Pro-life Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng has asked for a seat on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s plane out of China, but President Obama’s top ambassador to China won’t say if that’s a “realistic” goal.
“Well, during the discussions that we had at the Embassy, he was also insisting on meeting with Premier Wen Jiabao,” U.S. Ambassador Gary Locke told NBC’s Ian Williams when asked it was “realistic” to for Chen Guangcheng to think that Clinton could fly him out of China.
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Locke indicated that the diplomats are working to keep Guangcheng in China. “He very much believes in China, really believes in helping reform China, which is why he said he always wanted to stay here,” Locke said. “So that’s what we were working on: a safe environment for him, taking him out of the village of the province where he had suffered so much, a new education. He always wanted to pursue his legal studies. And so it’s a full scholarship, housing, living expenses for him and his family, an investigation of the abuses that he suffered in the village, and of course reunification with the family.”
Chen said that he is “very disappointed” in the United States government, which he says lobbied for him to leave the embassy.
“I don’t think (U.S. officials) protected human rights in this case,” he told CNN.
