From China to NYC, it’s night and day for Chen Guangcheng
A year ago one of China’s most famous dissidents escaped for a new life in America. Now he faces a different kind of rejection.
A year ago, one of China’s most famous dissidents escaped for a new life in America. Now he faces a different kind of rejection.
“It’s like heaven and earth,” says Chen Guangcheng, the 43-year-old human-rights activist. That’s how he describes the difference between his current life in New York City and his life before — under illegal house arrest in his native village in eastern China’s Shandong province.
We are chatting via Skype one night (Beijing time) about the drastic changes of the past year. My old friend adds, with a laugh: “Or as different as day and night — it’s daytime here, and night over where you are.”
Chen snatched headlines around the world in 2012 after he made a dramatic escape from the heavily guarded house in bright daylight — not at night, as was first reported — and sought refuge at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing before leaving China to study at New York University.
Chen tells me he’d been plotting his escape for months. Since his release from prison at the end of 2010, he had been frequently beaten and deprived of any communication with the outside world.
Having left behind their simple stone house in Dongshigu, Chen and his wife, Yuan Weijing, and their two children now live in a comfortable housing complex for NYU’s teaching staff in Washington Square Village in the heart of the Manhattan. He attends one-on-one lectures with law professors and takes English lessons. The flexible arrangements allow him to travel and engage in other activities, and he devotes much of his time to the work he feels passionately about — fighting for human rights, social justice, and the rule of law in China.
His escape meant he was showered with honors, including the annual award by the New York–based Human Rights First and the Lantos Human Rights Prize. In May, Britain’s parliament gave him a Westminster Award.
Still, he explains, “I don’t see myself as a public figure. As for the awards, as honored as I am, I see them as recognition for tens and thousands of rights activists in China. I am just lucky to be their representative.”
To many, he’s a hero, but as with any other real human being, Chen’s life isn’t simple or carefree.
He worries about the safety of the family he left behind. His nephew Chen Kegui is still serving a jail sentence for injuring a local official who broke into his house in the wake of Chen’s escape. His elder brother, Chen Guangfu, has been harassed and intimidated. Dead chickens and stones have been thrown at his house.
Chen hasn’t escaped this himself. With his trip to Taiwan approaching at the end of June, when he is due to meet the leader of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party, the Chinese authorities already have warned him to mind his language. He shrugs his shoulders at such threats — but sometimes that influence strikes far closer to home.
After the news came that he would be departing New York University this weekend, Chen released a statement claiming that NYU was motivated by a fear that his activities were damaging the prospects of its recently opened Shanghai campus. The university denies that external politics had an influence in the decision.
Still, his focus remains on the same human-rights violations that have obsessed him for years.
“The monopoly of power and the lack of channels for people to express their grievances are among the biggest problems existing in China,” says Chen.
Yet he feels very hopeful about the country’s future, since he believes that people have become more aware of their rights and readier to put up a fight. He cites the increasing number of protests across the country as evidence.
“China will have to change and become more democratic, because many are pushing it toward that direction. And that day will not be too long away,” he predicts.
Whatever happens in the wake of the NYU debacle, he describes the past year as the “turning point” in his life. “From living in an authoritarian society to a democratic one; from a prisoner to a free man: Can you imagine a more dramatic shift?” he asks.
A dramatic shift, and dramatic changes. He has never before met with so many people from different walks of life or such a variety of organizations; he has never traveled so intensively or visited so many countries — six so far — and neither has he ever received so many invitations for interviews, speeches, and appearances.
He also has never sampled so many diverse cuisines: He makes a conscious effort to not just eat Chinese food. He still can’t stomach cheese, but he has become fond of other Asian cuisines, especially Thai. Once, a Jewish friend of mine took him to a kosher restaurant in New York. Chen commented that the beef in his pastrami sandwich, which he enjoyed, tasted very much like soy sauce beef.
The best change of all is that now he can work.
Chen keeps in touch with rights groups in China via Internet and phone, and advises individuals about how to approach their cases and where to find lawyers. “I don’t think the distance between China and the U.S. poses as a great obstacle, thanks to modern technology,” he says.
So, what next? After leaving NYU, Chen is planning to set up a foundation aimed at pushing for democracy and the rule of law in China. Apart from providing legal consultation to those in need of it in China, he hopes to work with international organizations, because, he says, even democratic countries sometimes place trade over human rights.
These are still the early days and the challenges remain: Chen will have to reinvent himself, improve his English, emerge into mainstream American society, and navigate the unfamiliar American political landscape — which can be treacherous. In the long run, it may be his resolve that keeps him in the game and allows him to create the meaningful changes he desires.
