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 – 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.”

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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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.

---

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. 

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

"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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Blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng is under U.S. protection in Beijing after an audacious escape from 19 months under house arrest, a U.S.-based group said on Saturday, in a drama that threatens to ignite new tensions between the two governments.

The United States has not given any public confirmation of reports that Chen, who slipped away from under the noses of guards and bristling surveillance equipment around his village home in Shandong province, fled into the U.S. embassy.

---

China has also declined direct public comment on Chen's reported escape, which threatens to overshadow a two-day meeting with top Obama administration officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in Beijing from Thursday.

But Texas-based ChinaAid said it "learned from a source close to the Chen Guangcheng situation that Chen is under U.S. protection and high level talks are currently under way between U.S. and Chinese officials regarding Chen's status".

"Because of Chen's wide popularity, the Obama Administration must stand firmly with him or risk losing credibility as a defender of freedom and the rule of law," Bob Fu, president of the religious and political rights advocacy group that has long campaigned for Chen's freedom, said in an email to Reuters.

On Friday, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, asked about the situation, told reporters:  "I don’t have anything on this issue at all." There was no further update from the department early Saturday.

Blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng escapes from house arrest

The New York Times reported that the situation leaves the United States "with a new diplomatic quandary as it seeks to improve its fraught relationship with Beijing".

The reports of Chen's escape come nearly three months after a Chinese official Wang Lijun fled into a U.S. consulate for over 24 hours on February 6, unleashing a scandal that has rattled the ruling Communist Party months before a once-in-a-decade leadership handover.

Wang's brief flight to the U.S. consulate led to the downfall of top official Bo Xilai who had been openly campaigning for a place in the inner circle of power in Beijing.

Pu Zhiqiang, a Beijing lawyer and rights advocate, said reliable contacts also told him Chen took refuge in U.S. embassy grounds. The incident will be another damaging blot on China's security services, following Wang's flight, said Pu.

Video reveals blind Chinese activist's plight

"Everyone knew about the suffering of Chen Guangcheng and his family but nobody dared raised his head over this and ignored it," he told Reuters, referring to Chinese officials.

"Chen Guangcheng has been the most typical victim of this lawless, boundless exercise of power," said Pu. "But the day has finally come when he has escaped from it."

Chen, a self-schooled legal advocate who campaigned against forced abortions, had been held under extra-legal confinement in his village home in Linyi in eastern Shandong province since September 2010 when he was released from jail.

His confinement under relentless surveillance with his family fanned protests by Chinese sympathizers and criticism from foreign governments and groups.

Chen's escape and the furor it has unleashed could add to the headaches of China's ruling Communist Party, which is striving to ensure stability and authority before a leadership transition later this year.

It also threatens to overshadow a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who are due to visit Beijing next week for the annual "strategic and economic dialogue" between the two countries. 

Reuters contributed to this report.

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BEIJING – Asian-Americans continue to be the fastest growing ethnic population in the U.S., according to U.S. Census Bureau statistics released on Wednesday.

The data, which come weeks ahead of Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month in May, also demonstrates how integral a part of the American fabric Asians have been. As many as 1.5 million businesses in the U.S. are owned by Asians. More than a quarter million have served in the U.S. military. And nearly half of the Asian-American electorate voted in the 2008 presidential election.

And yet while generations of Asians have integrated into American society, a small but growing number of the 3.8 million Asian-Americans of Chinese descent are finding themselves in mainland China to study or to work.

Especially since the 2008 global economic crisis, many ethnic Chinese are seeking economic opportunities in China as emigrants. Almost all are also motivated by cultural heritage interests.

---

At the same time, Jeremy Lin's popularity has reignited discussions about identity among Chinese-Americans that are unlikely to wane as quickly as Linsanity.

One writer for the sports website Grantland hit on the issue during the height of Lin hype last month: "These have been a revealing two weeks, not only for the Asian-American community or the Ivy League basketball community or the talent evaluator committee, but also for the watchdogs, handwringers, and pulpit-thumpers. Not since Barack Obama's presidential campaign has there been so much national discussion about the appropriateness of discussing race."

And in China, where many American-born Chinese have gravitated over the past few years, race and nationality intersect in interesting, sometimes confusing, ways.

Brittney Wong feels "even less Chinese" in China than she expected.

