U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001

74–808 PDF 2012

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS AND HISTORY OF THE 

CHEN GUANGCHENG CASE 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE 

COMMISSION ON CHINA 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

MAY 3, 2012 

Printed for the use of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.cecc.gov 
CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA 

LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS 

House Senate 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, 

Chairman 

FRANK WOLF, Virginia 

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

TIM WALZ, Minnesota 

MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio 

MICHAEL HONDA, California 

SHERROD BROWN, Ohio, Cochairman 

MAX BAUCUS, Montana 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California 

JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon 

SUSAN COLLINS, Maine 

JAMES RISCH, Idaho 

EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS 

SETH D. HARRIS, Department of Labor 

MARIA OTERO, Department of State 

FRANCISCO J. SA ́ NCHEZ, Department of Commerce 

KURT M. CAMPBELL, Department of State 

NISHA DESAI BISWAL, U.S. Agency for International Development 

PAUL B. PROTIC, Staff Director 

LAWRENCE T. LIU, Deputy Staff Director 

(II) 
(III) 

CO N T E N T S 

STATEMENTS 

Page 

Opening statement of Hon. Chris Smith, a U.S. Representative from New 

Jersey; Chairman, Congressional-Executive Commission on China ................ 1 

Wolf, Hon. Frank, a U.S. Representative from Virginia; Member, Congressional-Executive Commission on China ............................................................. 4 

Fu, Bob, Founder and President, ChinaAid Association ...................................... 8 

Richardson, Sophie, China Director, Human Rights Watch ................................ 11 

Kumar, T., Director for International Advocacy, Amnesty International USA .. 13 

Littlejohn, Reggie, President, Women’s Rights Without Borders ........................ 14 

Horowitz, Michael, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute ............................................ 16 

Cao, Yaxue, Human Rights Advocate, Blogger ..................................................... 20 

Wang, Xuezhen, Human Rights Advocate ............................................................. 23 

APPENDIX 

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD

Paper entitled ‘‘After Leaving the U.S. Embassy, Chen Guangcheng Says 

He Wants to Leave China with His Family,’’ dated May 3, 2012, submitted 

by Bob Fu .............................................................................................................. 40 

Letter to U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk (and high-ranking State and 

Commerce Department officials), dated January 23, 2012, submitted by 

Rep. Frank Wolf ................................................................................................... 45 

Written statement submitted by Chai Ling, President and Founder, All Girls 

Allowed, dated May 3, 2012 ................................................................................ 47 

(1) 

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS AND HISTORY OF 

THE CHEN GUANGCHENG CASE 

THURSDAY, MAY 3, 2012 

CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE

COMMISSION ON CHINA, 

Washington, DC. 

The hearing was convened, pursuant to notice, at 2:03 p.m., in 

room 2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Representative Christopher Smith, Chairman, presiding. 

Also present: Representative Frank Wolf. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CHRIS SMITH, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM NEW JERSEY; CHAIRMAN, CONGRESSIONAL–EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA 

Chairman SMITH. The Commission will come to order. Good 

afternoon. 

The daring escape of Chinese legal advocate Chen Guangcheng 

from illegal home confinement was nothing short of a miracle, and 

it has taken the world, not to mention the Chinese officials and 

Chen’s guards themselves, by complete surprise. 

It was a great relief that I, and millions around the world, 

learned of his escape and his reaching safety at the American Embassy in Beijing on Friday morning. Yet, it is with equally great 

concern that I convene this hearing of the China Commission 

today. 

Having been handed over to the Chinese officials by American 

diplomats yesterday, Chen, his wife Yuan, and the rest of his family and friends appear to be in significant danger. Notwithstanding 

vague and potentially empty safety assurances from the Chinese 

side, Chen has, since leaving the American Embassy in Beijing, expressed an earnest desire to gain asylum for himself and for his 

family. 

Questions indeed arise as to whether or not Chen was pressured 

to leave the U.S. compound. 

A CNN interview, reported by the Atlantic, says, ‘‘Chen’s comments portray the United States as manipulating him, cutting him 

off from outside communication, and encouraging him to leave the 

Embassy rather than seek asylum. He says he was denied his request to call friends. He said he felt the Embassy officials had lied 

to him,’’ says the report. 

‘‘ ‘The Embassy kept lobbying me,’ ’’ it goes on to say, ‘‘ ‘to leave 

and promised to have people stay with me in the hospital. But this 

afternoon, as soon as I checked into the hospital room, I noticed 
2 

they were all gone. I’m very disappointed at the U.S. Government. 

I don’t think U.S. officials protected human rights in this case.’ ’’ 

‘‘When asked why he had left the Embassy rather than staying 

and perhaps seeking asylum,’’ the article goes on, ‘‘Chen seems to 

blame the Embassy officials. ‘At the time I didn’t have a lot of information. I wasn’t allowed to call my friends from inside the Embassy. I couldn’t keep up with the news so I didn’t know a lot of 

things that were happening.’ ’’ 

‘‘Chen agreed when Jiang,’’—the CNN reporter—‘‘asked him, ‘If 

you stay in China, is there no future? ’ He also said that he had 

tried calling two U.S. Embassy officials ‘numerous times’ but that 

no one had answered.’’ ‘‘ ‘I told the Embassy I would like to talk to 

Representative Chris Smith, but they somehow never managed to 

arrange it. I felt, and feel, a little puzzled.’ ’’ 

For the record, I placed a call to Chen on May 1 at 9 p.m. Eastern Standard time, after being informed by one of Chen’s American 

friends that he wanted to speak with me. I waited all night, until 

4 a.m., for a call back from the high U.S. official I was told could 

arrange that and the call never came. 

There are many questions, and there are even more concerns. 

How will the United States-China agreement on Chen and his family’s safety be enforced? What happens if Chen, or any member of 

his family, suffers retaliation? Where is Chen’s nephew, Chen 

Kegui? What happens now to He Peirong, the courageous young 

woman who drove Chen to safety? Like I said, there are many 

questions. 

Next week, I hope to convene another hearing of this Commission on Chen in order to take testimony from the Obama administration witnesses and to get some answers. 

Our purpose today is to examine his case and discern the likelihood that his family, and Chen, and supporters have any opportunity of true freedom and safety going forward and whether asylum remains a viable option. 

The story of Chen Guangcheng has been extraordinary and inspirational from the beginning. Blinded by a childhood illness, Chen 

pushed past profound barriers to school himself in Chinese law and 

became an advocate for the rights of the vulnerable, including disabled persons and rural farmers. 

Years later when local villagers told him of their stories of forced 

abortions and forced sterilizations, Chen and his wife Yuan 

Weixing documented these stories, later building briefs for a class 

action lawsuit against the officials involved. 

Their efforts gained international news media attention in 2005, 

and their challenge to China’s draconian population control policies 

spurred harsh and extended official retaliation, including torture 

and beatings. 

The Commission and other committees of the Congress have examined China’s population control policies many times. As a matter 

of fact, from this podium itself I have heard from victims and had 

victims give testimony about that brutal one-child-per-couple policy. 

We even heard from a woman who ran the program, Mrs. Gao 

from Fujian Province, who said, self-described, ‘‘By day I was a 

monster, by night a wife and mother,’’ and told how the full weight 
3 

of the dictatorship was behind her efforts to ensure that children 

were not born. 

China sometimes paints a false picture for gullible foreigners 

that the policy is somehow being eased or mitigated, but the few 

exceptions they permit do not fundamentally modify its rough, 

harsh, brutal, and ugly character. Chen Guangcheng and his wife 

knew it, and they faced huge retaliation for speaking out against 

it. 

For the record, family planning officials down to the village and 

local level maintain extreme vigilance on out-of-plan children. The 

English phrase they use is ‘‘family planning,’’ but the plan is not 

the family’s plan, but the State’s. They use the word ‘‘measures’’ to 

mask what they do. What they do is forced abortions and involuntarily sterilizations. 

When an out-of-plan birth does take place, they impose crushing 

fines on the couple. All unwed mothers are compelled by the State 

to abort. Among China’s many coercions and tyrannies, this is the 

one that touches virtually every Chinese, especially women and 

children, and we now know that there are missing girls by the tens 

of millions, the lost daughters of China. 

It was Chen Guangcheng who challenged these horrific violations 

of women’s rights, and that is when the hammer fell. Chen 

Guangcheng has faced enormous government opposition for his efforts, but he has refused to back down. He and his family have 

paid a dear price. Chen, his wife, mother, and children, have separately and repeatedly been harassed and denied their basic freedoms now for seven years. 

After serving more than four years in prison on trumped up 

charges, Chen was released in 2010, only to be locked up with his 

family in their home under 24-hour surveillance, with all forms of 

communications with the outside world severed. On more than one 

occasion, Chen and his wife were severely beaten and then denied 

medical treatment for their injuries. 

Their six-year-old daughter, Chen Kesi, was prevented from attending school. This was in violation of the child’s right to an education and more payback for her parents’ actions. In the past few 

months, this little girl has been permitted to attend school, but 

only with three guards with her everywhere she goes. 

In all of this and more, Chen Guangcheng and his family have 

endured this as so-called ‘‘free citizens’’ under Chinese law. It is no 

wonder then that when Chen felt it worth risking his life to escape 

this hellish condition, last week he sought our help, the U.S. Government. His three demands to Premier Wen laid out in an online 

video he posted are incredibly cogent, and urged the Chinese Government to address them fully and immediately. 

In a background briefing, a senior U.S. official in Beijing explained that Chen consistently expressed his wish that he and his 

family stay in China, and that they be ensured the lives of normal 

citizens. It is unclear whether the path to political asylum was discussed seriously, or whether it was done so in a hurry, or whether 

he was pressured in any way and at any time in the process to remain in China, especially with the Summit that began today. 

He is now away from the Embassy in a local hospital, asking for 

the right to leave. He said, ‘‘I think we’d like to rest in a place out-
4 

side of China. Help my family and I leave safely,’’ he told the Associated Press. The eyes of the world are watching to see that his 

wishes are honored by the Chinese Government. 

I, and everyone on our Commission and in Congress, are gravely 

concerned for the safety, well-being, and whereabouts of Chen’s 

supporters, including He Peirong, who drove him from his village 

to Beijing on the night of his escape, and now remains incommunicado. We are also concerned about the other members of the family, 

and that is why we are convening this important hearing today. 

I would like to now yield to my good friend and colleague, the 

Chairman of the Lantos Human Rights Commission, Congressman 

Frank Wolf. 

STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK WOLF, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE 

FROM VIRGINIA; MEMBER, CONGRESSIONAL–EXECUTIVE 

COMMISSION ON CHINA 

Representative WOLF. Thank you, Chris. 

I want to begin by thanking the Chair, Congressman Chris 

Smith, who has championed Chen’s case in Congress. Today’s hearing is just the latest chapter in what is a long history of Congressman Smith’s dogged human rights advocacy. 

It is fitting that Chen reportedly requested to speak to Congressman Smith when he was at the U.S. Embassy, although one of the 

many questions surrounding Chen’s case is why that phone call 

was never facilitated. As the news cycle unfolded yesterday, what 

began as a purported diplomatic triumph evolved into a diplomatic 

fiasco, and now the fate of this man and his family hangs in the 

balance. 

While details are still emerging, it appears that the most generous read of the administration’s handling of this case is that it 

was naive in accepting assurances from a government that has a 

well-known and documented history of brutally repressing its own 

people. 

