Now safely in the U.S., Chinese lawyer and dissident Chen Guangcheng says he is still concerned about the family he left behind in China and suggested Thursday that his nephew is being tortured. 

Chen told an audience during a question-and-answer session at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York that since he left his village, local authorities have been retaliating against his family in a "frenzied way." 

Chen, who is blind, said that after he snuck away from de facto house arrest and fled to Beijing that about 30 hired “thugs” broke into his brother's house in the middle of the night and severely beat him and his son. His claimed his nephew is now isolated in a detention center for injuring the "thugs," who he said "had no choice but to take a kitchen knife and fight back.”

---

"His lawyer cannot meet with him and has no information,” Chen said through a translator. “I understand that keeping him isolated from his lawyer probably suggests he may be tortured and they're just trying to hide that fact by not letting him meet anyone."

 

Chen said that while in Beijing he raised concerns about his family repeatedly through various channels and with different representatives of the Chinese government and was told that the treatment that his family experienced at the hands of the local authorities in his home province would be investigated. He is still waiting for his government to keep their promise to him, he said in New York, where he arrived on May 19.

Unanswered questions
During the course of the Q&A, which was monitored over the phone by this reporter in Washington, D.C., Chen responded to some of the other unanswered questions about his daring escape.

One topic was whether or not he was aware that both U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner were coming to Beijing when he was planning his escape from house arrest. No, Chen said. "I didn't know there was a strategic dialogue going to happen because I had been cut off from communications with everyone. I was just isolated from the rest of the world. So, that was a total coincidence." 

Asked whether he knew the U.S. Embassy would provide him refuge, Chen said: “The U.S. holds itself up as embodying democracy and human rights values. What would it mean if they refused to take me in? I think you all can imagine that. I think on the surface it seems to be a diplomatic question, but the question is:  Do you try to save someone who is in danger of his life."

He said that being in the U.S. is an opportunity to give his body and mental health a much needed rest and that he is particularly interested in studying laws that protect the disabled. He is working on his English as well. "Everything I want to do takes time, but I want to work hard," he told the audience.

Despite his ordeal, he expressed optimism about the prospect of democracy in China, saying that "his lifetime" is perhaps too big of a time frame – suggesting change in China could come sooner.

But, he said, it is unlikely to be immediate. “Many people want to move the mountain in one week,” he said. “That’s not realistic. We have to move it bit by bit. You can’t expect it to happen overnight.”

Chen ended the program with an inspirational thought. "As I see it in this world, there is nothing that is impossible. If you want to do it, think of a way to do it. There's no such thing as a difficulty that cannot be overcome.” 

Click here to read the complete transcript of Chen Guangcheng's discussion at the Council of Foreign Relations 

 

 

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BEIJING – A stray dog has become China’s newest celebrity after latching onto a group of cyclists and traveling more than 1,100 miles over at least 12 mountains, some as high as 13,000 feet, in China’s southwestern Tibetan Plateau.

The homeless dog, nicknamed Xiao Sa, finished her 24-day journey from China’s Sichuan Province to Lhasa, Tibet on May 24.

---

“At first we didn’t think about adopting her at all,” said 22-year-old cyclist and college student Xiao Yong in an interview with China Central TV. “But we were shocked by her perseverance. She followed us [from Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province] to Litang [a town in Sichuan province with a 2.6 mile altitude]. We then decided to make a cage for her when we had a steep road going downhill.”

The long march began with a chicken leg Xiao Yong tossed to the puppy when he started his bike ride in early May. The little mutt followed the cyclist team after that and became part of the cycling group.

They came up with the nickname “Xiao Sa” by combining the term “xiao,” which means “little,” with the last syllable of Lhasa, the administrative capital of Tibet and the cyclists final destination.

“She once ran 37 miles in one day, going uphill. We were very impressed by Xiao Sa’s persistence, that inspired us all the way till our destination, the Potala Palace [in Lhasa, Tibet],” said Xiao Yong. “I’ll take Xiao Sa back home. I think she’s taking me as her owner now.”

Lu Bo, another team member, said the little white fur-ball was an inspiration to the whole team. The dog “made us so happy. Once a few of our team members lagged behind, she ran from hill top to the bottom, to bring these guys to the rest of the team. She injected power into us,” said Lu. 

She is now with her new owner, Xiao Yong, in Wuhan, capital city of the southern Hubei province.

And like a true celebrity, Xiao Sa has even opened her own Weibo account, China’s most popular Twitter-like service. It is called “GoGoXiaoSa,” where fans can check out her latest photos and whereabouts. And she already has over 82,000 followers.

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BEIJING – On Monday, a Chinese boy took the ride of his very young life. The 3-year-old was in the care of his grandfather when he decided that he wanted to see his mother, who works at a local KFC restaurant.

The kindergartener, from the city of Wenzhou in China’s eastern province of Zhejiang, waited until his grandfather had gone to the bathroom, then set off through the streets on a toy motorcycle.

---

The bike had been a gift of a relative who had left the battery out of the bike. But the boy’s grandfather, surnamed Peng, had decided to install the battery.

The child rode about 1.3 miles before arriving at a major Wenzhou traffic intersection.

Without pausing, the boy zipped right into the middle of the intersection, avoiding buses and other vehicles.

Boy shrugs off talk of fear
At that point, a traffic policeman named Zhang spotted the boy weaving through the cars and gestured toward him to stop the bike, then escorted him to the side of the road.

The boy didn’t know his family’s phone number, but his anxious grandfather – who takes care of his grandson while the parents work – was frantically looking for him on the streets and eventually came across them.

Asked later by Zhang whether he was scared at any point, the boy merely shrugged and said he had already learned how to cross a street.

No word yet whether Zhang cited the boy for traffic violations or let him off with just a warning and a little traffic school.

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BEIJING – All 29 Chinese fishermen held for almost two weeks by a North Korean crew were released and returned home on Monday, ending a hostage crisis that had outraged many in China and strained relations between the normally close friends.

China's state-run Xinhua News quoted an official at the Chinese Embassy in Pyongyang as saying that they had been informed that the three fishing vessels detained by the North Korean coast guard on May 8 were on their way back to China.

The sailors were in good health "with sufficient food and healthcare" after 13 days in North Korean waters, Xinhua quoted the official as saying.

---

The official's statement runs counter to reports by owners of two of the ships captured in the Yellow Sea who said that the crews had been given little to eat and had very little rest since the boats were taken.

The incident came as a surprise because China is North Korea's closest ally, and most important source of food aid and gasoline despite international sanctions meant to punish the country for its nuclear program and rocket launches.

Chinese netizens abuzz over reported boat hijackings by N. Korea

Questions shrouded the affair even as the sailors were set free.

Xinhua and other state media did not report whether a ransom had been paid, although it was earlier reported that the captors had demanded 900,000 yuan ($140,000) in exchange for the release of the vessels and their crew.

It also was not clear whether the North Koreans involved in the kidnapping and reported ransom negotiations were working on behalf of the North Korean government or alone.

Fishermen who operate in the waters where the boats were taken told the Chinese newspaper Global Times about previous incidents.

"The North Korean coast guards took almost everything, even pencils and clothes,” the newspaper quoted one fishermen as saying about a previous robbery. “They also pumped the fuel out of seized boats, leaving just enough for the journey home."

