Human rights showdown awaits Clinton in Beijing
Source: Associated Press
BEIJING (AP) — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived Wednesday in Beijing, where a tense human rights showdown awaits over the fate of a blind Chinese lawyer said to be under U.S. protection after escaping from house arrest.
The issue of Chen Guangcheng's future threatens to overshadow this year's round of high-level strategic and economic talks between the world's two biggest economic powers. Those talks begin Thursday.
Publicly, the U.S. and Chinese governments have said nothing about the Chen case. Neither side wants the biggest human-rights issue between the two since Tiananmen Square to damage a working relationship between the world's top importer and exporter, and between the world's biggest military and the fastest developing.
Chen, a 40-year-old lawyer who exposed forced abortions and sterilizations as part of China's one-child policy, was delivered into the protection of U.S. diplomats in Beijing late last week, according to fellow activists. They say American and Chinese officials are intensely discussing his fate, which could mean getting political asylum in the United States or staying in China, which Chen has told some activists he prefers.
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