Consider some of the following, and if you think about these 

things: in the last year alone more than 30 Tibetan monks and 

nuns, including several who were very young, have set themselves 

aflame in desperation at the abuses endured by their people. Every 

one of the approximately 25 underground Catholic bishops is either 

in jail or under house arrest, under strict surveillance, or in hiding. 

Protestant house church leaders are routinely imprisoned and 

harassed. The lawyers that defend them are often given the same 

fate. In fact, when I traveled to China with Congressman Smith in 

2008 before the Beijing Olympics, every single one of the dissidents 

and lawyers that we were to have dinner with one night were either detained or warned not to attend, with one exception. That 

person who made it was subsequently placed under house arrest. 

China presently spends more on public security in an attempt to 

control its population than it does on its own defense. Our own 

State Department’s Annual Human Rights Report found that 

China is ‘‘an authoritarian state’’ where the government continues 

to muzzle freedom of speech and press and reign in civil society. 

This February, the Chinese Government went so far as to deny 

a visa to Suzan Johnson Cook, the U.S. Ambassador for International Religious Freedom. At the very time the Vice President of 
5 

China was meeting with the President of the United States, President Obama, the President’s Ambassador for Religious Freedom, 

Suzan Johnson Cook, couldn’t even get a visa to go to China. Of 

course, China has the barbaric practice of forced abortions and 

sterilization and it was this very abuse, which Chen has sought to 

shine a bright light on. 

The list goes on. In short, Chen’s case is not an anomaly, but 

symptomatic of pervasive human rights abuses committed by the 

Chinese Government against its own people. 

As recently as today, the Washington Post reported that China 

‘‘continues its crackdown on people who are believed to have helped 

Chen.’’ Chen’s heroism in escaping house arrest has been matched 

only by that of the brave individuals who, at great personal risk 

to themselves, assisted him in breaking free from the captors who 

had tormented, isolated, and mistreated him for more than 18 

months. Several have subsequently been detained, arrested, or 

placed under house arrest. 

In light of the realities and the newly emerging accounts of how 

Chen’s wife was treated in the days following his escape, notably 

that Chinese officials detained her, and threatened to beat her to 

death if Chen did not leave the U.S. Embassy, it is hard to comprehend why the administration would accept at face value assurances that Chen would be safe upon exiting U.S. protection. 

You wonder if there were other forces at work. Had word come 

down from on high to resolve the Chen situation no matter what 

prior to the arrivals of Secretaries Clinton and Geithner who were 

headed to Beijing this week for high-level economic and foreign policy talks? 

Was there even a hint of coercion? Was there any coercion, subtle 

coercion, forced coercion, or pressure involved? What were the internal State Department and White House deliberations? When the 

dust settles, I intend to formally request to review all cable traffic, 

classified or otherwise, that surrounded these negotiations. 

Further, the administration has an obligation to release the details of the deal that was struck with the Chinese Government, especially given how quickly it appears to have unraveled. It has 

been reported that Chen was told that a U.S. Government official 

would stay with him at the hospital, and yet, according to one news 

account, Chen said, ‘‘Many Americans were with me while I 

checked into the hospital and doctors examined me, lots of them, 

but when I was brought to the hospital room they all left. I don’t 

know where they went.’’ Was Chen deceived? Was that part of the 

arrangement? If not, why not? If so, why did Chen find himself 

alone, isolated and fearful, just hours after he left U.S. protection? 

There are more questions than answers at this juncture. I hope 

today’s witnesses will shed some light on the matter, especially Bob 

Fu, Chen’s friend and a man who is personally connected to some 

of China’s most courageous dissidents and advocates. 

Even though there is much we do not know, this much is certain: 

The administration, the Obama administration, has a high moral 

obligation to protect Chen and his family. To do anything less 

would be scandalous. President Ronald Reagan famously said that 

‘‘the U.S. Constitution is a covenant that we have made not only 

with ourselves, but with all of mankind.’’ 
6 

Some in Washington may forget that the document forged in 

those hot Philadelphia summer days of 1787 transcends history, 

but dissidents and freedom-loving people the world over know this 

intuitively to be true. 

There is a reason the student protesters in Tiananmen Square 

read Chinese translations of the American Declaration of Independence and carried papier mache models of what looked to be the 

Statute of Liberty. 

America missed an opportunity. When history looks at it, America missed an opportunity in Tiananmen. Will this administration, 

too, fail to seize a historic moment? The reverberations of such a 

failure are nearly impossible to calculate. The world is watching, 

both dictators and dissidents. The administration must be bold. 

The administration must ensure Chen’s safety and that of his family. If news reports are to be believed about Chen’s wishes, the administration must—must—grant him and his family asylum and 

refuse—refuse, refuse—to apologize, despite a Chinese Government 

demand. 

Throughout history, America’s embassies have been islands of 

freedom. Recall the group of Pentecostals known as the Siberian 

Seven, who, seeking religious freedom and the right to emigrate, 

lived in the U.S. Embassy in Moscow for five years beginning 1978. 

No one in the Carter administration, no one in the Reagan administration said they had to leave. No one negotiated and said, go out 

and be on your own in Moscow. They allowed them to stay five 

years. 

Or consider Joseph Cardinal Mozinski, a stalwart opponent of 

Communism and defender of religious freedom who took refuge in 

a U.S. Embassy in Budapest for 15 years. Chen initially found safety in the Embassy and now that guarantee is jeopardized. 

I am confident there will come a day when the Communist Party’s brutal reign will end, when the Chinese people will experience 

a new birth of freedom. Men like Chen and women like fellow dissident Pearl who helped facilitate Chen’s escape represent China’s 

future. Their oppressors and the One Party structure that sustained them will be on the trash heap of history. The same way 

that President Reagan said ‘‘tear down the wall and the evil empire, and they will fall,’’ the same thing will happen to the Chinese 

Government. Until that day comes, America should always stand 

with the Chens of the world. 

Again, I thank the Chairman for having this hearing and yield 

back the balance of my time. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you very much, Chairman Wolf. 

I’d like to now introduce our very distinguished—we have six 

outstanding human rights advocates who are testifying today, and 

I will begin, first, with Pastor Bob Fu, who was a leader in the 

1989 student democracy movement in Tiananmen Square, and 

later became a house church pastor and founder, along with his 

wife. 

In 1996, authorities arrested and imprisoned them for their 

work. After their release, they escaped to the United States in 2002 

and founded ChinaAid Association. ChinaAid monitors and reports 

on religious freedom in China and provides a forum for discussion 

among experts on religion, law, and human rights in China. 
7 

Pastor Fu is frequently interviewed by media outlets around the 

world and has testified at U.S. congressional hearings. I will note 

parenthetically that when Chairman Wolf and I were in China on 

one of our many trips we contacted Bob Fu, who helped arrange 

for us to meet with house church leaders. 

We, in a very kidding way, said that we were heading to 

Tiananmen Square to unfurl a banner that said ‘‘Human Rights,’’ 

and within an hour, our Embassy—because I’m sure Bob Fu’s 

phone is tapped—was contacted to say Wolf and Smith will be deported immediately if that happens. So here’s a man who is being 

watched, and yet speaks out and has incredible contacts inside of 

China. 

Dr. Sophie Richardson is the China Director at Human Rights 

Watch. A graduate of the University of Virginia, the Johns Hopkins 

Nanjing Program, and Oberlin College, Dr. Richardson is the author of numerous articles on domestic Chinese political reform, democratization, and human rights in Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, 

and the Philippines. 

She has testified before the European Parliament and the U.S. 

Senate and the House. She has provided commentary with the 

BBC, CNN, Far Eastern Economic Review, Foreign Policy National 

Public Radio, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and 

the Washington Post. 

Dr. Richardson authored ‘‘China and Cambodia: Five Principles 

of Peaceful Co-Existence’’ in December 2009, an in-depth examination of China’s foreign policy since 1954’s Geneva Conference, including rare interviews with policymakers. 

We will then hear from T. Kumar, who is Amnesty International’s Director for International Advocacy. He has testified before our Subcommittee on Human Rights—my subcommittee— 

many times, and before other House and Senate forums. 

He has served as a human rights monitor in many Asian countries, as well as in Bosnia, Afghanistan, Guatemala, Sudan, and 

South Africa. He has also served as director of several refugee 

ships and camps. 

Kumar holds an advanced degree in law from the University of 

Pennsylvania Law School, and taught at American University’s 

Academy on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law. 

Mr. Kumar was himself a political prisoner for over five years in 

Sri Lanka for his peaceful human rights activities. Amnesty International adopted him as a prisoner of conscience. He started his 

legal studies in prison and eventually became an attorney and devoted his entire practice to defending political prisoners, which is 

what he does now with Amnesty. 

We will then hear from Wang Xuezhen, who is a human rights 

advocate and purchasing agent for a furniture business from 

Shandong Province who recently fled to the U.S. to escape constant 

monitoring and harassment from Chinese authorities following her 

ongoing advocacy on behalf of Chen Guangcheng. 

Along with other human rights advocates including He Peirong, 

Wang attempted to visit Chen Guangcheng on several occasions 

during his 19-month home confinement and participated in numerous advocacy activities to free Chen. Authorities’ treatment of 

Wang includes beatings, constant monitoring, and detentions. Au-
8 

thorities detained her and her husband for two weeks in December 

2011 as they were preparing to travel to Jinyin City to participate 

in a Free Chen Guangcheng activity. 

We will then hear from Cao Yaxue, who is an independent writer, translator, and blogger about China. She grew up in China, attended Peking University and studied literature in the United 

States. Her writings and translations explore aspects of China’s 

past and present, with a heavy emphasis on human rights and the 

rule of law, including multiple pieces on Chen Guangcheng. 

Her posts have been frequently quoted at length by mainstream 

media outlets such as the New York Times. She had phone contact 

with at least one member of Chen’s extended family after Chen’s 

escape and has been reporting on the family’s situation. 

We will then hear from Michael Horowitz, senior fellow at the 

Hudson Institute in Washington. He is also director of the Hudson 

Institute’s Project for Civil Justice Reform and Project for International Religious Liberty. He served as general counsel for the Office of Management and Budget under the Reagan administration 

and taught law at the University of Mississippi and Georgetown. 

He has also practiced private law as a partner at national law 

firms. He has written frequently on Internet issues and human 

rights topics and he holds a B.A. from City College of New York 

and got his LL.B from Yale Law School. 

I would also note parenthetically that Michael Horowitz, as my 

good friend and colleague Mr. Wolf will attest, has been the genius 

behind many human rights initiatives that have found their way 

into law in the United States on religious freedom, the North 

Korea Human Rights Act, and other initiatives. 

We will then hear from Reggie Littlejohn, who is President of 

Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, a nonpartisan international coalition to oppose forced abortion and sexual slavery in China, as 

well as an expert on China’s one-child policy. She has testified before the European and British Parliaments and the U.S. Congress. 

She has also briefed officials at the White House, the U.S. Department of State, and the Vatican. She has also been interviewed 

on dozens of TV and radio programs and has spoken at Harvard 

Law School, Stanford Law School, George Washington University, 

and The Heritage Foundation. 

She has issued several incisive reports that are included in the 

congressional record. A graduate of Yale Law School, Ms. Littlejohn 

has represented Chinese refugees and their political asylum cases 

in the United States. 

I would like to now ask Pastor Fu if you would proceed. 