Even as it tried to cover the day’s news, the Global Times appeared to contradict its own reports.

While a news story reported that the latest kidnapping wasn’t the first incident involving North Korea’s coast guard, a Monday editorial in the same paper refuted the fisherman’s story.

"Currently there are rumors about misbehavior from North Koreans in the border areas between the two countries [and that] China does not seem to be taking a tough attitude toward them," the editorial stated. “Both should take effective measures to eliminate such rumors.”

Are China & North Korea happier than America?

But, right after news of this most recent incident broke in early May, Chinese officials ordered hundreds of fishing boats in the area to restrict their operations to 50 miles within China’s territorial waters. 

While the recent hijacking prompted an outraged response online and in China’s highly-controlled state media, on Monday journalists seemed to have reverted to a friendlier attitude, working overtime to dampen anger they had generated and fueled.

For example, the same Global Times editorial urged China to work on improving relations between China and North Korea.

"The case should be a turning point for China in its handling of border disputes between China and North Korea,” the editorial said optimistically. “China and North Korea have a solid geographic basis for their friendship [and] both attach strategic importance to this friendship.”

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Updated at 11:15 p.m. ET: Blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng arrived in the United States on Saturday after China allowed him to leave a hospital in Beijing in a move that could end a diplomatic tussle between the two countries, NBC News reported. 

Chen's escape from house arrest in northeastern China last month and subsequent stay in the U.S. Embassy was a huge embarrassment for China and led to a diplomatic rift while U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was visiting Beijing for talks to improve ties between the world's two biggest economies.

---

A United Airlines plane carrying Chen, his wife and two children, landed in at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey shortly after 6 p.m. Saturday, said NBC News' Bo Gu, who was on board the flight.

During his flight out of China, Chen told Gu that he had to escape because his health was deteriorating quickly. He had a cast on his right leg but said he is recovering from an injury sustained during his escape.

He said he believes China’s central government is good-willed and all the evil done to him and his family was by the Shandong authorities. He said he hopes the central government will investigate.

Chen was promised he could return to China anytime he wants, he told Gu. He said his children were not happy to leave China, though.

He also said he is concerned about his nephew, charged with attempted murder for injuring officials who broke into his house on the night Chen escaped.

He expressed concern that "acts of retribution may not have abated" in his hometown. The village of Dongshigu, where Chen's mother and other relatives remain, is still under lockdown.

Chen said after going on to New York that he was gratified the Chinese government had been dealing with his situation with "restraint and calm," Reuters reported.

"I hope to see that they continue to open discourse and earn the respect and trust of the people," Chen, speaking through a translator, told reporters outside a New York University housing building in Manhattan's Greenwich Village neighborhood.

"I'm very grateful for the assistance of the American Embassy and also (for) receiving a promise from the Chinese government for protection of my rights as a citizen over the long term," he said. "I believe that the promise from the central government is sincere and they are not lying to me."

"I believe that no matter how difficult the environment nothing is impossible as long as you put your heart to it ... I hope everybody works with me to promote justice and fairness in China," he said. "Equality and justice have no boundaries."

Chen is going to study as a fellow at the NYU School of Law, the institution said Saturday. 

Earlier: Blind Chinese activist Chen leaves Beijing on flight to US 

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Updated at 7 a.m. ET: BEIJING – Blind Chinese social activist Chen Guangcheng began the final leg of his long odyssey to freedom, leaving Beijing Saturday on a flight to the United States.

Early Saturday morning NBC News called Chen at the Beijing hospital where he has been held since leaving the U.S. Embassy on May 2. Chen said he still didn’t know when he was leaving but remained optimistic that it would be soon.

---

Moments later, NBC News made a second call to Chen, during which a group of Chinese officials were heard entering the room.

One of them was heard telling Chen, “wrap up, you are leaving today.”

During a 10-minute conversation, Chen was told he would undergo some final medical check-ups and then he and his family would be taken to the airport. 

At one point, Chen, 40, reminded the officials that the investigation into his detention in Shandong should continue after his departure. 

After the officials left, Chen got back on the phone. He sounded excited about his imminent departure and said he had left the phone on so that NBC News could hear the conversation.

Why did blind activist Chen Guangcheng anger Chinese authorities?

News of Chen’s release from hospital and departure to the United States caused a stir online and foreign journalists rushed to Beijing’s Capital Airport.

At the airport, it was largely business as usual, with no apparent additional security around. 

Shortly after he arrived at the airport, he appeared to be uncertain that he would actually be leaving. "I'm at the airport now. I've already left the hospital. But there are many things that are still unclear," he told Reuters, saying he had not got his passport.

'Thousands of thoughts'
But NBC News watched as two security officers walked up and checked in plain black suitcases, apparently the family’s luggage, and a ticket counter representative confirmed that Chen and his family had checked in on the flight.

"Thousands of thoughts are surging to my mind," Chen told The Associated Press by phone. 

To his supporters and others in the activist community, Chen expressed gratitude and indicated that he hoped to return. 

"I am requesting a leave of absence, and I hope that they will understand," he said. 

The flight took off shortly before 6 a.m. ET. Chen is expected to travel to New York, where he has been offered a fellowship at New York University.

His departure brings to an end a saga lasting weeks that has put a strain on US-China relations and underscored continued human rights issues in the mainland.

Chen, a self-taught lawyer who has worked to expose forced abortions under China’s tough one-child policy in his home province of Shandong, was sentenced to four years in prison in 2006 for disrupting traffic and damaging property.

Upon his release, he was placed under house arrest until his daring escape last month to the American embassy in Beijing.

Chinese crackdown on dissident's family and friends

Chen initially stated he wished to stay in China to help bring about reform, but later changed his mind and said he wished to leave for the United States.

At a U.S. Congressional hearing on May 4, Chen pleaded for help and requested again to be brought to America.

Chinese officials earlier this week had begun the process of preparing a passport for Chen and his family, but Chen told China Aid’s Bob Fu -- a friend of Chen’s –- that he and his family had still not received any passports from Chinese authorities.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

This is a breaking news story. Please check back for more details.

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BEIJING – In what appears to be a rare public spat between longtime neighbors and allies, 29 Chinese sailors have been kidnapped in the Yellow Sea by North Koreans, according to Chinese media reports.

Three Chinese fishing ships were operating in waters between North Korea and China on May 8 when they were boarded, 29 crew members taken hostage and the vessels hijacked, the reports said late Wednesday. 

The vessels reportedly were then taken to North Korean waters where they have remained since. One fisherman was said to have escaped.  

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One of the ships’ owners, Sun Caihui, said that the hijackers’ ship was a North Korean naval vessel and that some of the men were wearing uniforms of the Korean People’s Navy, according to a report on Netease, a popular Chinese web portal.  

 

How Sun was able to determine whether the hijackers’ ship was a North Korean military vessel, much less whether the kidnappers were working on behalf of the North Korean government or were pirates working independently, remains unclear.  

Immediately after the incident, the hijackers allegedly asked one of the Chinese captains to call Sun to tell him that the hijackers were demanding 1.2 million yuan ($190,000) in ransom for the three ships captured. Sun said he has not been in contact with his crew since that call, but new reports late Thursday suggested that the kidnappers are now seeking around 900,000 yuan ($140,000) for their release.

North Korea’s government has not made any public comment on the case. Likewise, China’s government would not publicly confirm any details about the reported incident. 

