Chinese Dissident Chen Guangcheng Questions Handling of Case After Leaving American Embassy

Smart diplomacy, or something.

The video c/o Telegraph UK, "Chen Guangcheng leaves US embassy 'after threat to beat his wife to death’."

At the Wall Street Journal, "Activist Challenges U.S. Deal":

Blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng left the U.S. Embassy in an unusual deal under which he would stay in China, but within hours Mr. Chen and his allies were questioning the deal's pledge of safety and challenging U.S. handling of the case.

A day of twists began early Wednesday, when U.S. officials said after days of silence that Mr. Chen had been under American protection since last week and had left of his own accord to seek medical treatment. They asserted that under a deal with the Chinese, reached on the eve of high-level talks between U.S. and Chinese officials, authorities would let Mr. Chen and his family settle in an unspecified place in China far from the local authorities in Shandong province whom he fled on April 22.

Photos showed a smiling Mr. Chen holding hands both with Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell outside the embassy and with U.S. Ambassador Gary Locke as he was escorted to a Beijing hospital.

But from the hospital, Mr. Chen gave a different impression. Speaking to several news organizations, the activist, a self-taught lawyer who campaigned against forced abortions, sounded shaken as he asked for new protections.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Mr. Chen said U.S. officials told him Chinese authorities would have sent his family back to his home province if he stayed in the embassy and at one point said his wife would have been beaten to death. He told the AP he feared for his safety and said, "Help my family and me leave safely.''

Well, that doesn't sound so great.

More at the Los Angeles Times, "Pall cast over U.S.-China deal over Chinese dissident."