STATEMENT OF BOB FU, FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT, 

CHINAAID ASSOCIATION 

Mr. FU. Thank you, Chairman Smith and Congressman Wolf, 

other Members of Congress, and your excellent staff at the CECC. 

I want to maybe just ask to submit my written version. 

Chairman SMITH. Sure. Without objection, your full statement, 

and any items you would like to affix to it, will be made a part of 

the record. 

Mr. FU. As the President of ChinaAid Association, I am familiar 

with the details of Chen Guangcheng’s escape and was in contact 
9 

with the team of people who helped Chen flee to Beijing. I actually 

learned Chen left his house on April 23. 

After Chen left the U.S. Embassy, I stayed in close contact with 

both the relevant U.S. Government officials and people who are intimates of Chen who have been in telephone communication with 

him. From them all, I have amassed a great deal of first-hand information on the developments that have led to the current situation, which is rather shocking, regrettable, heart-rending, and disappointing. 

There are some important episodes that are confusing and I 

think need immediate clarification. First, according to the U.S. 

State Department and the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and the official 

Chinese announcement, Chen Guangcheng left the Embassy of his 

own volition. 

However, according to my conversation last night with Mr. Chen 

and several media reports, including the Associate Press, and the 

first-hand information from Chen’s friend and fellow lawyer, Teng 

Biao and from Zeng Jinyan, the wife of dissident Hu Jia, the U.S. 

officials relayed to Chen the threat made by the Chinese side to 

threaten his wife, Yuan Weijing. It was after learning of this threat 

that Chen was left with no choice but to reluctantly leave the U.S. 

Embassy. 

Much of the dispute between the accounts of the State Department and the U.S. negotiators and Chen’s recount with the media, 

I think, was around how to characterize that conversation on May 2 

before Chen walked out of the U.S. Embassy, relayed by the U.S. 

official. 

The message seems to suggest—well, let me put it this way. 

Chen was talked to by a U.S. Government official before he stepped 

out of the Embassy and he was told it was a Chinese Government 

message, that the Chinese Government wanted to convey that message through the U.S. Government official, that if he chose not to 

walk out of the Embassy on May 2 he would not be able to see his 

wife and his children again. His wife and children will be returned 

to the Dongshigu village, the Shuanghou town, Linyi city, which 

has been hell for this family. 

According to my conversation last night as I tried to verify the 

nature of that conversation, what really happened, Chen said after 

hearing that message from the Chinese Government, conveyed by 

a U.S. official, his heart was heavy and he felt he had no other 

choice but to walk out of the U.S. Embassy. 

It sounded to him like it was a one-way street, either/or. Either 

he stays in the U.S. Embassy but faces the reality that his wife 

and children would be gone, maybe for their whole life, and he 

would not be able to see his wife and two children. Of course he 

did not know at the time how his wife had already been treated 

after April 27 when the Chinese guards found Chen was missing. 

Chen’s wife was immediately taken to ‘‘xingjingdui shenxunshi,’’ 

a criminal interrogation center, where she was tied and beaten and 

was threatened with her life. Basically, the interrogator told her 

that if her husband did not walk out of the U.S. Embassy, they 

would kill her. Chen, of course, learned about that after he had a 

reunion with his wife in Chaoyang Hospital. That was the second 

phase. 
10 

I think that was clear to anyone with reasonable logic that that 

should constitute a threat. If that conversation occurred anywhere 

here, I think that would demand a 911 call. What happened to his 

wife and to their children? His eight-year-old son was not even able 

to be seen by this couple for two years. What happened to them in 

the past seven years with this enormous torture and harassment 

and constant threat to this family. 

Their six-year-old daughter, as Chen recounted at the interview—his 80-year-old mother was beaten up, wounded, and the 

government would not even allow her, on her birthday, to receive 

medical treatment, in front of this six-year-old girl. I don’t know if 

that is a threat or not, but to me, after hearing what Chen has told 

me yesterday, I verified over the phone and I actually videotaped 

my conversation with him. 

I think I have a few questions I want to ask the U.S. chief negotiator, or whoever led that: Who is the one that relayed that information to Chen? What exactly was the wording from the Chinese 

Government? What was the U.S. response initially to that message 

by the Chinese Government? Why does he have to walk, on May 2? 

Why that date? Why was there no other option on the table offered 

to Chen? 

For instance, why would the U.S. Embassy not tell Chen that 

you have a choice, you can stay and we can continue to negotiate 

with the Chinese Government to allow your wife and two children 

to come to the U.S. Embassy so that you can have a safe environment to discuss your future? Why does that have to be a one-way 

street? 

I think these questions need to be answered. I certainly appreciate Ambassador Gary Locke and the administration officials who 

made the right decision on April 26 to allow Chen at least to have 

the six days without pressures and time of freedom for the first 

time in seven years. But I do want to ask these questions. 

I certainly think that some conversations I had yesterday about 

Chen, how Chen felt he was treated, or at least how much pressure 

he has received, I think I would reserve a later time to share. But 

the bottom line is, Chen told me yesterday, ‘‘Both my wife and I 

feel endangered. We are left alone. We do not have anybody 

present with us. Even as late as 9 o’clock, our six-year-old baby girl 

was crying for food.’’ They were suffering starvation the first night 

after their so-called guaranteed freedom. 

After somebody called the U.S. Embassy apparently and the 

somebody intervened with the hospital, and they were given some 

food. You can read that account and a very detailed description 

written by Dr. Teng Biao, one of Chen’s close friends, from his conversation over the phone about what had really happened during 

that night about their starvation. 

Second, I want to emphasize that Chen told me last night very 

clearly that he does not feel safe over there. He wants the United 

States to help him and his family to come out of China. Of course 

he did not use the exact words, but in Chinese it’s called seeking 

asylum or something like that in that nature. 

Remember, he is still in China and his wife was not even allowed 

to walk out of the hospital. None of Chen’s friends, human rights 

lawyers, human rights defenders, have been allowed so far to visit 
11 

Chen. Some of them even showed up at the hospital and they were 

not even allowed to come close. So the hospital room that Chen and 

his family members were staying in became essentially another 

Dongshigu village, just in a different forum this time, in the capital 

city of China. 

So I would call upon the U.S. Government, especially, I think, 

Chen specifically requested me again—you talk about his request 

to have a phone conversation with you. Last night, he specifically 

requested again and said he wanted to talk with Congressman 

Chris Smith. Unfortunately, this morning, a moment ago when we 

tried, the phone was powered off. So we don’t know what happened. He at least promised me he would keep it on if possible for 

a conversation with you today. 

I think, Secretary Clinton, this is the moment, I think, to deliver 

what you have promised, what you have repeatedly said in the past 

two years. She wants to see Chen and his family with freedom and 

safety. As you are visiting and dialoguing with your counterparts 

in China, this is the moment to deliver. I think Chen specifically 

made that appeal to Secretary Clinton to help negotiate, I think to 

reengage with the Chinese Government, to allow them to have a 

safe existence. So that’s his appeal. 

I want to leave the rest of the time for questions. Thank you very 

much. 

Chairman SMITH. Pastor Fu, thank you very much for that incredibly enlightening and passionate testimony. 

I’d like to now ask Dr. Richardson for her comments. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Fu appears in the appendix.] 

STATEMENT OF SOPHIE RICHARDSON, CHINA DIRECTOR, 

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH 

Ms. RICHARDSON. Mr. Smith, Mr. Wolf, thank you very much for 

having this hearing this afternoon and for your extraordinary, tenacious leadership on these issues. I think it’s not an accident that 

Chen wanted to speak to you in particular. 

I want to start with one premise, which is that if the Chinese 

Government was really serious about its commitments to human 

rights and the rule of law we wouldn’t be having these conversations again, and again, and again, which is not to suggest that we 

aren’t all happy to have this discussion with you. 

But I think the fact that 30 years into reform and opening up 

and 20 years after Tiananmen, that we are still discussing these 

issues, is a powerful statement about the choices the Chinese leadership has made with respect to political reform and the rule of 

law. 

Just to paint a broad picture, year in and year out we continue 

to document gross abuses: Use of the death penalty, forced disappearances, abuses of ethnic minorities, restrictions on the freedoms of religion, association, and assembly. 

I think Chen’s case, in particular, highlights some of the worst 

abuses that we have seen in recent years. Those include a naked 

disregard for the law, both with respect to Chen’s efforts to challenge illegal practices and to hold people to account, but also with 

respect to the treatment of him. 
12 

There certainly are gross problems with respect to arbitrary detention, which, as we’ve discussed, often extends to family members, including very young children. I find this aspect of the story 

in particular outrageous, that children should be subject to this 

kind of treatment. 

Torture and mistreatment in detention. We have heard credible 

evidence of physical violence against Chen, his wife, other family 

members, other associates, and restrictions on the freedom of expression, ranging from his ability to communicate with other people, people’s ability to go and see him or report on what’s happening to him. 

And let’s bear in mind that all of this has been in retaliation for 

work and activities that were entirely consistent with domestic and 

international law. I think that’s a very important point to remember, that Chen had done nothing illegal. I think the bottom line is 

that all activists in China, regardless of the issue that they’re 

working on, remain at extraordinary risks at all times. 

With respect to Chen in particular, I think obviously much depends on clarity about what he and his family want. If indeed they 

do want to leave, which seems to be the view now, I think it is incumbent on the U.S. Government to insist on access to him. We are 

very disturbed by the reports in the Washington Post today that 

U.S. officials have not been able to have any access to him for 

about 24 hours now. 

I don’t see any particular reason why Secretary Clinton, Secretary Geithner, Ambassador Locke, and other senior U.S. Government officials who are in Beijing at the moment can’t get in the car 

and go to the hospital and insist on access to him. 

If he does opt to stay, I think there is an obligation on the U.S. 

Government to mount a monitoring effort with respect to Chen’s 

treatment and his family members’ treatment of a kind that 

they’ve never imagined before. There will have to be a new Chen 

Guangcheng detail at the U.S. Embassy. 

But in the broader picture with respect to other activists and activism in general in China, I think there is an enormous responsibility on the U.S. Government, on activists, on other like-minded 

governments to watch incredibly closely—not just over the next few 

days but over weeks and months and years—to monitor what happens to other activists who will suffer from further retribution by 

virtue of this incident in particular. 

We know that the machine has already swung into action to 

place restrictions on people, some who are involved in this case, 

some who have nothing to do with this case. I think it would be 

a tremendous tragedy if the heightened awareness of human rights 

abuses in China were to fade when the spotlight shifts elsewhere 

after Secretary Clinton leaves town. That is, I think, all of our collective responsibility in the near and the longer term future. 

Thanks. 

Chairman SMITH. Dr. Richardson, thank you very much. 

I would like to now call on Mr. Kumar. 
13 

STATEMENT OF T. KUMAR, DIRECTOR FOR INTERNATIONAL 

ADVOCACY, AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL USA 

Mr. KUMAR. Thank you very much, Chairman Smith and Congressman Wolf. Amnesty International is pleased to testify at this 

important and timely hearing. We also want to recognize both your 

leadership in promoting and protecting human rights not only in 

China, but around the world. Thank you for your job, for both of 

you. 

Today, what is happening in China is not about this particular 

individual, Chen Guangcheng. This is about a system in China 

which is geared toward abusing its own citizens with total impunity. 

We started working on Chen’s case when he was initially arrested years ago for documenting abuses in the context of the onechild policy. We adopted him as a prisoner of conscience. The reason was because our research showed that he did not use violence 

or advocate violence, he was just documenting abuses and trying 

to publicize these abuses. 