China is North Korea’s key international ally, with Beijing having been Pyongyang’s main supplier of food aid and oil despite strict international sanctions over the reclusive country’s nuclear ambitions and rocket launches. 

"China is maintaining close contact with North Korea through the relevant channels and we hope this problem will be appropriately solved as soon as possible," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a daily briefing. 

"We have also stated to North Korea that it should ensure the legitimate rights of Chinese ship personnel."

The owner of another ship involved, named Zhang Dechang, said that during a talk with his ship’s captain on May 9, he was assured that no direct threats had been made against the sailors themselves. However, in an article Thursday in the Chinese newspaper Global Times Zhang said he had received a call from the hijackers on Tuesday threatening to “dispose” of the ships and the fishermen if the ransom was not paid by May 17.

Conditions on the boats are said to be cramped and the fishermen reportedly have not been well looked after. Both Zhang and Sun said their ship captains have told him that they don’t have much to eat and that they’ve had little rest.

Sun said the incident has brought feelings of anger and helplessness. “Relatives of the sailors – parents, children, wives – came to us for their men, weeping,” he said, “We could do nothing.”  

Anger among Chinese 
The incident has raised the ire of China’s netizens, who have wondered why it has taken so long for news of the alleged hijacking to be released and why Beijing has reacted so gently on this matter. 

On China’s Twitter-like service, Weibo, the issue was the top trending topic Thursday. “Has North Korea forgotten how China aided North Korea in the Korean War?” wrote one user. “Why are our fishermen always being arrested by foreigners, our waters always occupied by other countries? Don’t bully us, OK?” 

Others Weibo users were more belligerent. “If they dare to execute hostages, we should immediately destroy them!” declared another. 

In general, there appears to be a growing public frustration in China over the government’s seeming desire to not react to the incidents aggressively, perhaps best summed up by one Weibo user who wrote: “I wish the Chinese government could be stronger and stop chanting slogans like ‘harmony’ and ‘peace.’” 

NBC News’ Horace Lu contributed to this report. 

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BEIJING – Speak a little English and are willing to relocate? Well, you’re probably qualified to be an English-language instructor in China. 

As long as you are white, that is.

Chinese teaching agencies are constantly seeking candidates to teach English to the growing number of children who are looking to get a leg up in China’s rigorous academic environment. The opportunity is quite lucrative and requires little or no knowledge of Chinese. 

But the ads recruiting these teachers come with a catch.

---

Take, for example, Mike Lee and Will Evans, students from the U.S. and Canada, respectively, who applied to be English teachers through the New Development School, a teacher-placement agency in Beijing. Being fluent speakers of English, both believed they would make competitive candidates. 

What they didn’t know is that recruiters would not be evaluating them just on their English fluency or academic credentials. Instead, they were judged primarily on physical appearance. 

“We want him [pointing to Evans], but we don’t want you [to Lee],” the recruiter told them, as the two stood side by side at the front counter of the school. “Unfortunately, parents of our students don’t really want someone Asian to be teaching.”

Lee, who is Korean-American, was rejected from the school despite having previous experience teaching English as a second language (ESL). Evans, a white Canadian, was hired on the spot. 

“I was shocked – back home this wouldn’t be acceptable,” Lee told NBC News. “I’ve never been discriminated (against) in that way.” 

White, Caucasians only
Racial discrimination is a harsh reality within China’s ESL industry, where recruiters actively seek the blond-hair, blue-eyed all-American archetype (along with similarly equipped Britons, Australians and other native speakers close behind). While brown hair also is acceptable, having a white face is a near-absolute requirement. 

Byron Vogue, who works for the corporate English training company Stanford English, said that Chinese recruiters will always prefer to hire Caucasian applicants over their non-white counterparts.

“There’s this concept that if you send your children to English class, the parents are expecting their children to be taught by a white English teacher versus an Asian-American or … a black American,” he said. 

A post by Vogue on a popular online forum and classifieds site, The Beijinger, explicitly spells out the phenomenon:

“In Beijing this is the general pecking order in terms of a company's recruitment (by Chinese managers):

1. White Americans/Canadians

2. White British

3. White Australians/New Zealanders and South Africans

4. European Nonnatives/Black Americans/Black British

5. American Asians/Black Aussies (Australians) and Kiwis (New Zealanders)/Filipinos/Africans”

The discrimination comes, Evans said, because Chinese parents simply do not believe a non-white person can possibly be a native speaker. Thus, this logic continues, hiring a white person is the simplest and easiest way to ensure that the teacher is truly fluent.

“I was told that it was nice for parents to see foreign or white-looking teachers around the school,” Evans said, adding that he was encouraged to walk outside and greet parents. 

Advertisements for English teaching positions are up-front in their bias. A search for “English teacher” in The Beijinger’s classifieds section reveals dozens of ads that include language such as “Job requires American or Canadian white teacher” or “white color is preferred.”

The ESL teaching industry isn’t the only job market in China where being Caucasian is an asset. So-called “face jobs,” where companies temporarily hire a white person to be a fake employee during an important event or business meeting, also are common in China. 

Wanna sell something in China? Hire a white guy

‘Makes you feel like crap’

The preference for Caucasian employees angers many Asian-Americans and other English-speaking ethnic Asians.

“It makes you feel like crap,” said Lee. “We all came here on the same boat, at the same time, looking for the same opportunity. I didn’t know the color of my skin was going to be an issue. I find it weird to be discriminated against for being Asian, while I’m in Asia.”

BEIJING -- Westerners spreading Christmas cheer with their holiday lights last year probably didn’t realize that some of the warm glow came courtesy of a prison labor camp in China, and partially thanks to a former inmate named Fang Hong.

After serving a year making Christmas lights in grueling conditions, Fang Hong was released on April 24 from the Drug Rehabilitation and Re-Education-Through-Labor Center in China’s southwestern mega-city of Chongqing.

Fang’s crime? Before their fall, he criticized Wang Lijun and Bo Xilai, two formally powerful Chongqing officials, now with their own legal problems.

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Wang is the ex-police chief of Chongqing, who fled to the American consulate in Chengdu for protection in February, allegedly after a fall-out with Bo.

Bo is the former Party Secretary of Chongqing, who had been a hot contender for one of China’s most powerful political positions on the standing committee of the Communist Party's politburo, but is now under investigation for corruption. His current whereabouts are unknown.

Thin and energetic, 45-year-old Fang has never been shy about speaking out. Before his imprisonment, he worked at the Fuling District Forestry Bureau in Chongqing, but spent most of his spare time writing blogs that challenged wasteful public spending and criticizing government corruption.

It is unclear whether a post he wrote last April was the last straw. In it, he mocked a lawsuit that implicated Li Zhuang, a lawyer who defended a businessman during Bo’s controversial crackdown on gangs started in 2009. While defending the businessman, Li himself drew criticism and was accused of inciting perjury. 

“Bo Xilai took a dump, and asked Wang Lijun to eat it,” Fang wrote. “Wang passed the dump to the public prosecutor, and public prosecutor passed it to the court. The court then passed it to Li Zhuang. Li’s lawyer said, Li is not hungry. Whoever took the dump can eat it.”

City divided by disgraced Communist leader's legacy

The mocking scatological references obviously irritated someone within the police force, who then summoned Fang on the same evening that the blog post was published.

