asked about spyware on his phone, which he said he didn’t know about. “I’m not a PC expert,” he said — in deadpan, we can only imagine, and not bristling.

He also had this to say about Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou’s refusal to meet him:

“This is exactly an example of how a dictatorship threatens a free society,” he said.

Doesn’t sound like Chen completely understands international politics. And what would he do, anyway, force President Ma to meet? That seems rather — what’s the word? — dictatorial.

Chinese dissident Chen evades questions on NYU (Reuters)

The Chen Guangcheng saga sags deeper into a marsh of disappointment and sadness every day. The latest news, reported by Reuters, is that spyware was found on his phone and tablet, given to him by his “supporters.”

But wait. The source of the story is NYU professor Jerome Cohen, who, if you haven’t been getting the drift recently, hates certain of Chen’s “supporters” — people like Bob Fu, who runs the evangelist Christian group ChinaAid. Reuters:

The devices were screened by NYU technicians within a few days and were found to have been loaded with hidden spying software, said Cohen, who arranged the fellowship for Chen at NYU Law School…

“These people supposedly were out to help him and they give him a kind of Trojan horse that would have enabled them to monitor his communications secretly,” said Cohen.

And of course, the confirmation via an anonymous source:

The iPad was eventually cleaned up and returned to Chen at his request, the second source said.

What does Bob Fu say?

“This is the first time I’ve heard of spyware,” said Fu, who was in southeast Asia when his wife delivered the devices. He called the allegations “ridiculous” and “like a 007 thing.”

Yes, this is one of those he-said, he-said stories, where both sides have a reason to lie and reasons not to, and one wonders the point in reporting any of it except for sheer entertainment value.

Fu said he consulted ChinaAid’s computer technician on Thursday and “my staffer is 100 percent sure that the only thing he added on the iPad was a Skype account.”

His technician did only routine things like “the activation of the iPad and iPhone, basic installment, iCloud… there was nothing else there. They have to provide evidence,” said Fu.

“Everything was transparent. There was nothing hidden,” he added.

Let’s make a counter-accusation, shall we?

But Mark Corallo, a media consultant who has been working with Chen, said that the gifts from Fu were taken away by NYU before the dissident received them.

“The devices were brand-new when ChinaAid gave them to NYU to give to Chen…”

Stop right there. If we could play a little Encyclopedia Brown — tell us, Mark Corallo, were the devices “brand-new,” as you say? Because Bob Fu seems to think his staffers were 100 percent sure that they installed Skype on those devices.

Possible liar Mark Corallo continues:

“…so there was no need or reason to perform any check,” he said in an email. “And none of these functions was on any of the devices provided to him by ChinaAid.”

He added that: “At least to Chen’s knowledge, none of these devices was ever found to have any tracking or listening mechanisms.”

Chen, predictably, had no comment. (Is he able to express an unscripted one?)

There’s still a lot we don’t know, so we won’t jump to conclusions. But let me just leave this here: what I think of Bob Fu. I’m practicing ascetic restraint right now.

Exclusive: Spyware claims emerge in row over Chinese dissident at NYU (Reuters)

Regarding Chen Guangcheng’s exit from NYU, we acknowledge that there’s a chance he and his camp know something the rest of us don’t. Yet if there is evidence of coercion from Beijing, neither Chen nor anyone else has been able to present any. “Chen did not respond to repeated requests for evidence of his claims,” reports SCMP. In the same article, NYU professor Jerome Cohen gave perhaps the most withering sound bite yet about this situation:

Jerome Cohen, a law professor who has been Chen’s mentor and arranged for him to study at NYU, said he had “failed as a teacher.”

In a longer interview with Foreign Policy, Cohen clarifies his position on the matter (variations of these quotes appear in other publications, basically any one that has rung up Cohen):

I asked him to issue this statement [to express his views on what happened]. That said, he’s a special person, and he bears a certain resentment. He’s obviously being guided by people who have a different point of view than my own, and maybe they have information that I don’t have.

And:

The irony of this whole thing is that I share a concern of [the Chinese government interfering in institutions] outside of China, but I always try to do it on the basis of evidence and facts. What concerns me here is that the New York Post, or something that Congressman Christopher Smith says, or NYU faculty opposed to [NYU President John] Sexton who don’t have anything to do with China, or Chen’s statement, no one has given one fact [to show that] Chen has been restricted or not done much at NYU. It’s all nonsense!

You shouldn’t bite the hand that feeds you. NYU has been extraordinarily generous to the Chens, and I’ve been grateful for the support.

And:

I hate malicious gossip. People just say things, they talk. It’s very unfortunate. If I had seen a basis for [NYU restricting Chen] at all, I would have been the first to raise the alarm.

Finally:

I don’t know what will happen after this — it could hurt him with some people – but he has to learn that there are consequences of free speech. You can say anything in America, but you have to learn that it can come back and bite you.

“Obviously being guided by people who have a different point of view than my own.” “Malicious gossip.” “There are consequences of free speech.” “It’s all nonsense!”

For a person of Cohen’s reputation, with his access to Chen, these measured but stern rebukes can almost be called scathing.

A Georgetown law professor, posting on the estimable Chinalaw List, provides this trenchant assessment:

We may have to remember back to the era of the Tiananmen dissidents – Wu’er Kaixi, Chai Ling and others – to find a good analog for Chen. They came to the US after the massacre, were lionized for a while as the heroes of the “Democracy Movement,” and then faded from public attention in fairly short order. As that happened, they became vocal and bitter, complaining just like Chen, that they were betrayed, that the cushy welcome they received was evaporating as memories faded. In short, they learned (as Jerry Cohen liked to quip at East Asian Legal Studies lunches to the invited speakers) that “there is no free lunch.” After a reasonable transition, they were supposed to find something to do, on their own. In Chen’s case, he’s had a pretty sweet deal – a year of housing in Washington Square, financial support, translators, educational opportunities if he chose. Understandably, he’s unhappy. But biting the hand that fed you – well, for a year – makes Chen seem like an ingrate.