So he was imprisoned for more than four years. During this time 

he was tortured and abused. When he was released, everyone 

thought that the saga was going to come to an end. But that is not 

the case. Like many other cases in China he was illegally detained 

in his house and also again abused, not only him but his family as 

well. 

So what happened about two weeks ago, less than two weeks 

ago, was that he escaped from the illegal detention and he ended 

up coming to the U.S. Embassy. Now the situation is not clear, but 

one thing we know from the U.S. administration officials who made 

public statements is that China gave certain commitments and 

there was an agreement between China and the United States 

about the treatment of Mr. Chen. 

I don’t know the full context of that agreement. It is time that 

the U.S. administration make it public, whether there were any 

signatures involved by the Chinese authorities; the real official document should be brought in. I urge the Commission to request that 

official agreement between the U.S. Government and China on 

Chen’s treatment. 

In the context of the strength of the agreement, Chen agreed, 

even though there were reports that there were some other issues 

involved which Amnesty International had difficulty confirming, 

and then he went to the hospital for treatment. 

Suddenly, what we are hearing is that the same agreement that 

the United States and China agreed upon has been violated. Now 

he is asking, at least according to the media reports, that he wants 

asylum for him, as well as his family, to the United States. 

The opportunity that is there for his case is rare for political 

prisoners. Secretary Clinton is there. Senior government officials, 

U.S. Government officials, are there. So if senior U.S. Government 

officials cannot solve this issue, the United States is having a direct relevance because of the agreement that was signed. 

We have to ask the question, what leverage can the United 

States exert or what interest can they do to get improvement in 

human rights issues in China. That brought up a bigger question 

about human rights in China and the U.S. engagement in policing. 
14 

Amnesty International is concerned that even though there are 

some meaningful improvements that were taken by different administrations, the current dialogue that is taking place, that is Security and Economic Dialogue, is not taking human rights as a serious and equal partner to the dialogue. 

Even the basic things, like renaming the Security and Economic 

Dialogue into Security, Economic, and Human Rights Dialogue, 

there is resistance. We don’t know where the resistance comes 

from, the administration here or from the Chinese. 

So if they can’t even rename the Security and Economic Dialogue 

as the Security, Economic, and Human Rights Dialogue, there are 

serious questions. 

If there is an agreement to bring him to asylum, what steps? Our 

fear is that when Secretary Clinton leaves, the interest will wane 

down, which we were told by the senior administration officials 

that that’s not the case. 

But to make it clear, let Secretary Clinton take a firm stand and 

make a statement about this case. Not only is this a human rights 

case, but this case is also directly involving the United States in 

a political case where we had an agreement. 

So let the United States stand up. Let Secretary Clinton, while 

she’s in China, stand up and make a clear statement. This will set 

the tone for future U.S.-China agreements, or even China policy on 

promoting and protecting human rights in China. 

Thank you again for inviting Amnesty International. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you very much, Mr. Kumar. 

I would like to now, if I could go from left to right—your right 

to left—Reggie Littlejohn. 

STATEMENT OF REGGIE LITTLEJOHN, PRESIDENT, WOMEN’S 

RIGHTS WITHOUT FRONTIERS 

Ms. LITTLEJOHN. Thank you so much, Congressman Smith, Congressman Wolf, for inviting me to this. I have been asked to testify 

as to two things. One, is what is the underlying issue that got 

Chen Guangcheng detained, and the other one is, what about those 

who helped him, in particular Pearl, also known as He Peirong. 

Something that has been left out of the discussion in a lot of 

mainstream media is, why is it that Chen Guangcheng has been 

the subject of such intense persecution? What is it that set off the 

Chinese Communist Party against him? It’s the fact that he was 

the one person in China who dared to stand up against the onechild policy. 

He and his wife exposed the fact that there were an estimated 

130,000 forced abortions and forced sterilizations in Linyi City in 

one year, in 2005, and it was that act that got him detained. He 

spent four years and three months in jail, during which time he 

was tortured, denied medical treatment, and now has been under 

house arrest. 

So Women’s Rights Without Frontiers obtained the field notes of 

Chen Guangcheng. We have the cases that he was working on 

when he was detained in 2006. We released those at a congressional hearing right here on December 6, 2011. It is called the 

Chen Guangcheng Report. It is 35 pages of case after case of the 

most horrific human rights abuses that you can imagine. 
15 

For example, a woman who was forcibly aborted and sterilized at 

seven months, villagers that sleep in fields to evade family planning officials, family planning officials who broke a broom—three 

brooms—over the head of a man whose children were suspected of 

having violated family planning law. 

Family planning officials forced a grandmother and her brother 

to beat each other because someone in their family had violated the 

family planning birth limit, and then finally the use of quota systems and the practice of implication, the detention of family members, in which if one person in a family is suspected of having violated the one-child policy either by being pregnant or missing their 

cervical check-up—women are required to have cervical check-ups 

between every two and every six months, depending on where they 

live in China—their entire family can get dragged in. 

There is one account in the Chen Guangcheng Report of a person’s extended family—their parents, their grandparents, their 

aunts, their uncles, their cousins—all being dragged in and tortured and fined 100 yuan a day for what they call family planning 

learning class tuition. 

So it’s clear from the Chen Guangcheng Report that the spirit of 

the Red Guard is living on in the family planning police today, and 

this is the issue for which he gave his life to China. He gave his 

life to protect the women of China from forced abortion, forced sterilization, and infanticide. 

And then the other implications that come out of the one-child 

policy are gendercide, the sex selective abortion of baby girls. Because of this, there’s an estimated 37 million more men than 

women living in China today, and that in turn is driving human 

trafficking and sexual slavery not only within China, but the surrounding countries as well. 

Then, in addition, China has the highest female suicide rate of 

any country in the world. Approximately 500 women a day kill 

themselves in China. There is untold suffering in China because of 

the one-child policy, and this is the issue that Chen had the courage to confront. This is also, I think, the central policy of the Chinese Communist Party, which is why they have targeted him so 

fiercely. 

Now, some people might ask whether Chen Guangcheng’s report 

on Linyi in 2005—whether these things are still happening, and 

they are still happening. Just about three weeks ago there was a 

report, a photograph that came across on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, where a woman in Linyi had been forcibly aborted 

of a baby at the ninth month. 

The baby was born alive, was crying, and the family planning officials took that baby and dumped it in a bucket and drowned it. 

There was a picture of the drowned baby in a bucket and that was 

circulated on Weibo and created outrage. 

I would also like to say, something that people don’t realize is 

that the coercive birth limit is not only violent against women, but 

men as well. There are many instances in the Chen Guangcheng 

Report where men were also detained and tortured. In one instance 

there was a farmer who had committed suicide because of the intense oppression. 
16 

In another report that I have submitted in Congress there’s this 

man named Xin Liu, who in 2008, his wife did have a second child. 

So the family planning police came to get the fine from them. He 

said, please, just take the fine, don’t be violent about it, be peaceful 

about it. They refused to do that. They instead started a fight and 

they broke a bottle over his head. So here’s a picture of him with 

his temple that was crushed when the bottle was broken over his 

head, and he is now permanently disabled. 

The second issue I was asked to address was the persecution of 

He Peirong, whose pen name is Pearl. She reached out to me about 

six months ago. She was running a Free Chen Guangcheng campaign, a sunglasses campaign, and wanted me to do it outside of 

China. She was doing it inside of China. She and I started emailing 

each other. We felt sort of that we were sisters in this cause of freeing Chen Guangcheng. 

She is the one who, when Chen Guangcheng made his great escape, drove him from Dongshigu village to Beijing. 

So the plan for his escape worked so well that he was not discovered to have been missing for four days. Then on the day that he 

was discovered missing, she and I Skyped on and off all night long. 

She was alone, she was afraid. She was afraid for Chen, she was 

afraid for his family. She was also afraid for herself. Then at 

around 5 o’clock in the morning when I tried to Skype her one last 

time, there was silence. She didn’t answer. I found out later that 

she had been detained. 

I am very concerned about Pearl. I am concerned that she may 

be tortured because she was the head of this whole network that 

was to free Chen. We know many instances in which key activists 

have been tortured in order for the Chinese Communist Party to 

try to extract from them who the other people were in their network. 

So I would urge that, in these discussions about Chen 

Guangcheng, that they include Pearl at all times. I really appreciate the way that Congressman Smith and Congressman Wolf 

have been including her in the discussions, and so Chen 

Guangcheng, I’m sure, will not feel free until his main supporter 

from the outside, He Peirong, is also free. 

Thank you. 

Chairman SMITH. Ms. Littlejohn, thank you so very much for 

that testimony and for bringing attention to the underlying cause 

of why the full weight of the Chinese Government came down upon 

Chen and his wife, and that is the forced abortion issue, and for 

reminding the world about He Peirong and the concern that we 

have to have for her well-being. 

I’d like to now yield to Mr. Horowitz. 

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL HOROWITZ, SENIOR FELLOW, 

HUDSON INSTITUTE 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Last month I was arrested in a respectful, non-disruptive demonstration on behalf of what Bob Fu and I called the ‘‘China Six,’’ 

and of course Chen Guangcheng was one of them. When the first 

news came out I sent an email to Bob and said, ‘‘We’re down to the 
17 

China Five.’’ He then sent back an email to me saying, ‘‘Soon we’ll 

be at the China Zero.’’ 

Mr. Chairman, we’re back at the China Six, and worse than we 

were a few days ago. Part of it was the failure, as Mr. Wolf indicated at the hearing of the Commission when the incoming President of China was here, to send a clear signal that the rights of 

these heroic dissidents represent priority interests of American 

human rights and American foreign policy. So part of what we’re 

witnessing are the fruits of the Xi visit to the United States. 

The real question is, how could this have happened? I have often 

thought and said to you, Mr. Chairman, that one of the great 

things we could do in the pursuit of American interests would be 

to replace the State Department with the AFL–CIO because there 

is an issue here of bargaining skill. Anybody at the Teamsters 

Union would understand, would have flunked every one of these 

people who were bargaining for the life and freedom of world hero 

Chen Guangcheng. 

Let me just give, very quickly, three indications of what I mean. 

The first thing a skilled bargainer would do is welcome this man 

to the Embassy and tell him he can stay as long as he wants, and 

would do so to take care of one’s client, but much more importantly 

to send a signal to China that time is on our side. 

Mr. Chairman, when I was bargaining for the Fire Officers 

Union of New York City I always understood one thing: If the other 

guy needed to sign the deal before I did he was in my pocket, and 

the Chinese understood that as clearly as possible. We seemed 

rushed to close a deal and the Chinese took advantage of that. So, 

an ‘‘F’’ in Bargaining 101 for the State Department on that score. 

Second, you don’t accept verbal promises. You get some action, 

some good-faith action, before you close a deal and turn over your 

house or whatever it is you are bargaining about, or cut the deal. 

So the first principle that anybody, any union leader would say to 

the Chinese would be: ‘‘Okay, you want to do a deal? The first 

thing is, bring Chen’s wife and child here to the Embassy. We don’t 

even talk until she is there with him.’’ That could have been done. 