Fang was told by police to delete his post. He did, but his ordeal had just begun.

The next day, Fang received a summons again from the Chongqing police. He refused to go, but soon found his home surrounded by more than 20 policemen and a fire truck. The standoff lasted a whole day.

Fang was detained, and four days later received a written decision without trial, sentencing him to one year in a labor re-education prison for “spreading rumors and disturbing social order.”

Fang’s son and his girlfriend were also forced to “take a vacation” to prevent them from talking to lawyers and journalists.

Fang told NBC News he had to work about 10 hours every day, including weekends. He said he was locked in the prison along with about 1,000 other inmates. He shared a room with 11 others, most of whom were serving sentences for petty crimes such as gambling, fighting, stealing a neighbor’s chicken, or taking lewd photos.

Fang said his job was to weld Christmas light bulbs for a Shenzhen-based company called Kingland Lighting, and also screw in wires for notebooks for another company, Chongqing Baogen. He also made straws for Fuling Taiji Group for its health drinks. Kingland’s website says it exports its Christmas lights to Europe.

Fang made 8 Yuan a month, about of $1.27. He told NBC News he was not allowed to eat meat and had no connections with anyone on the other side of the iron bars. A chain smoker, Fang said he eased his nicotine withdrawal thanks to a cellmate who smuggled in cigarettes for him. Chinese prisons allow inmates to smoke, but Fang had been stripped of this privilege.

In February, a lawyer who came to see Fang told him Wang and Bo were in trouble.

“The whole labor camp was in ecstasy,” said Fang. “Everyone was jubilant and saying, the oppressive official is now a traitor! The red song singer is a traitor!”

On April 24, Fang was finally released.

What did it feel like to regain his freedom? Fang simply shook his head and calmly said: “Nothing. I have no feeling. Nothing is too shocking in this country. Unfortunately, I was born in China.”

With the help of a few lawyers, Fang is now suing the Education-through-Labor Office of Chongqing, demanding that his conviction be overturned and asking for compensation.

Whether his case will be heard by the Chongqing's Third Intermediate Court is uncertain. Pu Zhiqiang, one of the lawyers fighting for Fang, told NBC News he’s optimistic.

“If the court rejects his case, it shows its cowardice to the whole world. It tells people the court cannot meet a citizen’s expectations,” Pu said.

Fang and his lawyers hope that by making his case known to the world, China will one day abolish the decades-long re-education through labor system.

“We should pursue the answer to one question: Is a labor camp legal?” said Pu. “Is it based on laws? It’s so brutal and completely up to some individual’s decision to arrest anyone, without trail and any legal procedure. Victims have no way to help themselves. It’s against the Chinese constitution and international laws. The labor camp system should be permanently abolished.”

(NBC News contacted Chongqing Third Intermediate Court on May 15. The court confirmed Fang's case will be heard but declined to give more comments at the moment.)

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CHONGQING, China – Everywhere you go in Chongqing, you can see traces of the complicated legacy of Bo Xilai, the former Communist party chief who ran this municipality of 30 million people until scandal derailed him. 

At one time destined for a top post in China’s highest echelon of power, the standing committee of the politburo of the Communist Party, Bo aggressively poured money into this municipality in pursuit of his populist agenda.

To drive through the windy roads that snake around this hilly metropolis is to see a city in constant transformation. Towers of low-income housing complexes dot the skyline. These social housing projects were meant to address a major national issue: the lack of affordable housing, and provided homes that cost just a few hundred dollars a year to rent. And Bo had gingko trees, said to be one of his favorites, planted across the city.

But these city improvements came at a cost: His heavy investment in capital construction projects forced the city to borrow so much money to pay for it that Chongqing owes $20 billion to the China Development Bank, according to a news report on Wednesday. The tree planting saddled the city with a $1.5 billion bill just for 2010 alone.  

The improvements weren’t the only controversial aspect of Bo’s reign over this important gateway city to the western half of China, and since his demise his critics have stepped out of the shadows to talk about the darker side of life in what had become the former leader’s personal fiefdom.

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Told a Bo joke, got a year in a labor camp

In Chongqing, NBC News spoke with Fang Hong, a 51-year-old former forestry officer who made news earlier this week when he filed an appeal with a local court seeking compensation for what he alleged was an unfair sentence he served at a labor camp.

According to Fang, he was imprisoned for posting a two-line joke about Bo on his microblog that quickly went viral. Soon after, Fang said he was dragged in by police for questioning and later brought before a police tribunal where he was sentenced for “fabricating facts and disturbing public order.” 

Fang served his sentence at a labor camp where he said he was forced to assemble thousands of Christmas ornaments for export for one year.

Released earlier this year, Fang was emboldened by the criticism that has shrouded Bo following his high-profile falling out with his vice-mayor and former police chief, Wang Lijun, who famously sought refuge at the American embassy in Chengdu. That move by Wang sparked an international political scandal that now includes a murder mystery. Bo’s wife, Gu Kailai, is a murder suspect in the death of British businessman Neil Heywood; Bo has been officially disowned by the ruling Communist Party and has disappeared from public view.

Boisterous debate on Bo
Fang agreed to do an interview with NBC News on an outside promenade with commanding views of Chongqing’s skyline and the mighty Yangtze River below. Fang spoke confidently, eager to tell his story about the deprivations he faced while interned at the labor camp.

Between the presence of a foreign camera crew and his loud denouncements of Bo Xilai, Fang quickly drew a crowd of onlookers.

The first indication that things were going to get contentious with the crowd was when one short, middle-aged man standing next to the camera started muttering under his breath as he listened to Fang. 

Taking jagged drags from his cigarette and nervously flicking ash between puffs, the man’s voice rose incrementally to voice his protestations of Fang’s opinion about Bo. Those near to the man shushed him as they strained to hear what Fang was saying, but after one particular statement, the man clearly had enough.

“That’s bull---! Bo Xilai has done so much for Chongqing!” bellowed the man as he waved his cigarette at Fang.

The crowd erupted into a loud, boisterous debate on Bo, prompting NBC News correspondent Ian Williams to wrap up the interview so that Fang could quickly leave with his lawyers.

But before he left, Fang feistily told the man what he thought of his opinion, triggering a shouting match. One of Fang’s lawyers and some of the crowd had to separate the pair.

‘Since Bo Xilai took power I feel more secure'
Not everyone had negative feelings about the disgraced former party chief.

 One older woman in the crowd said:, “Before, I was worried to wear earrings because I was worried I’d get robbed, but since Bo Xilai I feel more secure seeing more police on the streets.”

Finally, a line of security guards rolled up and broke up the crowd. The guards were not forceful and they exchanged a few knowing nods with the throng of people who were loudly voicing their support for Bo.

Bo’s fall has clearly given his critics the opportunity they’ve long desired to voice their criticisms of him.

However, despite the accusations that paint Bo’s Chongqing was something akin to a modern-day Tammany Hall, the populism and perhaps most importantly, the pride he instilled in this mega-city suggest his popular legacy may last far longer than Communist Party officials would like.

As one driver told us, “Yeah, Bo might have been corrupt, but at least he did something for us – which is more than those corrupt officials who do nothing at all.”   

NBC News’ Bo Gu contributed to this report.