And the best tweet yet I’ve seen on the matter:

NYU, China and Chen Guangcheng: http://t.co/W6BbAvf6km | An uncomfortable, public transition from idealized symbol to actual person?

— Will Moss (@imagethief) June 17, 2013

WSJ has the full text of Chen’s statement.

(For more, see China Digital Times.)

Jerome Cohen on Chen Guangcheng: ‘You Shouldn’t Bite the Hand That Feeds You’ (Foreign Policy)

Last May, lawyer-activist Chen Guangcheng was a media darling and international hero. His dramatic escape from the village of Dongshigu, where he was held under house arrest, made headlines around the wrold. After the US granted him asylum, one magazine recognized him as “rebel of the year.” Be was later honored with the Lantos Human Rights Prize.

But as time went on, something changed. Or rather, Chen failed to. With each video, each interview, we heard more of the same, the same not-so-subtle name-drops, the same message, with phrases such as “the red terror envelops the nation.” He was almost parroting leaders of the overseas dissident community, which include pro-lifers, Christian evangelicals such as Bob Fu, and those who believe in aliens. (To be fair to Chen, he has always seemed caught between opposing factions, and it’s sometimes difficult to tell exactly where he stands on certain issues. “Human rights,” of course, can have radically different meanings to different people.) China, meanwhile, has done itself no favors, as officials have continued to harass Chen’s relatives in Shandong province, making it difficult, if not impossible, to see them as anything but villains in this ongoing saga.

This brings us to today’s news, which has been greeted with markedly mixed reactions. The New York Post, in typical New York Post style, is reporting that NYU is “booting” Chen (check out the URL: “nyu_has_bad_case_of_china_syndrome”). Chen’s free ride is over, it seems. An anonymous source strongly suggests to the Post that NYU succumbed to pressure from the Chinese government, though the only reason to think so is because the university is trying to open a Shanghai campus.

“The big problem is that NYU is very compromised by the fact they are working very closely with the Chinese to establish a university,” according to one New York-based professor familiar with Chen’s situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

“That’s their liability,” the source said. “Otherwise, they would be much less constrained on issues like freedom of speech.”

This is probably bullshit. None other than Jerome Cohen, the NYU law professor who played an integral role in securing Chen a fellowship at his university and is as close to him as anyone, basically said as much. As he told New York Magazine:

A university spokesman, John Beckman, denied any connection between Chen’s soon-to-be departure and NYU’s expansion to China. As he told the Post:

“If there were outside pressure, why would we have taken him in the first place when his plight was on every front page in the world?”

Buzzfeed has a fuller statement:

The plain fact is that these are unrelated matters. In countless hours of conversations involving the establishment of our Shanghai campus, this matter has never come up.

We were pleased to offer Mr. Chen and his family a place to come and study and support his transition to the US when he first left China based on a pre-existing relationship he had with scholars here. But NYU and Mr. Chen had discussions beginning last fall that NYU could not support him indefinitely. We indicated that beyond this academic year he would need to make a transition to a more self-supporting life – with which NYU would and has been helping him – which would involve him finding new living arrangements and completing a book that would be a source of income for his family. During Mr. Chen’s time here, NYU has been very generous, providing him and family with housing, health insurance, health care, food, clothing, electronic equipment both related to his blindness and for his family, as well as family, office and language translation support, and arranged opportunities for him to speak and write.

The claims in the story that Mr. Chen’s advocacy was restrained are also completely untrue, as the record amply shows.

Chen, by the way, will be fine. Reports are that he’s in talks to move to Fordham Law School. If not there, someone will give him a home, because he’s Chen Guangcheng, Rebel of the Year, Lantos Human Rights Prize recipient. It’s unlikely he’ll have to earn anything again for the rest of his life.

(Image by Andy Jacobsohn)

Authorities still don’t get it. It’s over. Chen Guangcheng is gone. He’s in the hands of overseas activists now, and hasn’t said a thing that was new or interesting since winning the Lantos Human Rights Prize in late January.

In other words, stop doing THIS SHIT:

Security personnel in eastern China are carrying out a nightly harassment campaign against the brother of blind rights activist Chen Guangcheng, the two said on Tuesday, throwing rocks, bottles and dead poultry at his house for 12 nights in a row

Dead poultry? Twelve nights in a row? Come fucking on.

We pause here to note that Reuters’s story is one-sided, quoting Chen Guangcheng relaying the words of his brother, Chen Guangfu. “Chen Guangfu, 56, said the attacks started on April 18,” Reuters reports, “the same day his brother had been put on a village Communist Party blacklist for his plans to visit Taiwan and, the party said, Tibet.”

Of course police didn’t answer calls, but even if they did, who would you believe? After authorities did this to Chen Guangcheng’s nephew, Kegui? And this to the spouse of another activist — a person, Liu Xia, who has never been committed for a crime?

The Telegraph also got in touch with Chen Guangfu, who says posters labeling the family as “traitors” have proliferated in their village, Dongshigu in Shandong province.

But most of Mr Chen’s family remained in their village and, as this anniversary of his departure approaches, relatives claim they have become the target of a growing campaign of intimidation and harassment Chen Guangfu, the lawyer’s 56-year-old brother, said he believed the campaign was a form of retaliation for the activist’s continued outspokenness as well as plans to visit Taiwan in June.