Then the final and I think the most critical thing, Mr. Chairman, 

was not only to understand the risks that you and your client run, 

but to put yourself in the mind of the other side to understand the 

risks that they run. Anybody from any labor union would have said 

to the Chinese: ‘‘Listen, we’ve got all the time in the world. The 

world is watching what’s going on. Chen Guangcheng has become 

the face of China to the people of the United States and the rest 

of the world. You spend all this money building goodwill in the 

West and building goodwill in the United States. Every minute 

that this man, his family, and the people who rescued him are at 

risk is destroying whatever it is that you’ve built. The leverage you 

have from the American business community will be trumped if 

you continue to let this case fester. So, hey, as long as it takes, it 

takes, but he’s here, he’s comfortable.’’ 

That’s what happened with the Pentecostals in the U.S. Embassy 

during the Reagan administration. Instead, the Chen negotiators 

were so focused on our needs, our risks, rather than the needs and 

risks and problems of the Chinese, that they just rushed the negotiation. 
18 

Mr. Chairman, even if I didn’t care one iota for human rights in 

China or for Chen, and all I cared about was the agenda that Secretary Geithner was to pursue during his visit, I would be emphasizing the Chen Guangcheng case because it put China and not the 

United States on the defensive. It’s not our weakness, it’s their 

weakness that the Chen case created. 

Ronald Reagan understood that when he dealt with the 

Pentecostals in the U.S. Embassy. As George Schultz had said, 

every time the Russians wanted to negotiate nuclear weapons policies Reagan would say, well, what are you doing about this dissident and that dissident, and when are they getting out? 

They began to understand that these dissidents were not in the 

way of American foreign policy but that they were America’s foreign policy. Guess what? Ronald Reagan was able to negotiate a 

better deal on weapons, on ruble-dollar relations, and so forth—and 

able to ensure the freedom of Jewish refuseniks and Pentecostal 

victims of the former Soviet Union. 

Again, if you focus on your weaknesses and don’t understand the 

vulnerability of the other side—you’d get fired in your first week 

at the Teamsters Union. Yet such people who had been negotiating 

hold the life and the safety and the security of heroes like Chen 

in their hands. How sad it makes me at the sheer, utter incompetence of the people at the State Department who purported to 

bargain on Chen’s behalf. 

Now, what do we do to protect him now? Mr. Chairman, you 

have that chart up there, and it’s an extraordinary chart. As soon 

as Chen’s escape happened, the Chinese created blocks on the 

Internet, the great highway of freedom; the Chinese Government 

understands the importance of Internet freedom and I wish we did 

much better than we do. 

Today, if you type in the word ‘‘Chen’’ on an Internet search in 

China, it gets blocked. If you type in the word ‘‘blind man’’ in 

China, you get blocked. The problem with the stories about this 

matter, and this was in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal that listed 

the words blocked on the Internet in China, is that they convey a 

premise and a take-away message to the American people that 

China has the capacity to control what people in China get to see 

on the Internet. 

Mr. Chairman, as you know and as Mr. Wolf more than perhaps 

any Member of Congress knows, that is true only because of our 

horrible, misguided policies—because the State Department has 

failed to honor congressional intent in giving appropriated funds to 

groups with a field-tested capacity to bypass the Internet firewall 

systems of China, of Iran, of all the world’s dictatorships. 

There is $30 million now sitting in State Department accounts 

that was appropriated years ago to tear down Internet firewalls 

that they haven’t spent. There’s a Board of Broadcasting Governors 

that’s sitting there with $700, $800 million that has not sought to 

reprogram, as they easily could and should have done, just 10 percent of their appropriation for R&D into firewall circumvention and 

for giving money to successful, field-tested programs so that they 

don’t crash when 2 million users a day access their system, and so 

they could allow 50 million users a day to access the system. 
19 

We have it in our capacity, Mr. Chairman, to allow 50 million 

Chinese at any given second to search the word ‘‘blind man’’ anytime they want no matter what China’s Internet Golden Shield bureaucracy says, and we haven’t done it. We haven’t done it in violation of clear congressional intent and we haven’t done it because 

we have not pushed the bureaucracy at the State Department, 

pushed the Board of Broadcasting Governors, to do it. 

There is one possible clue for this. When asked why one of the 

most successful Internet firewall circumvention programs has not 

received significant support by the Washington Post, the response, 

Mr. Chairman—and Mr. Wolf knows this—the reason given to the 

Post was because if we did so China would ‘‘go ballistic.’’ So said 

a senior administration official to the Washington Post. 

So, Mr. Chairman, the way to achieve the protection of Chen 

Guangcheng and all of the others, is sunlight, information. All the 

verbal promises in the world given by China are meaningless as 

long as Chen and others like him can be isolated so that nobody 

knows what happens to him. As long as nobody knows, as long as 

the word ‘‘Chen’’ and ‘‘blind man’’ can’t be searched by people in 

China, he and others like him will be persecuted as he had before. 

He will be isolated. His spirit will be taken. 

But let’s create a world in which one microsecond after Chen 

Guangcheng’s wife is beaten up, the word goes out on the Internet 

and everybody in China knows it. We can make this happen, Mr. 

Chairman, with appropriated funds sitting in State Department accounts and we can make this happen in two to three months. 

So I hope that Internet freedom in China will be one of the 

things that comes out of this case, and if it does I think Chen will 

regard what he’s going through as worth every second and every 

pain he endures. Let’s have come out of his case a determination 

on the part of Congress to get this administration to tear down the 

Internet firewalls which are the real source of power and protection 

of the regime and the real sources of the regime’s ability to isolate, 

control, and persecute its people. 

I close by saying what Hu Jintao said, and I think we ought to 

take a clue from him. He said the stability of the Socialist State 

is dependent on our ability to ‘‘purify the Internet.’’ We have it 

within our means, so that this cannot be done by the Chinese Government. We have it within our ability so that YouTube can broadcast to 50 million people in China and the rest of the world within 

10 minutes of the time persecution happens, with the information 

received in China and elsewhere on cell phones as well as computers. We can make the Internet ‘‘impute’’ by making it a source 

of immediate information when further torture or isolation of Chen 

Guangcheng or others like him takes place. 

So, let’s honor this man and protect this man by tearing down 

the Internet firewalls with priority determination. If we do that, all 

of his suffering will not have been in vain no matter how his case 

turns out. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman SMITH. Mr. Horowitz, thank you very much for your 

testimony and your work. It is extraordinary. 

I’d like to now introduce our next panelist, Cao Yaxue. If you 

could proceed. Thank you again for being here. 
20 

STATEMENT OF CAO YAXUE, HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCATE; 

BLOGGER 

Ms. CAO. Thank you, Representative Smith, and thank you Representative Wolf, for having this hearing and for giving me this opportunity to speak on what I know about Chen Guangcheng’s case. 

I am the person, on last Friday afternoon around 1:30, who was 

on Twitter and I had been following—I’ve been active on Twitter 

because I work at home. I saw a Tweet. Somebody Tweeted from 

China. Somebody Tweeted something they found on the Chinese 

Weibo, the Chinese microblog, that Chen Guangcheng’s nephew 

slashed local officials and thugs with two knives, and now he’s on 

the run in the field. That Tweet had a number with it. 

So without hesitation, I grabbed the phone and I called. When 

I did that, I really didn’t expect to reach him because I thought, 

well, I have lived here long enough, I thought, well, the police 

would have taken him already by now or he won’t answer without 

knowing the source of the caller. 

But I found him. I found an agitated, scared young man. Well, 

he’s in his early 30s, a young father. So I talked to him. He told 

me what happened on that day. In China time, that was the night 

of the day when the guards and the local authorities found Chen 

Guangcheng missing, last Thursday. 

So he told me everything. I said, hold on. Let me get my recorder. I want you to speak on record and I want to get your words, 

with your permission, as quickly as possible online and that’s what 

I did. I did just that. I recorded his message. He told me the entire 

story, what he knew about that day. Within hours, I put it on the 

Web site called the Free Chen Guangcheng Web site, which I maintain with a group of friends, volunteers. We are all doing this on 

our own. 

I put the recording there. Within 15 hours, I put a Chinese and 

English transcription of the conversation and I forwarded it to all 

the media outlets I could find. So that’s why the nephew’s story is 

so quickly on the pages of the international news, otherwise it 

would still be hearsay. 

That said, I want to tell the hearing what happened after the 

conversation. Now, after the conversation, the next day, also from 

Twitter, I found out that the lawyer, through his wife, was able to 

find him. He was still on the run. That night when I talked to him 

he was already—he called immediately two police bureaus and no 

police were coming. He was surrendering himself but no authorities 

came to take him. Then he was still at large. 

So through his wife, his lawyer—six lawyers quickly formed a 

team. One of the lawyers in the province contacted him and was 

able to speak to him. He said, ‘‘I was scared.’’ At the time he was 

away from the immediate area. At this point he was on the run. 

So right now we don’t have any words from the Chinese authorities 

as to where this young man is, what happened to him, is he in police custody? 

Isn’t it the government’s responsibility to know that, to find him? 

For crying out loud, he surrendered himself. He’s innocent, but he 

did call. So what happened to this young man? He feared for his 

life. He told his lawyer, a black car has been following him all 

around. He said he is less fearful to be in police custody than being 
21 

caught by a bunch of thugs, because he witnessed how his uncle 

and his uncle’s family were beaten before. Also, from the Chinese 

authorities there is a statement, there is a response. 

The second day after Chen Guangcheng disappeared, the Yinan 

county, that is one of the nine counties of Linyi city, the Yinan 

county’s Web site—official Web site—posted a statement, two sentences, two or three sentences, saying that Chen Kegui, so and so, 

Chen Kegui, slashed our officials with knives and is on the run for 

fearing his crimes. That’s the entirety of the statement, and we are 

trying to apprehend him. 

Now, that statement made no mention of Chen Guangcheng and 

it made no mention of why this man, a good man so far, innocent 

man so far, slashed a whole bunch of authorities, Party cadets. No. 

That’s the Chinese Government. That’s the statement. 

So from a reliable source that I think is based in the United 

States, the father—oh—the young man told me that his father, who 

is the eldest brother of Chen Guangcheng, the thugs took him away 

that night. The knife slashing happened after his father—in other 

words, the brother of Chen Guangcheng—was taken away. 

So, so far what we know is at least Chen Guangcheng’s eldest 

brother, Chen Guangcheng’s sister-in-law, Chen Guangcheng’s 

cousin, and the son of this cousin are in the hands of the authorities. Okay. That is, so far, what we know. 

Now, I want to quickly talk about the state that I found this 

young man was in. Eleven times—I personally counted—he mentioned the word ‘‘law.’’ In turn, he was appealing to the law to defend him. Another moment, he was desperate. He was sobbing, he 

was shaking, that he did not for a moment believe the law would 

defend him. That was the thing. 

The conversation is long. If anybody is interested, they can go to 

my Web site, which is www.seeingredinchina.com, to read the complete transcription. But there is one point I want to emphasize. He 

said, ‘‘I love my motherland, but look at what she gives me.’’ He 

also said, at the very end of our conversation, ‘‘At the bottom of the 

society, all is so tragic.’’ 

Now, I also want to quickly give you my impression, because 

after I talked to him for several days I couldn’t shake off his image 

and the conversation we had. Now, on the one hand he’s just a villager. He is what the Chinese official propaganda would like to call 

‘‘low quality people, not suitable for democracy.’’ But I find this 

young man to be reasonable, good-hearted, and absolutely intelligent, speaking coherently under such a difficult situation. 

In other words, he represented the goodness of China just like 

his uncle. So on the one hand you have these good people as represented by Chen Guangcheng, by the nephew. On the other hand, 

you have the thuggish government. Where are we? I am an American. When I say ‘‘we,’’ I mean the United States. Where are we? 