 

 

BEIJING – Although blind human rights activist Chen Guangcheng has been cast into the international spotlight since his April 22 escape from house arrest and subsequent journey to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, he still remains an unfamiliar name — even to the majority of Chinese citizens, thanks to the country’s tight control of the press and social media. 

On Friday, the U.S. and China seemed to have forged the outlines of a tentative deal to end the diplomatic standoff that would let Chen travel to the U.S. with his family for a university fellowship. In the meantime, Chen’s fate still hangs in the balance.

So what exactly did he do to anger Chinese authorities so much in the first place? It all began with Chen’s foray into social activism nearly 16 years ago, when he began fighting against the Linyi government. 

---

Challenging authority

Born on Nov. 12, 1971, Chen grew up in a small village called Dongshigu, near Linyi City in eastern province of Shandong, approximately 400 miles from Beijing. He lost his sight after a severe fever when he was only a few months old. 

He enrolled in Qingdao High School for the Blind in 1994 and graduated in 1998. It was during this time that he had his first experience questioning authority.  

Deal nears on China activist Chen as US offers college fellowship

In 1996 Chen traveled to Beijing to challenge the Linyi government’s taxing of disabled people even though a 1991 law exempted them from taxation. He won the appeal. 

He kept fighting and in 1997 he irritated the local government again by appealing on behalf of his fellow villagers in a Beijing court to stop Linyi from breaking land laws.

Chen pursued these cases all without a formal law degree; he was a self-taught lawyer who had studied acupuncture and massage at Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine from 1998 to 2001. His mother originally wanted him to become a masseur, the most common job for blind men in China, but he insisted on taking law classes on the side.

In September 2003, Chen sued the company that runs the Beijing subway system for making him buy subway tickets, despite the fact that the law said the subway should be free for disabled people. Chen again won the lawsuit.

Chinese crackdown on dissident's family and friends

Fighting abusive enforcement of the one-child policy
But what really brought Chen into the crosshairs of the Chinese government were his efforts to expose harsh illegal measures by local authorities in his hometown, Linyi,  as they enforced China’s strict population control policy known as the "one-child policy." 

Chen married Yuan Weijing in 2003 and their first son was born that year; in August 2005, they had a daughter. Some say the fact that they had two children, in defiance of China’s one-child policy, explains why Chen became interested in protesting family planning. 

In 2005, the Linyi government started a campaign to "strictly enforce" the one-child policy by arresting and beating up women who broke the family planning law, forcing them to have abortions or sterilizations, heavily fining them and even arresting the relatives of those who had escaped to other cities. Chinese national laws prohibit such harsh acts.

Chen and Yuan investigated the cases and filed a class action lawsuit, while also revealing the brutality to the media. The lawsuit was rejected, but through Chen’s work the brutality of Linyi officials was exposed and drew attention from both domestic and international press. 

(In particular, a Washington Post story in 2005, “Who Controls the Family?” first drew international attention to Chen’s crusade. And apparently, in thanks for that story, one of Chen’s first calls to the international media after leaving the U.S. embassy this week went to the Washington Post). 

China censors 'Shawshank' as Clinton heads to Beijing amid dissident drama

Jail, then oppressive house arrest
After Chen refused negotiations with local officials to cease his activism, Chen was taken away by the police in March 2006. He was then officially arrested in June, and sentenced to four years and three months in prison for "destruction of property and disturbing public order." His trial was a controversial one because his lawyers were detained by Yinan police on the eve of the trial, leaving him defenseless in court.

During his jail sentence, in July 2008, his wife Yuan issued a public letter to Chinese President Hu Jintao, in which she said: "I hope the country’s leader can feel the insult and helplessness I have in my everyday life. I hope the leader will listen to a jailed blind man’s concern about the country’s future." 

Chen was released from prison in 2010, but then he and his wife were subjected to house arrest which included constant 24-hour video surveillance. In February 2011 he smuggled out a video showing his life under house arrest. 

"I was in a small prison, and now I am in a larger prison," Chen says to the camera in the hour-long video, which shows security agents peering over walls into the family’s home.  

According to another video Chen released after his recent escape from house arrest, he estimated that authorities spent as much as 60 million yuan ($9.5 million) to keep him locked up.

True belief in the rule of law
During his one-and-half year long house detention, hundreds of people, including both Chinese and foreign journalists, lawyers, friends and human rights advocates, attempted to visit Chen but were all driven away, often violently by the thugs watching him day and night. 

In December 2011, Hollywood actor Christian Bale made an effort to see him along with a CNN crew and he was shoved away. 

Chen’s supporters say that ultimately his goal is to see that China lives up to the rule of law that already exists there. 

Blind dissident's case a 'hot potato' for US-China relations

"Chen Guangcheng is someone who really believes in rule of law, and he wants to put what’s written in the law into practice," said Zeng Jinyan, a long-time friend of Chen family and also a human rights activist. "While so many people who can see are still talking about securing personal safety, Chen, a blind man, is already in action." 

"People who know Chen say he is a Gandhi-esque figure and has a deep optimism that China will inevitably become a country ruled by law,” professor Susan L. Shirk, an expert on Chinese politics at the University of California in San Diego, told NBC News. “He is not a dissident, agitating for a change in government — he just wants China to enforce its own laws."  

Many people attribute Chen’s ordeal to local government enforcement, arguing what they do is out of the ordinary, while many other believe it’s an order from the very top. 

"Evidently, local officials in Linyi concluded that Chen would somehow threaten local stability if he were free to move about and speak up. Beijing did not intervene even when it realized that the actions of the Linyi officials were creating a national and international embarrassment," Kenneth Lieberthal, leading China expert at Brookings Institution, told NBC News. "The enormous reluctance by Beijing to intervene in these types of local decisions is the rule, not the exception." 

Updated 08:31 a.m. ET: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said "progress had been made" on a deal over the future of Chen Guangcheng, telling reporters in Beijing she was encouraged by China's suggestions that the blind activist might be allowed to study abroad. 

After she spoke, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told Reuters that Chen had been offered a fellowship from an American university, where he could be accompanied by his wife and two children.

---

"The Chinese Government has indicated that it will accept Mr. Chen's applications for appropriate travel documents. The United States government expects that the Chinese government will expeditiously process his applications for these documents, and make accommodations for his current medical condition," she added.

"The United States government would then give visa requests for him and his immediate family priority attention," Nuland said.

Clinton said efforts would continue to finalize an agreement over Chen's future, adding that the U.S. ambassador had visited the dissident in hospital.

"We have been very clear and committed to honoring his choices and our values," Clinton said of Chen.

Signs of a deal will provide relief to both the Obama administration -- which feared the case would overshadow the ongoing economic talks, Clinton's main purpose in China -- and the Chinese, who were reportedly keen to resolve the issue while saving face.

Earlier, Chen told The Associated Press that friends who had tried to visit him “have been beaten,” his wife Yuan Weijing had been followed and U.S. officials had been prevented from seeing him in person.

He added that he had spoken to U.S. officials by phone, but “the calls keep getting cut off after two sentences.”

“Basically I am very worried. Okay? … It is very dangerous here,” Chen told the AP, before the line went dead.

Chen, 40, is a legal activist from Shandong province who campaigned against forced abortions under China's "one-child" policy.

On April 22, he escaped 19 months of house arrest, during which he and his family faced beatings and threats. Supporters then said he was in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, which he left after six days to go to the hospital on Tuesday this week after receiving assurances from the Chinese authorities.