He claimed the campaign of intimidation was intended “to pressure Guangcheng”, who reportedly remains heavily involved in human rights campaigning in China despite now living in the US.

Sigh. You break bread with hoodlums, and you’ll look like one yourself. China: call off these slavering mutts.

China dissident’s brother says home attacked nightly with dead poultry, bottles (Reuters)
Chen Guangcheng’s relatives facing growing abuse (The Telegraph)

On Tuesday night, Chen Guangcheng received the Tom Lantos Human Rights Prize in Washington DC and delivered a 22-minute speech that was greeted with a standing ovation. Speaking at the National Cathedral, he called himself “lucky” to have received “care and kindness from people around the world” despite the persecution he faced at home; he talked about his fellow activists still imprisoned, and called human rights “inseparable from political reform”; and addressing the US government, he urged it to “continue unwaveringly from your basic principles of democracy.” The website Save Tibet has a full transcription of Chen’s speech. He ended by channeling his inner Michael Jackson: “Let’s work together to make this world a better place!”

James Fallows links to a video of the speech on the National Cathedral’s website, but as of this writing the site appears to be down.

According to the Lantos Foundation’s website, “In an effort to draw attention to human rights violations across the globe and to alert the media and governments to the importance of making human rights a priority on equal footing with other policy decisions, the Lantos Human Rights Prize is awarded annually to raise awareness about human rights violations and the individuals committed to fighting them throughout the world.”

Tom Lantos was the only Holocaust survivor elected to Congress. He died in February 2008, with one of his final wishes being the creation of a non-profit to carry out his work.

Other winners of the Lantos Human Rights Prize include the Dalai Lama in 2009. China does not recognize the Lantos Human Rights Prize.

For more on Chen Guangcheng, here’s a video of a recent interview he conducted with PBS’s Ray Suarez. The transcript is on PBS’s website.

(Image via James Fallows)

Chen Guangcheng, in a measured, carefully scripted nine-and-a-half minute speech that was just released on YouTube, name-drops two dozen activists and dissidents while calling on world leaders to focus more attention on China’s human rights. “Dear Mr. Xi Jinping, the whole nation is watching you,” he says. “Whether you will follow the call of heaven and people to carry out reform, or kidnap the government and maintain the power of the Communist Party, is a matter of whether China will have the transition in a peaceful way or a violent way.”

The video address is in commemoration of next Monday’s Human Rights Day, which was first observed on December 10, 1948 upon the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Chen, speaking from in front of the yet-unfinished Freedom Tower in New York City, at times appears to be merely hitting the talking points of China’s overseas dissident community, of which he is clearly entrenched (he mentions Tibetan self-immolations, the Falun Gong, and God). Yet his voice is particularly loud and strong, due to his personal history and also China’s recent questionable decision to sentence his nephew, Chen Kegui, to 39 months in prison.

Overall, Chen comes off as sensible, only dipping his toes in hyperbole (e.g., “the red terror envelops the nation”). In the final minute, after earlier politicizing self-immolations (7:38 mark, “How can world leaders remain unmoved?”), he pulls back on the reins to say, “Here I would also like to call upon our Tibetan brothers and sisters, ‘Please cherish life and do not choose the path of self-immolation. Our struggle cannot go on forever and I know that there is a solution out there. Let us work together to find it, shall we?’”

I’ve translated the full speech, only correcting for grammar in the video’s English subtitles. The subtitles didn’t match Chen’s words in a couple of places, I’m not sure whether because he went off-script or because the person subtitling misheard, but these discrepancies are slight, so the official version remains. Any other errors are mine.

World Human Rights Day is drawing near. First I’d like to express my gratitude to the people around the world who have shown great concern for China’s freedom, human rights, rule of law, democracy, and social justice. Thank you for your kindness to my family and myself. Today I am standing here because I am in a free world. Yet my family in China, as tens of thousands of my fellow countrymen, are still in an authoritarian regime. They are not free. Like the Freedom Tower behind me, it is still under construction. But it won’t take long.

We need to raise our efforts to help them. The world experienced great changes in the past six months. Following the Arab Spring, Burma strives forward towards democracy, with its leader Thein Sein ordering the release of 518 political dissidents. Cuba has finally loosened up its restriction for citizens traveling abroad. Unfortunately, the human rights situation in China is in fact getting worse. This has to garner more attention from the world. And the United States, in particular, as a beacon of freedom, needs to play a leading role. The nations in the world should shift their focus from trade to human rights.

The Chinese government made a promise to me, to the United States, and to the world, “To have a thorough investigation of those persecuting me and my family in Shandong for the past several years and to make the decisions public.” Yet they have not kept their word.

Because I fled the country, the government has enacted revenge on my nephew Chen Kegui and others. Chen Kegui tried to defend our family, but he was arrested and is still in jail today. The corrupt officials who ordered his arrest, however, got promoted. To this day, there has been no news that the Communist Party leaders are willing to change and do the right thing. They are posing a challenge to humanity, justice, and our conscience.

On many “sensitive days,” citizens of conscience in Beijing and other first-tier cities were made to disappear in case they organized any activities. Now the practice has extended to the third-tier cities. Tsering Woeser and Liu Feiyue were made to disappear. So was Li Guohui of Linyi (in Shandong Province).

In a society without rule of law, the citizens have no sense of security. Li Wangyang was killed yet said to have committed suicide, which made “I will not commit suicide” a new mantra. And in fact, in China, no one is safe.

