China Says Dissident Can Apply to Leave for Study Abroad

China Says Dissident Can Apply to Leave for Study Abroad
By MICHAEL WINES NYT

Last Updated: 3:21 AM ET
BEIJING — China’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday that the dissident Chen Guangcheng can apply to study outside China in the same manner as other Chinese citizens, signaling a possible breakthrough in a diplomatic crisis that has deeply embarrassed the White House and threatens to sour relations with Beijing.

In a two-sentence statement posted on the ministry’s Web site, a spokesman, Liu Weimin, stated that should Mr. Chen wish to study abroad, he “can apply through normal channels to the relevant departments in accordance with the law, just like any other Chinese citizen.”

The statement came hours after Mr. Chen, in a four-point statement conveyed by telephone to a friend, insisted that he did not want to seek political asylum in the United States but that he had been invited to attend New York University and hoped “to go to the United States and rest for several months.”

That would give Chinese officials a face-saving opportunity to allow Mr. Chen and his family to leave China in the same manner as do scores of thousands of Chinese students every year, according to Jerome A. Cohen, a New York University law professor and adviser to Mr. Chen who discussed the proposal with him this week.

Mr. Chen has been in a central Beijing hospital receiving treatment for an injured foot since Wednesday, when he left the United States Embassy under an agreement between American and Chinese diplomats that would have allowed him to study law in Tianjin, a major city on China’s Pacific coast. The diplomatic crisis erupted after Mr. Chen came to believe that the Chinese government would not honor the bargain and began telling friends from his hospital bed that he feared for his and his family’s safety.

Mr. Chen’s request for help from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton — repeated in an urgent telephone call played on speaker during an emergency congressional hearing in Washington on Thursday — frayed a fragile deal American officials negotiated a day before the start of high-level talks between China and the United States.

American diplomats have worked frantically to recoup amid withering criticism from human rights activists and the Obama administration’s Republican critics that it had botched its handling of a major human rights case and placed one of China’s most famous dissidents in jeopardy.

In brief telephone conversations with news services on Friday, Mr. Chen continued to express concern for his and his family’s safety. But he has backed away from earlier implicit criticisms of American efforts to assist him, instead expressing deep gratitude for diplomatic help from the United States.

Senior American officials have privately acknowledged missteps in the handling of the case. The United States failed to guarantee access to Mr. Chen at the hospital, they said, leaving him isolated and fearful that China would renege on its pledge not to harass him and to allow him to resume his legal studies.