Who are we standing with? 

Now, if you allow me, I am not listed to speak about this, but 

I want to pick up on what Dr. Richardson and Mr. Horowitz said, 

because I have been following Twitter’s Chinese community. These 

are people who are living in China but have the technical 

savvyness to climb the wall and are very active on Twitter. 
22 

I want to give the hearing a little bit of an idea—I want you to 

know because it’s of the utmost importance to know what the reactions are after Chen Guangcheng left the Embassy: Overwhelming 

disbelief at how this could have happened; overwhelming anger, 

and a sense of betrayal. 

Now, for six days, ‘‘mei guo da shi guan,’’ five characters in Chinese meaning U.S. Embassy. Those five characters, for six days, 

were magic words for many Chinese. China is a big country and 

there is one island, one safe haven called the U.S. Embassy, we are 

so overjoyed that he got there, it was a miracle, miraculous. Yet, 

we dropped the ball so terribly. We allowed this to happen. I’m not 

going to comment on how it happened because others already spoke 

very eloquently. 

Now, we also have to remember and have to understand that 

what Chen Guangcheng represents for so many Chinese, strangers, 

Chinese netizens who went to the village, got beaten, got robbed, 

lost their jobs, lost their houses afterward, braving such harsh punishment for doing nothing wrong. Why? Because they love Chen 

Guangcheng. Why do they love Chen Guangcheng? Because Chen 

Guangcheng, as a blind man, is a source of light. 

There are no poetic words, but literally, he is a source of light. 

He represents the goodness and the bravery that are both in short 

supply in China. He lives in the poorest village. He didn’t go to 

school until he was 18. He is blind. Where on earth did you find 

such a man? Where? Tell me. And he is this symbol. 

Now we must understand the larger picture. Now, I am an ordinary citizen. My larger picture might not be the same as the larger 

picture of our State Department officials. But the one piece I saw 

in this larger picture may very well be the most significant piece, 

which is that China’s pro-democracy citizens, whether they are outspoken or not, look upon the United States for support. 

If we failed Chen Guangcheng, it deals a horrible blow for this 

population that is braving persecution for change in China for the 

better, and that we will suffer the pain for years and years to come. 

We will lose all credibility. 

I mean, may I read a few quotes I took from Twitter? Number 

one, very straightforward: ‘‘The U.S. betrayed us.’’ Number two: 

‘‘Obama has no teeth.’’ Number three: ‘‘This is so recklessly cynical.’’ Number four: ‘‘Now that we can’t even trust the U.S. Embassy, I can’t tell you how angry I am.’’ Number five: ‘‘In 2012, the 

entire human race is unable to rescue a blind man.’’ Number six: 

‘‘After I read the report by CNN that the whole world is talking 

about this man, only the Chinese themselves don’t know what’s 

going on. I am so saddened by this fact.’’ 

The last quote is by the very well-known Canadian activist 

Sheng Xue. You might know the name. She said, ‘‘The Chen 

Guangcheng case is a challenge to the U.S. ideals, also a test of 

American strength. If the United States gives up on protecting 

Chen Guangcheng, it amounts to giving up its leadership role in 

the world. Down the road, in the face of terrorism and a dictatorship, the U.S. will never be able to stand straight up again.’’ This 

is by Sheng Xue. She is based in Canada. She is an activist and 

also a journalist. 
23 

That’s what I’m here to say and I’m happy to have said it. Thank 

you very much for this opportunity. Thank you. 

Chairman SMITH. Ms. Cao, thank you very much for your testimony. It is almost numbing to hear you say what other Chinese individuals are saying online. So, that should be a wake-up call in 

and of itself to the U.S. Government, and especially to this administration. 

I’d like to now yield, to such time as she will consume, Wang 

Xuezhen. 

STATEMENT OF WANG XUEZHEN, HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCATE 

Ms. WANG. I’m very sorry, but I can’t speak English so I’ll be 

speaking Chinese through an interpreter. 

Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. I myself am here as a 

supporter of Chen Guangcheng and I hope I have helped him and 

his family, and I hope through telling you all a little bit about what 

has happened to me myself in the process you will be able to get 

a real feeling for what he has been through in the past, as well as 

an accurate as possible a picture of what’s in store for him in the 

future. 

On August 26, 2011, I went to Linyi to help Chen Guangcheng’s 

daughter, Chen Kesi, be able to attend the school that she should 

have been attending. I went with some other people. This trip was 

very much in goodwill and we wanted to show the local government 

that we were coming in peace and goodwill. 

For that reason we decided to stay at a local spa which was open 

and not secret, and also it was far from Yinan county so they could 

see us. They were even able to watch us while we were sleeping. 

We wanted them to be very clear that the only reason we were 

there this time, the sole goal and purpose of our mission, was to 

let Chen Kesi, his daughter, be able to attend this school. 

We didn’t really get any good results. The only thing that happened is, even while we were asleep, there were seven to eight big, 

strong guys that were watching us all the time, and there were 

several cars parked outside watching us all the time. We didn’t 

make any progress in getting her to attend the school that she was 

supposed to be attending. As a matter of fact, when we went to try 

to visit the family we were met with violence and they pulled us 

out of the car. 

That same year, September 19, I went with an Israeli journalist 

to complain. We were going to Jinan, the provincial capital, to complain about the brutal treatment that we’d received in Yinan. Actually, also, the night before that there were two women who also 

tried to go and visit and they were robbed and beaten, their heads 

were bagged, they were thrown in cars, taken to another place outside of that city, thrown in the woods. Other than the government 

giving a warning regarding this, there was no explanation at all for 

what they did. 

On September 20, we went to the house of the fourth son in 

Chen Guangcheng’s family, so the brother that was just older than 

him in the pecking order. We went there to ask whether or not 

Chen Guangcheng’s daughter had successfully been able to go to 

the school that she was supposed to be attending. 
24 

As soon as we arrived, six people rushed in. We were not able 

to carry out the conversation at all. Instead, what we had to do was 

leave the school supplies, which we were bringing there. We left 

and we were followed by their car. 

On September 21, we decided that one person should remain in 

the motel that we were staying at and the rest of us would go to 

the school to see if there was any progress, but our car was 

stopped. There were three men on motorcycles who were waiting 

for us, so we left. We didn’t go into the school. We hadn’t left for 

very long. 

We had just left the school when we were pulled out of our car. 

As we were beaten the reporter that was with us was with us was 

ordered away and escorted away, but the rest of us were taken to 

an old empty house on the outskirts of the village. We were bagged, 

we were body searched in a very insulting and terrible way. We 

were beaten and we were taken to an old abandoned house. 

Then at night we were taken to the police station and interrogated for stealing a cow. I refused to sign the statement that they 

prepared for me and I was sent back to Laiyang. At 2 a.m., I was 

in the Laiyang police station being interrogated, and at 5 a.m. I 

was home. Then on the 21st as well, the person who had remained 

at the motel was also ordered away, taken back to that person’s 

home. The political police stole a lot of stuff, a lot of possessions 

from us. I myself went to Linyi to report these crimes and I was 

there by about noon that day. I called some reporters. As soon as 

I pulled out the phone to call the reporters there were eight political police that appeared and sent me home to Laiyang. 

On October 20, a McClatchy journalist asked me to come there 

for an interview. I went to complain about the treatment that I’d 

received previously when I’d been beaten and harassed. When I 

told them all about it, the only thing was, they handed me a form 

and told me to fill out a form. 

But the whole time there were seven or eight big, strong guys 

watching me, listening to everything I was saying. Then after we 

got in the car and we hadn’t even stopped—the car was still moving, it hadn’t even stopped—in Dongshigu village, the reporter’s assistant, the journalist’s assistant, was almost pulled out of the car 

before the car had even stopped. 

On October 26, I myself and several volunteers, along with a 

British Telegraph reporter, were heading to Yinan county to bring 

the school supplies—once again, more school supplies. We were 

going to bring them to Chen Guangcheng’s brother’s house. We 

were followed the entire way from start to finish. Then the Linyi 

county government answered our request. They said, yes, you can 

go see him. 

So since they said we could go see him we were trying to get police protection and an escort for us to go, to go with us. They said 

we couldn’t take our cameras and they also said that they wouldn’t 

escort, and that we were crazy, and then they slapped me very 

hard in the face. 

Of course, there was no protection to speak of. We were kicked 

out of the police station. The next day, we met a Japanese reporter. 

The political police appeared once again and jailed us, took our 
25 

clothes off, took our shoes off. They gave us full body searches after 

we were completely naked. 

I was working with a Finnish TV station, helping them to try to 

cover the situation, on November 5. That was the smoothest time 

I had ever had, trying to go and see Chen Guangcheng. I didn’t encounter too many problems, most likely because we were staying in 

the big city of Qingdao, which is very far from Linyi. Also, we had 

taken out our cell phone batteries. We had taken precautions. Even 

though we did that, the Qingdao police worked through the 

Laiyang police to investigate and interrogate me. 

Then on December 2, I had arranged, with several other volunteers, to give out gift bags and balloons with Chen Guangcheng’s 

picture on them in several major cities in the province of 

Shandong. We were in contact with each other to arrange this. 

Our contact itself wasn’t detected, but as soon as we began printing the materials we were detected by technical means, by the 

technology of the police, and there was no due process accorded to 

us. They searched my house, they beat my husband. He and I were 

both detained illegally for 14 days. 

For about 10 of those days, we were in our hometown, Laiyang’s 

6–10 office, which is part of the Party Cadre School of the Provincial Party Commission, which is often used to put away Falun 

Gong political prisoners, and it was very dirty. 

There were four volunteers, though, who kept their activities up 

as we had planned, even after my husband and I had been arrested. They were also detained illegally just because they insisted 

on the balloons and the gift bags and doing it. Their detention also 

was not one that was done with any warrant, it was completely illegal. 

There were hundreds and hundreds of people who have been to 

see Chen Guangcheng and to show their concern for him. I myself 

should be considered one of the lucky ones. Everything that I’ve encountered is not nearly as violent I’m sure as what a lot of other 

people have encountered. What they’ve encountered is much more 

violent than what I’ve encountered. They’ve been beaten terribly, 

brutally. Their bones have been broken, their skulls have been broken. 

I’ve even heard the story of a 16-year-old high school kid who 

was beaten in his genitals. I myself really just have a lot of contact 

with reporters, and I am also a Catholic, so I maybe am not considered quite as egregious so I’m not subject to quite as terrible treatment as some of the others. 

So you see what happens here when you have a brutal, rogue regime, these brutal powers that they have and they have no respect 

for the law and they’re basically stomping on people’s rights and 

stomping on the laws themselves. Chen Guangcheng and his family, he and his wife, have suffered much, much, much more than 

I have. He himself is known all over the world for doing what he 

did, standing up to protect other people’s human rights. Here is 

this father of two, right now here today, who is now trying very 

hard to protect his family. The question is, what should be done? 

How should we treat him? What should we do? We need to show 

him concrete actions. 

Thank you. 
26 

Representative WOLF [presiding]. Well, I want to thank the 

panel. Congressman Smith just got a call and he’ll be back in. But 

I want to thank the panel. I wish every Member of Congress could 

have been here to hear it. 

I have a number of questions, which I will wait to see if Mr. 