Liu Xia, Hu Jia, Wang Lihong, Jiang Tianyong, Xu Zhiyong, Zheng Enchong, Feng Zhenghu, Liu Ping, Sun Wenguang, etc., under the name of “Rule of Law,” have been harassed or illegally detained for too long. Hada, Song Ze, Ge Zhihui’s 8-year-old son and her family vanished without a trace.

The Communist Party officials at every level continue to act against the state law and humanity. Which part of China’s law gives the Communist Party such special power? How can you rule the country with justice when you yourself are crooked?

Dear Mr. Xi Jinping, the whole nation is watching you. Whether you will follow the call of heaven and people to carry out reform, or kidnap the government and maintain the power of the Communist Party, is a matter of whether China will have the transition in a peaceful way or a violent way. Do not send out the wrong signal to Party officials that they can continue acting without any restraint. Do not support the ongoing message that anyone urging them to abide by their own laws will be treated as a state enemy.

Aung San Suu Kyi is free now. When will Liu Xia, Hu Jia, Wang Lihong, Jiang Tianyong and the above mentioned people be free as well? Thein Sein set his political dissidents free. What about Gao Zhisheng, Liu Xiaobo, Guo Quan, Yang Xingshui, Ni Yulan, Uighur Christian Alimujiang, and Qi Chonghuai? When will these prisoners of conscience be released?

Thein Seins’ open mind won him support from the Burmese people and recognition from the world. If Thein Sein can do it, yet Xi Jinping doesn’t, obviously it’s not that Xi couldn’t do it, but simply that he wouldn’t. And that will speak volumes to who he isas a person and as a leader. And if that’s the case, how can one expect him to restore power to the people, or to carry out reform and maintain social justice?

Nowadays, people who defend their rights are abducted and illegally detained. People like Mao Hengfeng, Wang Kouma, Shen Peilan, and Jin Yuehua are sent to labor camps or detention centers. The violence in maintaining China’s “One Child Policy” still extensively exists. It is a sin, because life is sacred. The number of self-immolations in Tibet sees almost a daily increase and has exceeded 80 deaths. The persecution of Falun Gong people and house churches continues.

Under the name of “maintaining stability,” all the while the red terror envelops the nation, “Black Jails” are all over the country. The stubborn force of Chinese authorities has shown its true face, declaring, “I have to stay above the constitution and the law. What can you do to stop me? I am in power.”

How can the international community turn a blind eye to the crimes committed by the Chinese Communist Party in maintaining its power? How can leaders of the Free World keep silent, watching the blood and tears of fellow human beings flow, and Tibetans burning themselves? How can world leaders remain unmoved?

Citizens of the world, let your voice be heard in support of justice. And people of China, we are capable and ought to join together to work for our own rights. We can rely on our own actions to establish and maintain a fair and just social system. Don’t expect some good emperor to bestow the right upon us, or some upright officials to defend our rights. God helps those who help themselves. Our fate is actually in our own hands.

Here I would also like to call upon our Tibetan brothers and sisters, “Please cherish life and do not choose the path of self-immolation. Our struggle cannot go on forever and I know that there is a solution out there. Let us work together to find it, shall we?”

Human Rights Day belongs to each and every one of us on this planet. Each individual has his or her rights, and these rights should be respected. As human beings, we should take actions to vigilantly improve and defend human values. It is to benefit our long-term and most essential interests and needs, not just through words but more importantly, through action.

As Human Rights Day is drawing near, let us put in all our efforts to defend human rights. Thank you.

Chen Kegui, nephew of blind lawyer Chen Guangcheng, was sentenced to 39 months in jail for his role in fighting back hired thugs and local officials who had broken into his home on April 27. The man slashed three officials — out of a group of about 20 of the most spineless, chicken-livered, piss-poor excuses of human beings — who had, among other things, upset Chen’s feverish six-year-old child, and for that he was charged with “intentional homicide” (later brought down because even in bizarro Shandong province, it’s difficult to prosecute someone for homicide when no one fucking died). In some countries, it’s a man’s civic duty to bust up the snot-crusted lip of porcine bastards who break into one’s house. In this country, that man will spend more than three years in jail. We’ll just get this out of the way now: the verdict is horseshit, and makes China look like the flies that feast on said shit.

As I’ve written before, justice seems like a quaint notion in Linyi, a village of cretins and cowards — save for, of course, Chen Guangcheng, who escaped house arrest, and his brother, Chen Guangfu, who also escaped house arrest. Meanwhile, Guangfu’s son, Kegui, is the only person left to take the fall, and goddam if those vindictive Linyi fuckers aren’t going to make sure of it. You’ll note that Kegui was:

1. Denied his choice of laywer;

2. Denied communication with the outside world for the last six months;

3. Denied a trial that lasted more than a few hours;

As you can expect, the people closest to Kegui haven’t taken well to the verdict. Via the above Reuters link:

“This verdict is absolutely unjust. His behavior was completely reasonable self defense. When it came out (the verdict), I lost hope in the law,” Chen Guangfu told Reuters by telephone.

And:

Ding Xikui, the family-appointed lawyer for Chen Kegui who has been unable to see his client or review the case materials, told Reuters he had only heard the trial was set to open hours beforehand when he was contacted by Chen Guangcheng in New York.

“After being entrusted as a lawyer by the family I have not been allowed to meet (Chen). This is terribly troublesome. This is illegal,” he said.

Illegal, huh? You think China is a country with rule of law?

Washington Post has more details:

Another activist and friend, Hu Jia, said on his Twitter account that Chen Kegui was found guilty and sentenced to 39 months in prison for the assault last April, which family members described as self-defense.