Chinese crackdown on dissident's family and friends

He Peirong, an activist who helped Chen escape from house arrest and drove him to Beijing was released by police Friday. She was taken away by police last Saturday. She tweeted at about 3 a.m. ST that "I'm back, everything is ok, thank you.” She declined to comment to NBC News.

Blind activist Chen Guangcheng: 'I want to leave China on Hillary Clinton's plane'

Lawyer Jiang Tianyong, another of Chen’s friends, was arrested by police Thursday evening and told NBC News Friday afternoon that he had been beaten up. He lost his hearing temporarily and is undergoing a medical check-up now, accompanied by police.

Amid the continuing concern over what will happen to Chen and his supporters, Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner met Wen in the pavilion, a ceremonial reception hall in the style of a Chinese pagoda, nestled by pine trees and a lake in the middle of Beijing.

"This round of the dialogue is highly productive. I can say we achieved rich fruit in this round and some of those are important breakthroughs,” Wen said, according to a translator.

"What is the secret behind the sustained and the steady growth of the Strategic and Economic Dialogue [formal name for talks between the two countries]? I believe the most important thing is that we respect each other and treat each other as equals and have accommodated each other's major concerns,” he added.

China censors 'Shawshank' as Clinton heads to Beijing amid dissident drama

Clinton's prepared remarks for the meeting did not specifically mention Chen, but did say that the responsibilities of a "great nation" included "protecting the fundamental freedoms of all citizens at home."  

"All governments have the responsibility of addressing their citizens' aspirations for dignity and rule of law.  These are not Western values -- they are universal rights that apply to all people in all places," she said.

Blind activist: Chinese officials threatened my wife

She also talked about North Korea, Iran, Syria, and the Sudan-South Sudan conflict, describing them as "four hotspots" that "are some of the most pressing challenges we face."

Guo Yushan – who was released by police two days ago after helping Chen get to Beijing -- said in a posting on Twitter that on Chen’s first day in the hospital “some unpleasant things happened, bringing some inconvenience and misery to him and his family, making them feel anxious and nervous.” 

Blind dissident's case a 'hot potato' for US-China relations

“Among all these things, he worried most about the threat from some Shandong officials to his wife Yuan Weijing,” Guo said, according to a translation. “He hopes that, under massive attention from global public opinion, the Chinese government can abide by the law and deal properly with Shandong local officials' illegal persecution on him and his family.”

Guo said that his friend was “very grateful to the world media's attention and care, and hopes that the media can understand his current complex and delicate situation, and completely understand and respond to his expression and the corresponding emotions.”

“He did not want to make all his friends who helped him, and are helping him, feel embarrassed and have misunderstandings, for example, the U.S. Embassy's help in the past, he never criticized it, on the contrary, he is only grateful for it. Thank you everyone,” Guo said.

Guo declined to comment to NBC News.

Gu Bo, of NBC News, other NBC News staff, and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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UPDATED: 5:36 p.m. ET -- Blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng spoke on the telephone during a Congressional Executive Commission on China hearing, asking for help to leave China with his family.

Chen told the commission he would be in a much worse situation had he not been taken into the U.S. embassy, adding that he wanted to thank Secretary of State Hillary Clinton face to face.

Speaking through a translator, Chen said he is concerned about the safety of his mother and brothers, adding he would want to find out how they were doing.

---

Frantic efforts to resolve the diplomatic wrangle surrounding Chen continued in Beijing Thursday after he appealed for asylum following what was described as a "change of heart" over an earlier deal.

U.S. officials said they are still trying to help the lawyer, who says he fears for his family's safety, and denied he was pressured to leave the American Embassy to resettle inside China in exchange for guarantees about his future treatment.

Chen said by telephone from hospital, where he was escorted by U.S. officials and was being treated for a broken foot, that he had changed his mind about the resettlement deal after talking with his wife, who spoke of recent threats made against his family.

In a string of interviews, he said he now wants to leave China as soon as possible. “My fervent hope is that it would be possible for me and my family to leave for the U.S. on Hillary Clinton’s plane,” he told the Daily Beast.

A senior State Department official told reporters on Thursday that officials were "trying to get full, frank and candid conversation with him," adding: "We are not there yet. If he is changing his view, we're starting from square one with the Chinese."

"When we feel that we have a clear view of what his final decision is, we will do what we can to help him achieve that," the official said.

A source familiar with the situation said Chen and his wife appeared to have had "a change of heart" about a deal, agreed on Tuesday, to remain in China after receiving guarantees about their safety.

China censors 'Shawshank' as Clinton heads to Beijing amid dissident drama

"We don't know if there was intimidation or pressure from friends who think he made the wrong choice, or whether he got in the room with his wife and she was looking at a different situation," the source added.

The New York Times reported that the saga leaves Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's scheduled summit meeting in Beijing "under a cloud of confusion."

It reported that the Obama administration was "exposed to criticism from Republicans and human rights groups that it had rushed to resolve a delicate human rights case so that it would not overshadow other matters on the bilateral agenda," such as the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs and China's currency and trade policies.

'I feel unsafe'
Chen, a self-taught legal activist, explained his change of mind: "I feel very unsafe. My rights and safety cannot be assured here," he said. His family, who were with him at the hospital, backed his decision to try to reach the United States, he added.

Blind activist: Chinese officials threatened my wife

The activist, citing descriptions from his wife, Yuan Weijing, said his family had been surrounded by Chinese officials who menaced them and filled the family home. Chen, from a village in rural Shandong province, has two children.

"When I was inside the American Embassy, I didn't have my family, and so I didn't understand some things. After I was able to meet them, my ideas changed."

Gary Locke, the U.S. ambassador, told reporters he could say unequivocally that Chen was never pressured to leave the embassy.

Locke said Chen had two conversations with his wife before agreeing to the original deal on Tuesday. "We waited several minutes and suddenly he jumped up very eager and said 'let's go' in front of many witnesses," the ambassador said.

Clinton urged China to protect human rights but made no specific mention of Chen, whom she had spoken to on Wednesday after he left the embassy.

Blind dissident's case a 'hot potato' for US-China relations

"Of course, as part of our dialogue, the United States raises the importance of human rights and fundamental freedoms," Clinton said. "We believe all governments have to answer our citizens' aspirations for dignity and the rule of law and that no nation can or should deny those rights."

US-China relationship under pressure
Despite Chen's change of heart about staying in China, it was unclear if he would be able to travel to the United States. Having left the Embassy and the protection of U.S. authorities, his fate is now in the hands of the Chinese government.

U.S. officials appeared no longer to be with him on Thursday, with the dissident saying he had still not had an opportunity to explain his change of heart to the U.S. side.

"I hope the U.S. will help me leave immediately. I want to go there for medical treatment," Chen said from the hospital, where a pack of camera crews and reporters was waiting outside, kept away from the entrance by a few police.

Chen, 40, is a legal activist who campaigned against forced abortions under China's "one-child" policy. On April 22, he escaped 19 months of house arrest, during which he and his family faced beatings and threats.

Chen's dramatic escape from house arrest and his flight last week to the U.S. Embassy have made him a symbol of resistance to China's shackles on dissent, and the deal struck by Beijing and Washington would have made him an international test case of how tight or lose those restrictions remain.