"I realized how American I am," said the 23-year old Seattle native, who recently arrived in Beijing for a year-long intensive Chinese language course. "Which is strange, because I just assumed I would just blend in perfectly here."

Cultural disconnect
But in trying to befriend local Chinese, Wong came to see that "learning about their experiences in high school and their lives, how they lived so far, [are] so different from my experiences. Even their personalities."

The cultural disconnect is compelling enough to have provided some inspiration for a new feature-length film.

Daniel Hsia is a Los Angeles-based filmmaker who has just wrapped up production for "Shanghai Calling," a movie about American expats in Shanghai. "The world is turning on its head. Expectations are being reversed all the time," said Hsia.

In the movie, the main protagonist is a Chinese-American executive whose employer sends him to Shanghai. "I thought it would be more interesting to have the character [be] of Chinese descent but completely ignorant of Chinese culture. It just creates more conflict. It's more interesting to watch a character who looks like he fits in but doesn't."

Sometimes the cross-culture experience makes people feel even more American.

"In many ways, being in China has caused me to have a strong appreciation for just how American I am," said Jason Chu, a 25-year old Delaware native. "It has helped me come to terms or embrace the positive aspects of being distinctly Asian-American."

Chu is wrapping up two years in Beijing, where he has been dividing his time between serving as a pastor and writing music. The child of ethnic Chinese parents from Malaysia and Thailand, he grew up speaking English and began learning Chinese in college in the U.S. 

Speaking fluent Chinese, Chu has found, is perhaps the most critical determinant of authenticity. "There is this sort of disappointment that many Chinese-Americans are familiar with, where if you look Chinese or people know you're Chinese and your Chinese language isn't good, you're less of a person," he said.

Writer Gish Jen, on a recent trip to Beijing, recalled similar reactions when she first visited the mainland in the 1980s.

"In the early days, I used to feel they were quite critical," said Jen, one of a handful of hyphenated American novelists who led the multicultural wave of fiction in the U.S. in the early 1990s. "They saw me as a sort of fallen Chinese… You don't even speak Chinese, what's the matter with you."

Asian body with a Western mind
Although Jen believes mainstream Chinese attitudes toward overseas Chinese such as herself have improved, she thinks many still fail to understand what it means to be American.

"I don't think they understand what it means to be in between [China and the U.S.]," she explained.

The Chinese "don't distinguish between nationality and ethnicity," said Chu. "They don't understand that it's possible to have an Asian body but a Western mind."

That seemed to be the case when U.S. Ambassador to China Gary Locke arrived on the mainland last year. Some Chinese media commentators and bloggers voiced expectations that Locke, an ethnic Chinese born in the U.S., would be more sympathetic to Beijing's point of view. When it became clear that he was here to represent America, some of those same voices accused him of betrayal. One critic called him a "fake foreign devil who cannot even speak Chinese."

For Chinese-Americans like Chu, being in China means more about being American and behaving more overtly like an American. "I dress more differently [than the Chinese here]," he said. "I over-emphasize my foreignness."

Sense of apartness
Similarly, Toronto native Lili Gao thinks living in China has brought out a sense of apartness that she said she never experienced growing up in Canada.

"I never had any cultural identity issues in Canada. I speak Chinese, but I'm Canadian," said Gao, who was born in Shanxi before moving to Canada when she was 6 years old. "But then, coming back here, I realized I really was not Chinese. That was an interesting experience to have a clearer idea of identity."

As with many other Westernized Chinese, Gao found the issue of identity to be rooted in communication.  Although she speaks fluent Mandarin, the young marketing executive said that social culture was a large hurdle. 

"I couldn't possibly get used to it…the way people interact [here,]" she said. "The Chinese have a different way of communicating" that is not simply about language.

Now, having lived in Beijing for five years and working at Chinese companies, Gao finds herself "over-interpreting all the time, even when I'm communicating with foreigners!"

For someone like Jonny Chin, an 18-year-old senior at an international school in Beijing, it's simply that his American identity is much stronger. Even though he was only 6 years old when his parents, originally from Hong Kong, moved the family to China from San Francisco – meaning he has spent two-thirds of his life in Beijing.

"I still refer to America as home," he said. "Like when I say I'm 'going home' for Christmas. And when people ask, 'Where are you from?' I say I'm from the U.S."

With additional research from Brittany Tom and Isabella Zhong 

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