Hu, interviewed by telephone, said he spoke with a Chen relative allowed inside the courtroom in Linyi city, in eastern Shandong province.  The relative told him that Chen Kegui said he would not appeal, and that he would pay compensation to the official who was most badly injured in the melee.  Hu said he found Chen’s statements, if accurate, remarkable, and said they might indicate that Chen felt like “a hostage” to the local Shandong officials.

“What Chen Kegui said in court is so surprising,” Hu said.  “I don’t think a normal person would say he wouldn’t appeal. He must be brainwashed or be under big pressure.”

This country has come a long way in a short time, and it’s learning, slowly but surely, how to be mature, reasonable, and responsible. If this verdict is allowed to stand (it will be, because that’s how Chinese courts work), everyone — and I mean everyone — will have yet another reason to believe why China is none of those things — not mature, not reasonable, not responsible. You want to be a leader on the world stage, PRC? You want the spoils that go to a superpower, including expanded coastlines and a voice in war-torn areas? Practice some common sense back home. Chen Kegui’s sentence is a sham and a shame, the result of a petty grudge against a blind man whose worst crime against China in the last six months has been to look good in an American magazine.

Until now, of course: Chen Guangcheng, after this verdict, can be said to have embarrassed China. Because this country will be haunted by its punishment of Chen Kegui on Guangcheng’s behalf. Powers that be will find some way to blame the blind lawyer, or any number of his friends, for what they perceive as subversion and actions harmful to the state, when in fact they should look in the mirror to find the rot that threatens to destroy the good graces of this country.

A little more than six months ago, Chen Guangcheng was lost. Maybe not literally — though there’s a chance that’s true as well, a blind lawyer-activist fleeing through the woods of Linyi in Shandong province, then chased via car — but his whereabouts, for a week, was utterly unknown except to a circle of close friends and relevant officials from the US and China. Yet it was this disappearing act that thrust him into the center of international attention, so that he became not just a news story or a symbol of protest (which he already was, with an assist to Christian Bale), but a pop icon who would become recognizable even to viewers of The Colbert Report. Ever since his daring escape from house arrest in May — and eventual departure for New York, where he’s currently residing — Chen Guangcheng has been embraced as a cause célèbre, the ultimate underdog prevailing against a system that somehow could let a blind, ailing man slip through a crack.

Look at him now. Look at him with that red scarf, a whole wide sea of trouble behind him as his now-famous black shades point toward, we’re sure, the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. There is the narrative laid out for you, even as the story remains as unfinished as before, with his nephew still in trouble and a new cast of activists facing the same heavy hand and long odds that CGC was fortunate enough to overcome.

But on this Sunday, let us acknowledge that Chen Guangcheng has indeed come a long way, as he recounts to GQ’s John Thompson in the magazine’s Men of the Year issue. Chen is GQ’s Rebel of the Year, joining the likes of Usain Bolt (Athlete of the Year) and Christopher Walken (Badass of the Year). In the three-page story, he talks about the plane ride to the US, and throwing up that first night. He talks about his brother, Chen Guangfu, and nephew, Chen Kegui. He talks about corresponding with Ai Weiwei, and evangelist Bob Fu of ChinaAid.

And this:

Do I have any regrets? No. What is there to regret? When I need to analyze a decision I’m about to make, I analyze the options based on my thoughts and opinions. I don’t just blindly make decisions, and this one was thought through. I don’t while away my time with regrets, just like I didn’t worry about danger in China.

Was this the best result? I don’t think so. The best result would be China really realizing constitutional democracy. I think the best result would be going to China or the United States because I wanted to and not because of circumstances. Of course I want to go back. But after a few days, I might want to leave again. I don’t think China can continue like this forever. Even if the government feels like they can disallow me from coming back, they won’t last forever.

Go give it a read. We’ll focus on the other issues in due time.

(H/T Alicia)

Dongshigu Village, Linyi, Shandong province (AFP)

Remember how, during the saga of blind activist Chen Guangcheng, authorities resorted to the basest means to intimidate and punish him? You’ll surely remember Chen Kegui, Guangcheng’s nephew, who was arrested for attacking goons with a knife — goons disguised as police (or is it the other way around?) who were sent to his house to harass him, his wife, and their feverish six-year-old child. Kegui immediately turned himself in, and while his uncle and father were both able to escape the confines of Linyi, he has remained locked up, the only body available for local authorities to punish.

And punishment is forthcoming, it appears. Steven Jiang of CNN reported on Monday:

Chinese police have sent the criminal case involving the nephew of prominent blind human rights advocate Chen Guangcheng to the prosecution, signaling a possible trial soon, as well as continued official retribution against the activist’s relatives, Chen and his family said.

The article continues:

“The local authorities are now declaring war on justice and the conscience of the international community,” Chen Guangcheng told CNN over the phone from the United States, where he is studying law at New York University. “They’re trying to separate his case from mine, but that’s impossible.”

Chen Guangfu, the activist’s older brother and the nephew’s father, hasn’t been allowed to see his incarcerated son since his arrest. He said he learned from a government-appointed lawyer that police downgraded Kegui’s alleged crime from attempted murder to “intentional infliction of injury” when sending the case to the prosecution.

“There has never been any fairness in this case — they ignored the facts and refused to let us appoint lawyers for Kegui in accordance with law,” the father said. “The whole thing is their revenge against Guangcheng’s escape, so I don’t have any hope for a fair trial.”

