Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., announced that he will investigate the negotiations between United States and Chinese officials in regard to dissident Chen Guangcheng, who fled to the U.S. embassy after escaping house arrest.
“I intend to formally request to review all cable traffic, classified otherwise, that surrounded these negotiations,” Wolf said during an emergency hearing on Chen’s case. “Had word come down from on high to resolve the Chen situation, no matter what, prior to the arrival of Secretaries Clinton and Geithner who were headed to Beijing this week for high-level economic and foreign policy talks?” he also asked.
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Wolf described the Obama administration’s negotiations on Chen’s behalf “naive” at best, and perhaps much worse. “Was there even a hint of coercion or pressure [on Chen to leave the embassy] involved?” Wolf wondered.
The congressman compared the current incident to the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989.
“There’s a reason that the student protesters in Tiananmen Square read Chinese translations of the American Declaration of Independence and carried paper mache models of what looked to be the Statue of Liberty,” Wolf observed at the hearing. “America missed an opportunity in Tiananmen. Will this administration, too fail to seaize a historic moment?”
