《紐約時報》文章：異議分子流放 中共當局非常樂意
For China, a Dissident in Exile Is One Less Headache Back Home
By ANDREW JACOBS
After more than a week of high-level diplomacy over the fate of the blind activist Chen Guangcheng, the Chinese government was widely seen as making a major concession on Friday by agreeing to allow Mr. Chen to apply to leave for the United States.
The bigger concession would have been allowing him to stay.
Based on past experience, China is often all too pleased to see its most nettlesome dissidents go into exile, where they almost invariably lose their ability to grab headlines in the West and to command widespread sympathy both in China and abroad.
"The Chinese will be happy to get their No. 1 troublemaker out of their hair," said Bob Fu, the president of ChinaAid, a Christian advocacy group in Texas that was instrumental in drawing attention to Mr. Chen's cause.
Human rights advocates cite the case of Wei Jingsheng, long one of China's most famous prisoners of conscience, who sank into relative obscurity after Beijing granted him medical parole in 1997 and sent him packing to the United States. Mr. Wei, who now struggles to support himself through private donations, government grants and speaking engagements, said he longed for those first few months after his arrival when he was honored by United States senators and traveled to Europe on all-expense-paid lecture tours.
"At first the news media pays a great deal of attention to you, but then it wanes," he said from his home in Maryland. "You lose your leverage to expose the crimes of the Chinese government."
And if history is any guide, the Chinese authorities are unlikely to allow Mr. Chen, a self-taught legal advocate who had been silenced by seven years of prison and house arrest, to return home after his studies, especially if he continues his full-throated criticisms of the country's authoritarian political system.
It was the prospect of just such irrelevancy that prompted Mr. Chen to reject any discussion of asylum when he arrived at the American Embassy in Beijing last week after escaping smothering house arrest in rural Shandong Province.
During six days of talks that ended on Wednesday, American diplomats sought to negotiate with their counterparts in the Chinese Foreign Ministry over how to meet Mr. Chen's unusual demand: to stay in China, further his legal education and live "like a normal Chinese citizen," as he put it.
Both sides apparently thought they had found a way to satisfy Mr. Chen, but the arrangement fell apart after he left the embassy and fellow activists helped convince him that he and his family would be in danger if they stayed in China.
Shaken by accusations that they had rushed a flawed resolution, State Department officials on Friday came up with the new arrangement, which would allow Mr. Chen to travel to the United States on a student visa.
Jerome A. Cohen, a New York University law professor who helped broker the deal, said he hoped Mr. Chen would scale back his political activism while focusing on his education. "If he wants to stay here after his studies, then he'll have to ask for political asylum," Mr. Cohen said. "I'll be disappointed in a way, but I'll understand."
If Mr. Chen receives a green light to depart for the United States, he will arrive to find a fractured tribe of Chinese dissidents and pro-democracy advocates shouting over one another.
Some analysts say that divisiveness hobbles the movement's overall effectiveness and is one reason the Chinese government has allowed so many prominent intellectuals and political reformers to leave the country.
"I've had discussions with Chinese officials who thanked me for convincing them to release people because they ended up spending more time fighting other dissidents than fighting the Chinese government," said John Kamm, the executive director of the Dui Hua Foundation, which has negotiated freedom for a number of political prisoners.
Such disputes, he and others say, are partly borne of the frustration that comes from toiling for so long without much result.
Most exiles arrived in the late 1980s and early 1990s, after the government crackdown on protests in Tiananmen Square sent scores of students seeking sanctuary abroad. Huang Ciping, 50, an engineer who volunteers with the foundation established by Mr. Wei, said many exiles lack marketable skills and speak halting English.
The Chinese government, Ms. Huang added, does not make their lives any easier, often refusing to allow politically outspoken citizens to return home. "The Communist Party wants to see you suffer," said Ms. Huang, who has not been to China since 1998. "When my father died, they wouldn't even let me attend the funeral."
There are, of course, a great many exiles who find success as lobbyists, lecturers and professional agitators. Mr. Fu, the Texas activist who helped advise Mr. Chen, has significant influence in Washington, thanks in part to the largess of Christian Americans.
Harry Wu, the éminence grise of Chinese dissidents, who spent 19 years in labor camps, frequently testifies before Congress about prison conditions in China.
More recently, Rebiya Kadeer, once a wealthy entrepreneur, has became an internationally recognized leader for China's ethnic Uighurs.
The Internet has amplified the voices of many dissidents and eased their isolation. Yu Jie, 38, a writer who was given permission to leave China in January, said he looks forward to writing books that are not censored. In recent days, he has used Twitter to ridicule the notion that Mr. Chen could fight for legal reform by staying in China. "The first thing we need to do is stay alive," wrote Mr. Yu, who says he nearly died from torture by the police. "Then we can carry on with our missions."
Or as another activist put it: What good is a voice when it is trapped behind bars?
But Tseten Wangchuk, a former researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said he has seen many compatriots grow embittered after the initial rush of freedom. He said part of the problem stemmed from the personality of the typical dissident. "These are not people who easily compromise," said Mr. Wangchuk, an ethnic Tibetan who works for Voice of America in Washington. "When they come here, everyone thinks they are going to be the leader, but it doesn't work out that way."
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