Fairness in Linyi seems like a quaint notion. This Shandong village, after all, couldn’t find enough capable men to keep a blind lawyer from hightailing it to Beijing, and later failed to keep an eye on his elder brother as well. They’ve been made fools of, and now they want retribution. When they tried to shake down an innocent man — Chen Kegui — they were thwarted, rightfully so, but instead of giving Kegui a chance to defend himself in court, they decided to deny him even his own lawyer.

So here’s what we have: local authorities using the justice system to mete out official punishment to the man who got away — a man currently in New York, safe in every way except the mind and conscience. Don’t you just love justice?

CGC: “I want to correct one thing here. When we talk about my situation in the future, let’s not use the word ‘house arrest,’ but instead let’s use the term ‘illegal detention.’ …My suffering was beyond imagination.”

David Gray / REUTERS

Here’s Tania Branigan of the Guardian:

The brother of the Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng has fled his family’s captors in a second audacious escape from their village in eastern China.

Chen Guangfu arrived in Beijing early on Thursday morning after breaking out of Dongshigu, where relatives have been living under tight guard since his brother, who is blind, fled to the US embassy in Beijing last month, according to lawyers in the capital.

Maybe the people at Dongshigu should, you know, not be trying to keep people under house arrest. That’s the correct conclusion to reach after all this, right?

Guardian article continues:

“I met Chen Guangfu this morning. His health situation is OK,” said Ding Xikui, a lawyer authorised by Chen Kegui’s wife to represent her husband.

“His family are not allowed to leave the village. Chen escaped secretly. He came here to tell us what happened that night [when people broke in] and seeks help from the lawyer. He also supports the request from Chen Kegui’s wife to engage us as his lawyer in this case.”

Updates tk.

UPDATE, 5/27: He’s now missing, or possibly back at Dongshigu. According to Reuters:

The brother of blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng who was reported to have gone missing has returned to his village in northeastern China, a lawyer said on Saturday.

The short disappearance of Chen Guangfu had sparked concerns he was the latest target of government reprisals against the family of the activist, who escaped from his village in late April after 19 months of detention at home.

Shandong-based lawyer Liu Weiguo told Reuters Chen Guangfu had returned to Dongshigu village. Liu earlier said the activist was “very worried” about his brother’s disappearance and was contacting friends to look for him.

Chen Guangcheng arrived in New York on Saturday. The bow-tied man in the above screen capture from this video is Jerome Cohen, Chinese law expert at New York University, who shepherded Chen through all manners of obstruction and has secured him a fellowship to study at NYU. After the jump, links to the latest CGC stories, with China experts weighing in.

Evan Osnos: “By the standards of official Chinese conduct in many other areas, its handling of Chen’s departure was restrained and calm. And that is one of the modestly encouraging facts to emerge from the final accounting of this whole complicated business: presented with diplomatic dynamite, neither China nor the United States succumbed to its worst instincts. The American handling of the affair was far better than the fevered early indictments suggested, and the Chinese have, so far, kept their promises to Chen and the United States. Those involved should take confidence from that.” [New Yorker]

Orville Schell: “At the same time, another quite counter-intuitive revelation seemed to dawn on Chinese leaders. Just as they were becoming more resistant to pressure, they also seemed to conclude that in certain instances, it was probably better to just exile dissidents and “get them off the lot,” so to speak, so that they would not continue to be an endless source of damaging international criticism and bad publicity. They seemed to pragmatically conclude that the cost/benefit ratio of yielding to outside pressure and removing the source of the irritation and contention was actually pretty favorable to them.” [Asia Society]

Perry Link: “But the problems of human rights in China are not problems of one or two people whose cases have to ‘be resolved.’ It’s a very deep, underlying long-term problem and we should view it that way.” [NPR]

A reminder that Chen’s supporters are still at risk, and will continue to be if Americans continue making dumb statements like this: “But the Democrat former House speaker Nancy Pelosi described Chen’s flight to the US as ‘a milestone in the cause for human rights in China.’” [The Guardian]

Interesting? “Chen, whose passage to the U.S. was brokered in part by officials from New York University, is now housed in NYU’s major faculty residential complex, Washington Square Village — a set of 17-storey slabs comprising nearly 1,300 units. Of all the places for the wantaway dissident to end up in New York’s tony Greenwich Village, Chen’s new home is Lower Manhattan’s closest approximation of a Soviet-style (or, indeed, Beijing) housing estate.” [Global Spin, Time]

Screenwriters, you around? “Chen Guangfu [Chen Guangcheng's brother] couldn’t believe that a blind man could manage to escape under such close monitoring. ‘My first thought was that they had intentionally let him escape, so that they would create a car accident while my brother [CGC] was at it, kill my brother, and end the whole thing.’” [iSun Affairs, via Tea Leaf Nation]

A reminder that Internet commenters on popular websites like CNN and Yahoo are probably legitimately scum of the Earth. “Nevertheless, a situation like this once again rings an alert to me and maybe many other China bloggers and reporters who, in many cases, are trying to make sense of China through its active online population. Comments from a few hundreds of netizens may make good stories or provide different perspectives, but in no means do netizens’ reactions, however unified, represent the whole picture, especially considering that China has a population of 1.3 billion and only a little more than 30% of that number are internet users.” [Offbeat China]

Chen Guangcheng may be leaving China soon, as passports are expected to be issued to his family “within 15 days,” he said, according to the Telegraph. At least one BJC contributor is sad to see him go.

By Lola B

For the past couple of weeks, scrolling through windows of China news, the only face staring at me that commands my attention has been that of Chen Guangcheng.

And you know what? There are worse things to come home to. Maybe it’s just me, or maybe it’s the sunglasses, but I find him irresistibly attractive. He can hide in my American embassy any day.