Now, however, his change of mind throws not only his own future into doubt but also raises questions about the wider U.S.-China relationship. 

Reuters, The Associated Press, NBC's Kristin Wilson and msnbc.com's Alastair Jamieson contributed to this report.

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Updated at 10:50 p.m. ET: BEIJING -- In a visit to China on Thursday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton cautioned China to protect human rights, the Associated Press reported.

Without mentioning Chen Guangcheng, the blind Chinese dissident who sought refuge in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing for six days, Clinton said, “all governments have to answer to our citizens’ aspirations for dignity and the rule of law and that no nation can or should deny those rights.”  

Only hours earlier, U.S. officials said they had extracted from the Chinese government a promise that Chen would join his family and be allowed to start a new life in a university town in China, safe from the rural authorities who had abusively held him in prison and house arrest for nearly seven years.

In her remarks, Clinton did not mention Chen by name, although she had spoken with him hours before when he left the embassy. In a statement she welcomed the resettlement as one that “reflected his choices and our values.”

This came after an interview Chen gave to the Associated Press on Wednesday from a hospital room in Beijing where he was taken for medical treatment, during which he said a U.S. official told him that Chinese authorities had threatened to beat his wife if he did not leave the embassy. He said he feared for his safety and wanted to leave.

---

In a separate interview with Britain's Channel 4 News, Chen said he wanted to go to any country that will take him and his family and added he's disappointed that American officials didn't stay at the hospital with him as he thought they would.

"Nobody from [the] embassy is here … I don't understand why. They promised to be here," he told Channel 4 News.

Chen also told NBC News that he asked the U.S. to take concrete steps to guarantee his safety.

The State Department denied much of the AP's account of what Chen said. 

"At no time did any U.S. official speak to Chen about physical or legal threats to his wife and children. Nor did Chinese officials make any such threats to us," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told NBC News.  

Chen was told his family would be sent back home if he stayed in the embassy, she said. 

China censors 'Shawshank' as Clinton heads to Beijing amid dissident drama

"At every opportunity, he expressed his desire to stay in China, reunify with his family, continue his education and work for reform in his country.  All our diplomacy was directed at putting him in the best possible position to achieve his objectives," Nuland added. 

Chen's plight has overshadowed high-level talks on economic and international issues due to begin Thursday. The United States hopes the negotiations will encourage greater Chinese cooperation on trade as well over Iran, Syria, North Korea and other international disputes.

Who is Fu? Chinese exile is 'God's double agent'

In what earlier appeared to be a deal to end the diplomatic tussle between the U.S. and China over his future, Chinese authorities promised he would be relocated to a safe environment where he could study at a university, a U.S. official said, speaking prior to Chen's comments.

Chen, who went to the embassy after making a daring escape from house arrest on April 21, ran afoul of local government officials in China for exposing forced abortions and other abuses. His dogged pursuit of justice and mistreatment by authorities brought him attention from the U.S. and foreign governments, and earned him supporters among many ordinary Chinese.

Chen may have been forced to accept what he's offered, according to Zeng Jinyan, a long-time friend of Chen's family and also a human rights activist. Zeng has been tweeting about Chen's latest situation since Wednesday evening, some in Chinese, some in English, according to NBC News.

Chinese crackdown on dissident's family and friends

According to Zeng, Chen was unwilling to leave the American embassy but had no choice because his wife and two children would be sent back to Shandong province if he insisted on staying. It is not known when and how they arrived in Beijing, but Chen's wife Yuan Weijing told Zeng that local government in Shandong province installed security cameras inside her home and moved in, waiting for her and the children if Chen didn't agree to leave the embassy. Yuan also said she was arrested on April 27th when they found out Chen has escaped.

Teng Biao, a lawyer who's been assisting Chen in the past few years, tweeted about his conversation with Chen Wednesday afternoon, asking Chen "I've heard you were threatened, is that true?" Chen said, "Yes, very true. People from the Foreign Ministry said this afternoon, if you didn't leave the embassy, your wife and children would have been sent back to Shandong." In the same conversation, Chen said the Shandong officials who escorted his family are still in Beijing.

Blind dissident’s case a 'hot potato' for US-China

Meanwhile, Chinese government is taking a more hard-lined attitude on the case, demanding an apology from the American government.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said: "It should be pointed out that Chen Guangcheng, a Chinese citizen, was taken by the U.S. side to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing via abnormal means, and the Chinese side is strongly dissatisfied with the move."

He stressed that China demands that the United States thoroughly investigate the event, hold relevant people accountable and ensure that such an event does not happen again. "What the U.S. side has done has interfered in the domestic affairs of China, and the Chinese side will never accept it," said the spokesman.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton -- who arrived in Beijing Tuesday ahead of the talks -- said that the case had been handled "in a way that reflected his choices and our values" -- comments made before Chen's remarks that he feared for his and his family's safety.

She said it was crucial to ensure that Beijing kept its pledge to leave him unmolested. "The United States government and the American people are committed to remaining engaged with Mr. Chen and his family in the days, weeks, and years ahead," Clinton added.

Chen's supporters said last Friday that he had escaped after 20 months of house arrest and gone into U.S. government protection.

More on Chen: Video reveals blind Chinese activist's plight

NBC News, msnbc.com staff, Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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BEIJING – He Peirong’s voice was last heard on Friday morning, when she was talking to Bob Fu, the head of the U.S.-based nonprofit group China Aid. Fu said he was communicating with He via Skype when she said that state security agents had arrived at her home. Nobody has been able to contact her since then.

He, an activist, is one of the many people who assisted Chen Guangcheng’s daring escape from a year and a half of house arrest last week. The blind lawyer and human rights activist is now allegedly under the protection of the U.S. Embassy in Beijing.

But his family members and friends are still subject to police detention and harassment, a contradiction to claims by some people that his brutal persecution was only a single case by the local government in Shandong province, where Chen is from.

---

Mysterious disappearances
Among those who have disappeared is another helper, Guo Yushan, a Beijing-based human rights advocate.

Guo was taken away by police on April 26, but released Monday night. Shortly after he was let go, Guo answered a phone call from the Hong Kong paper Apply Daily, claiming he was one of the organizers of Chen’s escape. He also confirmed to Apple Daily that some of the local villagers were also arrested for assisting the breakout.

Who is Fu? Chinese exile is 'God's double agent'

However, when NBC News tried to reach him by phone multiple times Tuesday, his phone went silent again. He allegedly had a conversation with police Tuesday morning.

At least three of Chen’s relatives have been detained by police, including his brother and uncle. Chen’s mother, wife and 6-year-old daughter are still under siege at their home in Linyi in eastern Shandong province by dozens of thugs, who stopped journalists’ attempts to enter their home after his escape.

Chen Kegui, a nephew of Chen, is also on the run now after he stabbed two unidentified men who broke into his home Thursday night when they took his father.

According to a report from the British newspaper The Guardian, Chen Kegui’s wife wouldn’t even tell their lawyer Liu Weiguo where she was hiding herself, too frightened of being dragged away like her relatives. But even the lawyer wasn’t exempt from the pressure from the authorities.

Watch World News videos on msnbc.com

Chen Wuquan, another Guangdong-based lawyer, told NBC News that Liu sent him a text message early Tuesday morning, saying he had been summoned by police and was under heavy surveillance. NBC News tried to contact Liu many times, but his cell phone remains off.

