By JOSH CHIN in Beijing and LAURA KUSISTO in New York
Blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng's departure from China raises difficult questions ranging from the fate of his extended family and allies to his ability to spur change at home, even as he enjoyed his first taste of freedom in seven years following his arrival in the U.S. over the weekend.
Mr. Chen, his wife and their two children touched down in the U.S. on Saturday evening after a sudden rush to the Beijing International Airport that ended weeks of speculation over his fate and concluded one of the tensest episodes in U.S.-China relations in several years.
"It's as the Chinese saying goes: 'Nothing in the world is difficult for one who sets his mind to it,'" the activist said Saturday after hobbling out of a white van, his right foot in a cast, to cheers and camera flashes at a graduate student housing complex near New York University, where he has been offered a fellowship. Standing next to NYU law professor Jerome Cohen, who helped negotiate his exit, Mr. Chen proceeded to thank the diplomats and "many friends" who had aided him to that point.
But continued official restrictions on some of those friends in China, and difficulties faced by lawyers trying to defend his nephew against charges of attempted murder, added a bittersweet note to Mr. Chen's escape.
"We can see that Shandong is continuing to exact revenge on my family," he said, referring to his home province in eastern China. The rights of my nephew and even his lawyers cannot be protected," he said. "But fortunately, the central government has promised me more than once that it plans to conduct a thorough investigation into this sort of illegal activity in Shandong. I hope everybody will continue to monitor this situation."
One of those facing pressure in the wake of Mr. Chen's departure, Beijing-based human-rights lawyer and Chen confidante Jiang Tianyong, told The Wall Street Journal from the southern city of Guangzhou on Sunday that public-security officials had warned him he would be followed and his home subject to surveillance were he to return to Beijing.
"I pointed out that Chen Guangcheng was already gone and they said, 'The situation still hasn't been resolved,'" Mr. Jiang said.
Another friend of Mr. Chen's, activist Zeng Jinyan, discussed having recently returned from a meditation retreat following a period of house arrest earlier this month but quickly asked to end the call after the conversation turned to Mr. Chen. "I'm sorry, but I can't accept interviews right now," she said. "Maybe in the future."
The White House hailed Mr. Chen's departure from Beijing over the weekend, with Ben Rhodes, a deputy national-security adviser, saying the administration was "pleased with the efforts" made by the U.S. and Chinese governments "to reach this resolution."
In a brief interview with The Wall Street Journal on Saturday before they left China, Mr. Chen's wife, Yuan Weijing, said they had left the Beijing hospital where they had been staying without any interaction with Chinese officials. She said they received passports shortly after arriving at the airport.
"They came in and told us to get everything together at 12:30 and we left at 1 o'clock," she said. Ms. Yuan said U.S. Embassy officials were nearby at the airport.
The family's arrival in the U.S. brings to a close a nearly monthlong period of uncertainty for Mr. Chen and the governments of both China and the U.S. Mr. Chen became the center of an international standoff after he escaped 19 months of home confinement in a daring nighttime breakout and eventually made his way to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, where he stayed for six days.
Mr. Chen's departure from China leaves open whether he will be as effective a human-rights campaigner outside the country, where his reach will be limited due to tight restrictions on media and the Internet there. Human-rights activists say China often encourages or tolerates dissident flights abroad to reduce their ability to stir trouble at home.
While acknowledging that some high-profile Chinese dissidents in the past have seen their influence wane after leaving China, Phelim Kine, a senior Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch, said he was optimistic Mr. Chen could still have an impact given the ease of communication through the Internet and social media. "We are at a new point of interconnectivity in terms of the ways in which people from outside can still have influence inside the Chinese firewall," he said.
Still, Mr. Kine was adamant that the activist's leaving China shouldn't be considered a complete victory.
"This isn't the time for [the U.S. and other governments] to stop and let out a sigh of relief," he said. "There are relatives, friends and supporters of Chen Guangcheng who are very much vulnerable to reprisals."
The U.S. needed to continue to pressure China to live up to its promise to investigate and hold accountable local authorities in Shandong who kept Mr. Chen and his family locked up without charge, Mr. Kine said, since the failure to do so "gives a green light to continue those abuses against others."
Mr. Chen's nephew, Chen Kegui, faces charges of attempted murder in Yinan county in Shandong after injuring local officials with a knife. His family says Chen Kegui reacted in self-defense when officials and heavies burst into their home looking for Mr. Chen. Attorneys who have attempted to visit him have been turned away by local officials, they said, adding that they were told that Chen Kegui had already been provided with legal representation. Officials in Yinan haven't returned calls for comment.
Officials at China's Foreign Ministry couldn't be reached for comment. In a statement, China's state-run Xinhua news agency said Mr. Chen "has applied for study in the United States via normal channels in line with the law."
Lawyers who have taken up the case of Mr. Chen's nephew said it wasn't clear how Mr. Chen's departure would affect the outcome.
"It's hard to say, since China never plays its cards in the proper order," said Chen Wuquan, a Guangzhou-based lawyer whose license was revoked by local authorities just as he was preparing to travel to meet with Chen Kegui earlier this month.
"I think [the authorities] will be more strict in dealing with Chen Kegui," said Liang Xiaojun, another of the lawyers involved in the case. "They won't care about the international viewpoint."
Also unclear, supporters said, was whether Mr. Chen would someday be allowed to return to China, something he has said he intends to do.
"For him to come back, there would need to be changes to the environment here," said Mr. Jiang, the human-rights lawyer. "If things loosen up, I can see him coming back. But if things continue the way they are now, with the stability maintenance organs acting in increasingly illegal ways, it's difficult to say."
A self-taught "barefoot lawyer" who has been blind since childhood, Mr. Chen is one of China's most celebrated rights activists, though he has said he doesn't seem himself as a dissident.
Celebrated early on in his career for defending the rights of disabled people, he ran afoul of local authorities around his home village of Dongshigu, near the city of Linyi in Shandong province, for protesting forced abortions and sterilizations under the auspices of China's one-child policy. In 2006 he was sentenced to four years in prison for charges including intentional destruction of property and gathering crowds to obstruct trafficâ€"charges that his supporters say were trumped up by local officials.
Mr. Chen had been expected to remain in China under an earlier deal between Beijing and Washington but the activist changed course hours after leaving the U.S. Embassy on May 2, saying he didn't believe his family could be safe in China and asking to be allowed to go to the U.S.
"Chen Guangcheng and his family finding safety and freedom in the U.S., of course it makes me very happy," Mr. Jiang said Sunday. "But in another sense, from the perspective of a rights defender, the idea that someone who never broke the law in China, who only wanted to advance rule of law in China, is not able to live here safelyâ€"it's a complicated feeling."
Write to Josh Chin at josh.chin@wsj.com and Laura Kusisto at laura.kusisto@wsj.com
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