I’ve imagined him with whiskers rippling in the wind, slinking past guards, vaulting gracefully over walls, and sick and vulnerable in a Beijing hospital cot surrounded by guards. (And, yes, if it’s mentioned here, there’s probably a porn of it.) Rarely are Chinese dissidents so dashing.

And apparently I am not alone in thinking this. As a close friend confided, “I would imagine most blind guys are sexy. They are kinda mysterious because they wear glasses, and they know how to use their hands.”

As the Chen story winds down, I just want to take a moment to revel in his magnificence, and to imagine Chen Guangcheng melting Hu Jintao’s heart with his sensuous hands. Oh yeah, and he has nice lips. And great teeth.

Chelsea, another BJC reader, said, “The thing is that in every photo of him, he looks like a model.”

So run if you must, CGC. Would that I were your future advisor at NYU, spending long hours discussing gender issues and spending the weekends frolicking through the water spouting around Ai Weiwei’s animal-head fountain.

A weekly column in which Chinese media is taken to the stocks.

By TAR Nation

I thought I would do a Chen-free column this week, but the Global Times didn’t let me.

On a political level, this is what happened last week at the American embassy:

You know, for an autocracy hell-bent on “harmony,” they don’t half talk like they want a smack in the mouth. After this week’s round of editorials, I feel disgusted, angry and generally ready to shove a pair of large dark sunglasses up someone’s ass.

The editorials on Chen this week, just from the Global Times, included:

“Grass-roots disputes not value-centered” (not in China anyway)

“Chen no longer real activist but unwitting tool” (or, “I am a morally bankrupt fuckwit”)

“US embassy in a quandary over Chen” (a Doctor Hu production)

“Chen and embassy should not delude themselves” (just… fuck your mom, Shan Renping)

So, before we begin: I think it is important for people to understand Chen Guangcheng back when. It’s really hard to get a feel for what happened before all of this embassy hullaballoo, so let’s take a quick look at the life of Chen:

He was a human rights activist famous for his work with women’s rights, poverty and forced abortions. In June 2005, he organized a suit which was rejected, but his findings were released to the foreign press and on the Internet. After being painted as working with “anti-China” forces (the free press), Chen was then imprisoned in his home with his family with the help of 300 officials and civilians charged with his detainment. He escaped to Beijing in September 2005 where Linyi officials caught him and threatened him with imprisonment if he didn’t stop his human rights nonsense. He refused and was returned to house arrest. Three well-respected lawyers came from Beijing to try to end his imprisonment. Two of them were beaten, all were “interrogated” and sent back. On October 24, 2005, Chen was beaten to prevent him from meeting with two Beijing scholars and was refused medical assistance. In March 2006, Chen was “disappeared” for three months. Lawyers, family, legal activists and friends were forcibly prohibited from leaving their homes to attend a press conference in his defense. Chen’s 70-year-old mother, 3-year-old son and older brother were forcibly removed from the home of another lawyer by 10 men. When Chen was finally allowed lawyers on June 21, 2006, they were intimidated by local officials. Three more lawyers were beaten for defending Chen’s village supporters. Chen’s lawyers then attempted to visit Chen’s wife and child but were subsequently beaten. One lawyer was sent a death threat stating that helping Chen was “seeking death.” Before he was tried on a trumped up charge of “damaging property and organizing a mob to disturb traffic,” his lawyer was detained on a charge of stealing someone’s wallet, his other lawyers were not allowed access to the courtroom, and finally, he was given a public defender just moments before the case began — someone who didn’t know what the hell was going on. This lawyer raised no objections and presented no evidence. The entire trial lasted two hours. In the end, Chen was sentenced to four years and three months of imprisonment. Basically, it was a trial that would shame Mugabe. This brings us to 2010. When he was released from prison, he was again placed under house arrest. When he tried to communicate with his wife and children, he was beaten (as was his wife), his documents were confiscated, his power was shut off and metal sheets were put over the windows in the house. Harassment of his family continued, including harassment of his 6-year-old daughter, who was prevented from attending school and whose toys were stolen by guards. In 2011, supporters, including European diplomats, tried to free him, but they were beaten and robbed. In December 2011, Christain Bale attempted to see Chen with a CNN crew. Bale was punched, shoved and had rocks thrown at him by dozens of guards.

That’s right. Fucking Batman.

That pretty much brings us up to the escape in late April.

The beatings were uncalled for, the intimidation was on a national scale and the madness of that trial was pathetic. If this happened to a bear/shark hybrid of pedophile, I would still complain about this sort of treatment. They did it to a blind, innocent human rights attorney. Let’s hear what some of these Global Times editorials had to say. Get ready for some blatant and conceited sarcasm.

Chinese petitioners are motivated by various incentives.

There’s tons of money in getting beaten senseless for seven years while your family ekes out a meager existence as hostages.

(Chen’s) self-judgment has been ruined by exaggerated media reports.

Yes, from all of those uncensored websites and newspapers the blind man was allowed to read in prison. It got him all uppity.

The conflicts are often the exaggeration of some specific problems.

How, exactly, would someone even be able to exaggerate what happened? Surely only Neil Gaiman can do that.

The West has put all the blame on Chinese authorities for the Chen Guangcheng issue.

Which is stupid because it’s obviously the fucking Eskimos.

The current standoff over Chen is complicated because it involves social order.

Of course. People may slip on all the blood.

The local government in Chen’s hometown has faced a great deal of pressure, and this incident has taught them to resolve problems according to the law and not to confront any criticism, even if there has been vicious cursing.

That was written by Shan Renping. I have some vicious cursing in mind; also, a claw hammer.