Cat and mouse between censored and censors
Meanwhile, the Chinese government is enforcing its strong will to hide the news from the public.

On China’s most popular Twitter-like service, Weibo, searching for names like "Chen Guangcheng" or "He Peirong" only leads you to some unrelated posts of funny videos, a predictable result.

But in the past few days, tweets with other words that netizens have been using as code words to avoid censorship, including "blind man," "sightless," "sunglass man" and "Shawshank Redemption," have all miraculously disappeared.

Threads guiding users to foreign media reports also have been deleted -- hours or sometimes minutes after they are added to Weibo. The wrestling between the censors and the censored is turning into a cat-and-mouse game and a test of imagination.

 

BEIJING – As China prepares to welcome U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday for an annual meeting on important bilateral issues, the focus of her visit has turned to the unresolved plight of Chinese human rights activist Chen Guangcheng, now under U.S. diplomatic protection. How will the latest controversy impact China-U.S. ties that are already beset by old and new problems?

Last week, Chen staged a daring escape from house arrest. He traveled 300 miles with the aid of supporters and has reportedly entered the U.S. Embassy in Beijing for protection.

His dramatic feat, despite blindness and 24-hour surveillance by Chinese security guards, has added to embarrassment in Beijing – which was already grappling with the leadership scandal triggered by a former Chinese police chief who tried to seek asylum at a U.S. consulate. In both cases, the United States was sought out as a source of protection.

The case of Cheng, a human rights campaigner who spent four years in prison and the last 19 months under house arrest, is like “a hot potato that the two governments will have to deal with,” according to Professor Jin Canrong, who teaches international relations at the People’s University of China.

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One of many issues
“There are some people in China who believe that there is some kind of American conspiracy to take advantage of China’s domestic problems to embarrass China, but these people are rather marginalized,”  said Jin, who specializes on China-U.S. relations.

“The mainstream thinking is that certain problems, like the Chen Guangcheng case, can be treated as separate issues, even if they are embarrassing for China in some ways. China’s leaders have learned to accept that China is a big country with so many problems and that some kind of embarrassment is inevitable. [And that] there is no conspiracy behind these issues,” Jin added.

The case of Cheng has only signaled that China and the U.S. are entering a “very difficult period,” he added.

Blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng escapes from house arrest

“We are facing a trust deficit. Old issues will remain like Taiwan, Tibet and others, but there will be more and more new issues,” he said. He noted greater regional leadership competition between China and U.S., the controversy over China’s military modernization, trade and economic conflicts, and what he called “the greater diversification of Chinese society” that is reshaping China’s domestic politics.

“From a diplomatic perspective, it is better to resolve the Chen Guangcheng case, this headache issue, as soon as possible,” he said.

‘Did not violate Chinese laws’
Surprisingly, a prominent human rights campaigner and a supporter of Chen seemed to echo a similar moderate sentiment.

“I hope that Mrs. Hillary Clinton will not regard the case as a diplomatic crisis,” said Hu Jia, who met Chen after his escape.

Hu, a leading activist who spent more than three years in prison on charges of state security violations, was detained for 24 hours for police investigation after he met Chen. “He hugged me warmly, lifting my feet off the ground,” Hu said of his meeting with Chen.

China censors 'Shawshank' as Clinton heads to Beijing amid dissident drama

In a transcript of a telephone interview with ITV News that was shared with NBC News, Hu Jia made a startling revelation that government authorities hold a benign view of Chen’s escape, too. According to Hu, police investigators said that Chen’s escape and the actions of those who aided him to find U.S. diplomatic protection “did not violate Chinese laws.”

“Therefore, the U.S. government should feel confident about this issue… I want to say to Mrs. Hillary Clinton that she should regard this case as an opportunity, not some kind of trouble,” said Hu.

He said the U.S. should see it as a chance for the U.S. government to urge China to respect human rights and to “use the resolution of the Chen Guangcheng case to boost the confidence of the international community” in China.

Providing more details of his meeting with Chen, Hu said that Chen has “grown more silver hair, his hands were shivering, and there were bruises and injuries caused by climbing over the wall.”

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Both sides looking for a resolution
Hu said that after Chen entered the U.S. Embassy, China’s Foreign Ministry immediately contacted the U.S. Embassy for “negotiation.” So far, “no concrete results,” he said.

According to one well-informed source with close ties to China's dissident community, there is "lots of pressures" to resolve the case. 

"Chen is demanding protection for himself and his family and respect for his rights, but if that cannot be granted, then he may have no choice but to travel abroad for medical treatment," said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

However, despite various reports that both China and the United States are trying to hammer out a deal to resolve the case ahead of Clinton's visit, a government source said that no breakthrough has been achieved. 

"No news yet," according to the source who also requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the case.

More on Chen: Video reveals blind Chinese activist's plight

 

As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton headed to Beijing late Monday for a high-stakes meeting, China blocked Web searches of terms related to blind activist Chen Guangcheng including "Shawshank Redemption," the prison-break film being compared to his case.

The drama over the dissident, who according to NBC News sources is holed-up under U.S. protection in Beijing, threatens to overshadow this week's top-level talks between the two governments.

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In a further complication, the activist is seeking to remain in China and continue his campaign for reform rather than living in exile -- creating a dilemma for Clinton and adding to tension between the world's two biggest economies. 

Chen fled house arrest in eastern China a week ago with the help of supporters, slipping out under the noses of dozens of guards and into Beijing, dissident Hu Jia and other activists have said.

Blind Chinese activist escapes from house arrest

Such is the sensitivity surrounding the issue that neither country has made any official comment or even confirmed Chen’s whereabouts.

According to a report in the Sydney Morning Herald, searches for Chen's name and the Chinese terms for "Shawshank", "blind person", "embassy", and Chen's home village of Dongshigu were all blocked on Sina Weibo, China's leading microblogging service.

Also blocked was "UA898", a United Airlines direct flight from Beijing to Washington, apparently after Web users speculated online about the possibility Chen would gain U.S. asylum, the newspaper reported.

NBC sources: Blind activist is under US protection

Chen's audacious escape from house arrest, under the watch of the world's largest domestic security apparatus, was a "miracle" of planning and endurance, said Guo Yushan, a Beijing-based researcher and rights advocate who has campaigned for Chen and helped bring him to the Chinese capital after his escape. 

But he said the 40-year-old, self-taught lawyer wants to stay in China and campaign for reform. 

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"He was adamant that he would not apply for political asylum with any country. He certainly wants to stay in China, and demand redress for the years of illegal persecution in Shandong and continue his efforts for Chinese society," said Guo on Monday, speaking in his first long interview since he was released from days of police questioning. 

The New York Times reported that analysts characterized the diplomatic situation surrounding Chen as "fiendishly difficult to resolve."

Behind The Wall: Video reveals blind Chinese activist's plight

Chen, who campaigned against forced abortions as part of family planning, was confined to his village home in the eastern province of Shandong since September 2010, after release from jail on charges he rejected as spurious. 

President Barack Obama nudged China to improve its human-rights record, saying the two countries' relationship "will be that much stronger and China will be that much more prosperous and strong as you see improvements on human rights issues in that country". 

But at a news conference, he walked a fine line between not saying anything that would make it harder to resolve Chen's case while conveying U.S. concern for human rights and appreciation for wider cooperation with China. 

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