Smith comes back in. But I have a number of observations that I 

wanted to make based on the testimony. One, I personally want to 

thank the media. It’s very easy, in a political business, to criticize 

the media. But if it were not for the media covering this story, and 

as the young witness was just referencing, every time she attempted to visit Chen there was somebody from the media from 

some country that was with her. I just want to thank the media. 

Also, I want to make it clear that we appreciate very much the 

bravery of the Chinese people. I would hope that they would know, 

particularly as a result of this hearing, that the representatives of 

the State Department in Beijing do not represent the viewpoint of 

the American people. There is a distinct difference. 

The third question I wrote down here: Is there a representative 

of the State Department here today? Is there a representative 

here? You do not have to identify yourselves. Will you be getting 

this information to Secretary Clinton as soon as you go back? I understand she’s in China today and also tomorrow, is that correct? 

You will be doing it right after? Well, I appreciate that very much. 

The other thing I would say, as I was sitting there listening, 

when I think of the words of Ronald Reagan where he said the 

words in the Constitution were a covenant with the entire world, 

Congressman Smith and I were in Beijing Prison #1 where a number of the Tiananmen Square demonstrators were. I think if President Reagan were the President now, what a difference that would 

be. I mean, can you imagine what would be said by President 

Reagan versus this administration? 

Last, then I will have some questions if Mr. Smith doesn’t come 

back in, I have been here since 1981. I see a direct parallel with 

what is taking place today in China and the unraveling of the Romanian Government, the activities of the Chinese Government are 

literally parallel with Ceausescu. 

It is like they found Ceausescu’s playbook, and they didn’t realize 

what happened to Ceausescu and they’re following his playbook. 

It’s somewhat similar to what took place with regard to Russia before it fell. 

I wanted to ask Bob Fu the question, or if anyone here can sort 

of explain it, can anyone explain the difference between the comment that I heard on the news yesterday that Chen wanted to kiss 

Secretary Clinton if he could versus what he said in reality? Yes, 

ma’am. Would you—was that a translation problem or was that a—— 

Ms. CAO. I was on Twitter, and Chen Guangcheng had a phone 

conversation with one of his closest friends. Her name is Zeng 

Jinyan. She is the wife of Hu Jia. Hu Jia is one of the most prominent dissidents living in Beijing. So, Chen Guangcheng and the 

wife of Hu Jia had a conversation, had a call. 

Over the phone call, when Zeng Jinyan told Chen Guangcheng 

that, ‘‘Oh, we heard in the news that you said you wanted to kiss 

Secretary Clinton,’’ Chen Guangcheng said, ‘‘No, that’s not what I 

said. I said I want to meet her.’’ So now, in light of the past 
27 

event—at the time I just thought, oh, how funny, how convenient, 

to make this mistake. I just thought, it’s not something significant. 

Now, I also don’t want to over-interpret things, but over the last 

two days this has run over in my head: kiss and see, how close the 

pronunciation is. Did they pretend not to hear it? I mean, I’m just 

asking. The Congress can ask the same question, but Chen 

Guangcheng told his friend that he didn’t say he wants to kiss 

Clinton, he wanted to meet Clinton. So that’s what she, this friend, 

Tweeted on Twitter. 

Representative WOLF. Now, was that comment then put out by 

Chen or was it put out by the State Department? 

Ms. CAO. No. It’s—no. 

Representative WOLF. The first comment about, he would like to 

kiss the Secretary, was that put out by Chen or was that put out 

by the State Department? 

Ms. CAO. No, that’s put out by the State Department and the 

media. 

Representative WOLF. By the State Department? 

Ms. CAO. Yes. 

Representative WOLF. Okay. 

Ms. CAO. And the Tweets. I can send you the very Tweet that 

clarified this confusion. 

Representative WOLF. Now, Assistant Secretary Posner called me 

yesterday morning and gave me a briefing which sounded so upbeat and positive and said that he was going to meet with—that 

he had gone to the hospital with Chen and he was going to be with 

Chen on Thursday and on Friday. Today is Thursday. Does anyone 

know if he was with him today? Have you spoken? 

Ms. CAO. Who? Who? 

Representative WOLF. Assistant Secretary Posner. 

Ms. CAO. Oh, Assistant? I have no idea. 

Representative WOLF. He said I was with him. Went to the hospital with him and I would be with him on Thursday and with him 

on Friday. Nobody knows? 

Ms. CAO. No. 

Representative WOLF. Can you help me? Do you think the environment changed? Apparently I’ve heard some very positive things 

about Ambassador Locke. I was one who opposed Ambassador 

Locke’s confirmation to the Ambassadorship, and I told him so and 

he knew it. But he came up to me later and said, ‘‘I think you’ll 

be proud of my activity.’’ I’ve heard very positive things about Ambassador Locke. 

Do you think this went south after people came from Washington, that Ambassador Locke was basically trying to do the right 

thing and then when Campbell, who is a member of this Commission, interestingly enough, and others came out from Washington 

it began to go south and go bad? 

Does anyone have any feeling about it? Was Locke trying to do— 

and Bob Fu might have a better idea. But was Locke trying to do 

basically the right thing, and when Washington intervened it went 

poorly? Does anybody have any comment about that? Mr. Horowitz? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I think that it was just written in the cards to 

end the way it did. I want to come back to at least my judgment, 
28 

Congressman Wolf, that this end was predictable based on the sacrifice of bargaining leverage and the absolutely, inexcusably poor 

bargaining that took place on Chen Guangcheng’s alleged behalf. 

If it turned out that some of the people in the State Department 

were pleased at the seeming outcome of their bargaining efforts— 

Michael Posner, Ambassador Locke, others—when at the end of the 

bargaining all we got was a verbal agreement and if we indicated 

to China that we needed to get the deal wrapped up quickly and 

sent every signal we did have such a need, so much more is the 

pity, so much more must be the criticism. 

There may be cables that indicate whether there was goodwill, 

malice, or whatnot on their part, but I come back to the notion that 

anybody skilled in serious bargaining could have predicted the terrible outcome of a negotiation that took place in the way that it 

did. 

Representative WOLF. Ms. Richardson, you mentioned, and I 

thought it was a very positive idea—could you go into a little more 

detail about, since Secretaries Clinton and Geithner—although personally I don’t think Geithner is that interested in human rights 

and religious freedom—but can you talk about the merit of both 

Secretary Clinton and Secretary Geithner going directly and involving themselves personally, and even going to the hospital to visit 

Chen? Can you tell us why you think that would be important and 

how that would be helpful? I think it would be very helpful. 

Dr. RICHARDSON. I think it’s mostly the immediate circumstances 

and the longer term game, so to speak, in the sense that I think 

with every hour that goes by when American officials don’t have 

access to Chen the stakes go up. On your earlier question, the 

Washington Post has been reporting for several hours that American officials haven’t had access to him since they left the hospital. 

So I think it’s a moment that requires some fairly dramatic action on the part of the United States to demonstrate the gravity of 

the situation and the lengths to which it’s willing to go to try to 

rectify it. 

We and many others have made the point for a long time that 

unless and until a much broader spectrum of U.S. Government officials, even if they don’t necessarily ostensibly have a stake in the 

human rights fight—and in my world that’s a very short list of people or agencies—that the United States looks stronger and more coordinated if the broader the group of diplomats raised these issues. 

So I think in this particular moment, when a very visible gesture 

is likely necessary to get things back on the rails so to speak, that 

to have not just Secretary Clinton and not just Ambassador Locke, 

who obviously have been deeply involved in all of this, but to have 

a broader cross-section of U.S. Government officials to demonstrate 

the depth and the breadth of concern about human rights issues 

across the government. It’s one way of really making that point. 

We’ve asked for years that all of the agencies that participate in 

the Strategic and Economic Dialogue [S&ED] be tasked with at 

least one human rights talking point, partly because you never 

know who’s sitting on the other side of the table and might be 

slightly more receptive to that issue. 

But I also think that kind of coordination across the United 

States really registers with the Chinese side. It was not my sense 
29 

going into this S&ED before the Chen incident arose—it was once 

again my sense, I should say, that going into the fourth S&ED that 

the United States was any more poised to demonstrate a broader 

commitment to human rights than it has been in the past. So I 

think this is a great moment to set a new precedent and have kind 

of a broader cross-section of diplomats turn up. 

Representative WOLF. So this is a real test for the Obama administration. 

Dr. RICHARDSON. Well, I think a lot depends on what happens in 

the next 48 hours or so. 

Representative WOLF. I have written every official in the Obama 

administration—the State Department—the Trade Representative 

comes before and is funded by my subcommittee. I have asked 

them to go visit—not to worship, but to visit—a house church, an 

underground church, a Catholic church, a Protestant church, with 

the Buddhist monks, to visit. 

Not one person in the administration, not one person, has responded and agreed. Ambassador Kirk, who we fund in my committee, has refused—has refused—to go to any house church or to 

visit. 

Now, in all fairness, the Bush administration did not visit either. 

I wrote all the officials in the Bush administration and they did not 

visit. But this administration has failed and we will furnish for the 

record the letter that we have sent. 

When I get back to my office, we will call the State Department 

and ask for Secretary Clinton to go and try to see Chen directly. 

Has the President or the Vice President of the United States, 

President Obama or Vice President Biden, who I believe is trying 

to develop a special relationship with the Chinese, have they spoken out? Would it be helpful to have the President go to the Rose 

Garden and go to the press office and speak out forcefully with regard to this issue within the next several hours? Could anyone tell 

me? Mr. Horowitz? 

[The letter appears in the appendix.] 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I think talk is not going to work anymore. Yes, 

I think it would be marginally useful, but I think the Chinese 

would interpret that being as for domestic political consumption 

only. I think action is very important. I think there are two things 

in that regard. One, what Yaxue said about the Tweets coming out 

of China saying that our handling of the Chen case created a sign 

of U.S. weakness, sent a signal that the U.S. Embassy was no 

longer a bastion of hope, a symbol of resistance. 

The ironic part is, and I think you’ve made the point Congressman, that that will translate negatively in the negotiations that 

Secretary Geithner wants to do. It’s all seamless, as Sophie Richardson has just made clear. If we project weakness and surrender 

on human rights, China will exploit that in every matter with 

which they deal with us. So I think that’s the problem. 

I think the only response—I come back to what I said and it’s 

something you have labored on, Mr. Wolf, more than any Member 

of Congress, but action counts. I think that there may be other actions, but one that I think is very clear and very directly related 

to the protection of all of the people caught up in this tragedy, is 

for the United States to openly and robustly mount a commitment 
30 

to tear down China’s Internet firewalls so that the kind of censorship that now takes place where not more than a handful of Chinese, can even type in and search the word ‘‘Chen.’’ 

Let 20 million, 30 million Chinese type in the word ‘‘Chen’’ and 

get it on their cell phones, and let’s make this happen as we now 

can do it in a matter of two to three months. As you well know, 

Mr. Wolf, that’s the response we should make to the Chen case. It 

will protect Chen Guangcheng and his family but it will also send 

a signal to China that we are not a weak country and we are not 

a surrendering country. Just a speech by the Vice President, that’s 

politics. The Chinese will understand that and it will not affect 

them, in my judgment, at all. 

Representative WOLF. In the interest of Mr. Smith, I think what 

I’m going to do is to recess the hearing briefly so he can come back 

in. Let’s just recess for five minutes, if we can. 

[Whereupon, at 4:01 p.m.the hearing was briefly recessed.] 

AFTER RECESS [4:06 P.M.]

Chairman SMITH [presiding]. The Commission will resume its sitting. 