The embassy seems to be demonstrating the moral perfection and omnipotence of the US and depicting China as a morally failed country.

Give that man a coconut! And then beat him to death with that coconut, stick a pineapple in his ass and shove him in a blender for a nice piña colada of doom.

Through Chen’s case, Chinese people now see the radical nature of American public opinion.

Stupid anti-bludgeoning-blind-people lobby. It’s all controlled by the Jews.

But in the process, (Chen) gradually resorted to extreme and violent ways.

I have nothing cute to say about this one. I can only assume that the author, Yu Jincui, is actually mentally retarded, which, if he’s in Linyi, will hopefully lead to forced sterilization.

Reports of Western media on Chen are simple and monotonous, mostly centering on how he was beaten, imprisoned, and silenced.

Yeah, that’s boring. Tell me again how China is glorious and harmonious and everything that goes wrong is the fault of the “Western media.” Cause that never gets old.

Admittedly, today’s China has some loopholes in grass-roots governance.

PLA Rear-Admiral Obvious.

Some local governments and officials act based on local policies and practices rather than laws.

And no one notices for seven years.

If Chen had stuck to proper ways to help people safeguarding rights, this would have contributed to improving grass-roots governance and achieving social development.

Yeah, like in the courts (see above where his lawyers are beaten, threatened, intimidated and so forth).

When trying to attract the international spotlight by being violent against the government, Chen became a political pawn and was used as a tool to work against China’s political system by some Western forces.

A pawn? The blind guy who outwitted the Chinese government? He’s at least a bishop.

In the process, no matter it’s within his intention or not, Chen lost his own ability to speak.

He had much more ability to speak under house arrest with his communication devices confiscated and his electricity shut off.

Chen’s case originated from the grass-roots disputes in Linyi, Shandong Province and evolved into a more complex situation under the interference of Western media.

Definitely the Western media’s doing, them, along with Santa Clause and Lei Feng.

The West and its supporters in China always need a tool to work against China’s current political system. Those who become these tools have few choices of their own.

That’s right! The embassy put out cheese plate for him! He loves cheese plates. It is his only weakness — besides the whole blind thing.

(Chen) should also attribute the dramatic turning point in his life to the flexibility and resilience of Chinese society.

Yoooooouuuuuuu cunt.

Through all of this, I just can’t get certain images out of or in my head…

Someone actually had to say:

“Hey, you should punch that blind guy.”

AND THEN SOMEONE TOTALLY DID IT.

Someone went up to a blind guy and punched him in the fucking face. I don’t know much about blind people, but, as I understand it, you don’t really have to punch them. They’re blind. They’re already, to a large degree, incapacitated.

I’ve been trying to imagine punching a blind guy all day. Can’t do it. Just can’t.

So, somehow, these editorials are trying to paint Chen and the US as the bad guys, rather than the people who had no scruples in punching the visually impaired. I bet there were goons just randomly throwing shit at Chen, too. I have no proof of this, but, I mean, they’re definitely the type.

These editorials were also accompanied by the same old assertion that the US is trying to bring down the Chinese government via public relations, using statements that border on racism.

In short, I’ve been staring, researching and spitting blood at my computer for hours over this Chen deal. Someone needs to take all of this rage, and much like my good comrade RFH, I find myself disgusted with one place in particular. So:

Fuck Linyi. The whole goddamned place. 10,039,400 human lives. Fuck them. They can all rot. Fuck the people, the streets, the open spaces and parks, the birds that sing on telephone lines, the dogs that shit in the streets, the cats that screw in the trees and the cattle of the goddamned field. Fuck everyone who does business there and fuck the whole goddamned lot of the bastards at the editorial desk in the Global Times.

Ah, that’s better.

Maybe the US does want to use Chen as leverage. Good. I like that kind of leverage. I like the leverage of the fleeing oppressed. It’s only leverage if the US has a point. And they do. People fleeing persecution tend to be rather nice and polite, which is a rarity in a country that runs daily editorials insulting half the planet on matters of simple human dignity. Chen is an inspiration to many. That’s the reason the US wants him and why people like me will never shut up about it. It’s because my life gets a little more shit every time a guy like this dies in prison or gets “disappeared.”

There was also a big fuss made over how the US embassy could not possibly handle the influx of dissidents if they were to make this a regular occurrence, having a good laugh at how much trouble that would be for the US.

Ummmm… is that something you should really be bragging about? That there are so many people wrongfully imprisoned, held hostage, afraid, in danger and generally just want to fuck off that the US would be inundated? That’s something they should have probably thought through a little more before putting it into print. The politburo’s hatred of “Western-style” democracy has been well documented, and their inane daily ramblings have even garnered some important support.

I mean, look at this knob-head:

This is Eric X. Li.

I don’t like him. I disagree with just about every holier-than-thou, anti-democracy, super-rich, snobby, bullshit word that dribbles from his silver-spoon-fed, social-Darwinism-loving girl chin. He published an article in the New York Times about how shit the whole of Western democracy is and how China’s authoritarian dictatorship is actually a brilliant business plan that the West is too stupid and racist to understand.

If, god forbid, he were to get on the government’s bad side for some reason, I think I know what embassy he’d run to, and Eric my boy, the US would be happy to have you, you greedy, pompous, Stanford-educated little tit.

So, in summation, don’t punch blind lawyers or hold their families hostage. Not because it makes you look bad, but because it’s a dimwitted and malicious thing to do. And, when you catch someone doing this, you punish them and save the poor bastard being imprisoned. Also, when someone considers you a safe harbor in stormy seas, you don’t chuck them back in the water, even with arm-floaties. I’m looking at you, American embassy.

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