I just want to apprise everyone that Bob Fu has made contact 

with Chen Guangcheng in his hospital room. We just had an interesting and, I think, enlightening conversation. But we’re going to 

put him on the speaker. 

[Whereupon, Chen Guangcheng joined the hearing via teleconference and translation was provided by Bob Fu.] 

Mr. CHEN. I want to make the request to have my freedom of 

travel guaranteed. I want to come to the United States for some 

time of rest. I have not had any rest in the past 10 years already. 

I want to meet with Secretary Clinton and I hope I can get more 

help from her. I also want to thank her face to face. 

I really fear for my other family members’ lives and they have 

installed seven video cameras and even an electric fence. Those security officers in my house basically said they want to see what 

else Chen Guangcheng can do. So the thing that I am most concerned with right now is the safety of my mother, my brothers, and 

I really want to know what’s going on with them. Thank you very 

much. 

Chairman SMITH. Chen, thank you very much. As I indicated a 

moment ago, you have a panel of people who have just testified on 

your behalf, all of whom deeply care about you, your family, as well 

as those who helped you, including He Peirong, who are all desperately concerned about her whereabouts and her well-being, your 

nephew, and others. 

Again, one person who just spoke, Mrs. Wang, spoke about her 

efforts to see you and how she was mistreated repeatedly, including 

strip searches. I think the word is getting out, and there are a 

number of the members of the national and international press 

here, that your case is the test, the test of the Chinese commitment 

to protect you, which they’ve given. 

We’re very dubious about those assurances, but it’s also the test 

of the United States as to whether or not human rights really do 

matter. So your plea that the Secretary of State, who did not meet 

with you in the Embassy, go to your hospital room and meet with 
31 

you, and you, your family, and your supporters need to be on a 

plane coming to the United States for, as you put it, that rest that 

you so richly deserve. 

And Chen, very quickly before you answer, Christian Bale, the 

great actor, called one hour before this hearing to convey his solidarity and concern for your well-being and that of the rest of your 

family. 

Mr. CHEN. I thank him very much for trying to get to Shandong 

to try to visit me. I want to also emphasize that after I was found 

missing from Shandong from my home, immediately my daughter’s 

education opportunity was terminated. She was not allowed to go 

to school anymore. So, I do thank all the villagers who were helping me but who are also receiving retribution. 

I want to thank all of you for your care and for your love. 

Chairman SMITH. Chen, we are all praying for you and we will 

be unceasing in our efforts to secure your freedom. 

Mr. CHEN. Thank you. Thank you. 

Mr. FU. Do you have any further questions? 

Chairman SMITH. No. Thank you. 

I want to thank Bob Fu for setting up that phone call. That just 

absolutely underscores why we’re here and why we will be unceasing. 

If I could go to some final questions. Mr. Wolf, did you ask your 

questions? 

Representative WOLF. Yes. 

Chairman SMITH. Mr. Horowitz, if I could begin with you, I think 

you made an excellent point about the willingness to negotiate and 

to be the last person standing, to so speak. Your AFL–CIO, I think, 

analogy was a great one. I actually met with the Pentecostal Seven 

in 1982, when they were holed up in the Russian U.S. Embassy to 

the Soviet Union in Moscow, and we did stand steadfastly by them 

and time was not the issue. So I thought your point was extraordinarily well taken, if you wanted to elaborate on that. 

My hope is, and I know the press have all left, but I think it’s 

very important that the President of the United States—I would 

appreciate your views on this—speak out from the perch of the 

White House, obviously as the leader of the free world. You know, 

it’s amazing to me that, when asked about Chen Guangcheng, he 

said he had no comment. 

At the time during the horrible days of apartheid when Lech 

Walesa and Nelson Mandela, Vaklav Havel, Aung San Suu Kyi, 

Natan Sharansky, if any President, Reagan, Bush, were to be 

asked about those tremendous individuals they would launch into 

a defense of those brave men—and women, Aung San Suu Kyi— 

and yet, no comment from the President. Your thoughts on that, 

if you could. 

The concern that we all have about the ‘‘hurry up’’ offense, 

‘‘time,’’ as you said, quoting, I think, Mick Jagger, ‘‘is on our side.’’ 

We could have worked this painstakingly before allowing Chen, 

whom we just heard from, to leave the Embassy. 

Finally, let me just say when Wei Jingsheng was in Moscow, another great political leader, father of the democracy wall of movement in China, I met with him in the early 1990s when the Chinese wanted Olympics 2000, and he was such a high-value political 
32 

prisoner they thought if they just gave him up they would get the 

Olympics. When that didn’t happen, they re-arrested him. 

But while he was out, I happened to have been in Beijing and 

had dinner with him. He made a statement that he repeated here 

when he was finally given freedom under a humanitarian parole 

scheme that ‘‘you Americans don’t understand this, that when you 

are weak, vacillating, and kowtowing, they beat us more in the 

laogai and in the Gulags. When you are tough, fair, transparent, 

you say what you mean and mean what you say, they beat us less.’’ 

He said right here—he said it to me over dinner in Beijing, and 

then he went back to further beatings, sadly, but then was finally 

let out. But right here in this very room he said, ‘‘Why don’t you 

get that? Why don’t you understand that you need to be tough— 

not unreasonable, but tough? ’’ He said, ‘‘That message gets right 

down to the jailers’ level and they beat us,’’ because he was beaten 

for 15 years, as T. Kumar knows, having been a political prisoner 

for over 5 years. They beat for 15 years this man to the point 

where he almost lost his life just like Chen Guangcheng. 

Your thoughts on that, if you would? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Well, if I can take—one, you gave the example of 

President Bush and President Reagan. I think Mr. Wolf’s point at 

a prior hearing is very well taken. I would add Presidents Carter 

and Clinton. As Mr. Wolf said when the Xi visit took place, all four 

of those Presidents would have met with the wives of some of the 

political prisoners while this President, in the name of ‘‘realism,’’ 

has not done so. I think he doesn’t understand the point that Presidents Carter, Reagan, Clinton, and Bush did. 

I think the greatest witness who could be here is George Schultz, 

because he constantly tells the story of how the Russian Ambassador came to him and said, ‘‘You know, I can’t do business with 

this Reagan. Every time I try and talk about serious matters he’s 

always talking about Pentecostals and Refuseniks.’’ Schultz then 

said to the Soviet Ambassador, ‘‘Hey, I have the same problem. He 

really takes this seriously. This is what he thinks he’s supposed to 

be doing as President of the United States.’’ 

To make the point I’ve always thought critical, Ronald Reagan 

was President of the Screen Actors Guild before he became President. He was President of a union. He really understood the extraordinary power of human rights issues to deliver not only on 

human rights issues, but on every other issue on the table between 

the Soviet Union and the United States. I think that’s a critical 

point. 

The second thing is, during the break, Mr. Chairman, somebody 

told me what I had not known about what you’ve called the socalled ‘‘hurry-up offense’’ that took place during the Chen bargaining. Someone told me that General Counsel, or Solicitor—I forget the formal title now of the chief lawyer at the State Department, Harold Koe—was quoted by the Washington Post when 

asked, why was this agreement not put in writing before Chen was 

released. He said, ‘‘We didn’t have time.’’ 

Now, Mr. Chairman, I hope that he will be called as a witness. 

This is a man who was dean of the Yale Law School, a pretty 

smart lawyer. That is the shallowest justification and rationalization for throwing Chen to the wolves that I have ever heard, and 
33 

it is either malevolent on his part or a sign of incompetence. If this 

is true, in my judgment a respectful request for his immediate resignation is in order. This man, if this statement is true—and I do 

not know if it is—but if it is he has forfeited his right to be the 

chief lawyer of the U.S. State Department. Imagine a lawyer making that excuse when representing an ordinary client. My goodness, 

he’d get disbarred for not putting agreements in writing for the 

routine sale of goods and services. 

Here, Mr. Koe had the well-being of the United States, the reputation of the United States, and the life and the safety of this 

great hero, and did he really say ‘‘we didn’t have time’’ to reduce 

the agreement to writing. That is the most rank, if true, act of malpractice in public life—and I’ve been general counsel of a government agency—I believe I have ever experienced. 

So I want to ask you, Mr. Wolf, and you, Mr. Chairman, to find 

out whether this is true, whether that quote is true. Get the Washington Post reporter to find out if it’s true, because if it is, Mr. Koe 

has, as I say, forfeited his right absolutely to serve as chief lawyer 

for the U.S. State Department. 

Chairman SMITH. Would anybody else like to comment on that? 

Ms. LITTLEJOHN. Then the other issue that that raises is, what 

was this hard time deadline? What was driving this time guillotine 

if it wasn’t Secretary Clinton’s talks with the Chinese concerning 

trade? That raises the further issue of, was Chen a bargaining chip 

in all of this? 

Mr. HOROWITZ. I just have to say again, they did it backward. 

The fact that the Chinese were on the defensive, acutely, in advance of this high-level meeting is the reason why time was on our 

side, as any bargainer would know, and throwing away that leverage to ‘‘help’’ the Geithner agenda is itself inexcusably incompetent. 

So, I mean, to risk this man’s life and future over the issue of 

a timetable that was actually working for us and against the Chinese is just so hard to live with and understand and accept. Especially when we now hear this man speaking from his hospital room, 

all alone, not knowing the fate of his wife, and with television monitors all over his room. 

Chairman SMITH. You know, one point Mr. Chen made just a moment ago in the earlier conversation before we broadcast it, one of 

the points he made was that he was so grateful that the U.S. diplomats were working around the clock and without sleep, to which 

I said that can be seen another way. It can be seen also as, they 

wanted to get this done, off the table. 

As a matter of fact, in her testimony—without objection I would 

ask it be made a part of the record—Chai Ling, who is the head 

of a group called All Girls Allowed, a Tiananmen Square hero who 

was among the most wanted, makes the point that, ‘‘last week, I 

and other advocates of freedom in China watched with joy as Chen 

Guangcheng made his bid for freedom.’’ 

Then she goes on and says that, ‘‘Now do I want to believe that 

they willfully misled Chen into thinking that this was a possibility,’’ talking about his freedom? Then she goes on to talk about 

how ‘‘he was a fly to be swatted away before diplomatic talks ensued.’’ Here is someone who, again, has paid with her freedom and 
34 

has endured great risks, being very concerned about this ‘‘hurryup offense,’’ this timetable issue. 

Yes, Mr. Horowitz? 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Chai appears in the appendix.] 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Can I make one other point, Mr. Chairman, 

about the treatment of Chen Guangcheng? One of the things you 

learn as a lawyer dealing with clients—and we’re talking about clients here—I’ve dealt with clients, Mr. Chairman, who were facing 

a criminal charge. They’re vulnerable people. They don’t know 

what’s going on. Understanding that is part of your responsibility 

to your client. 

If you’re representing somebody you’ve got to account for the fact 

that their judgment is impaired, that there is terror here about 

one’s family, about one’s self. One doesn’t know what’s going on. 

Again, from all appearances, this time factor, this hurry-up business, only contributed to the ill-at-ease, the sense of isolation, the 

sense of vulnerability of Chen Guangcheng. 

So the first thing you do with a client who is out there, just terrified that the world’s coming to an end and not knowing what’s 

going on, is tell them, sit down, take it easy, have a cup of coffee, 

have a good night’s sleep, come back, talk to me. That, too, is Representation 101 when you’re dealing with someone like Chen and 

they’ve gone exactly the opposite, in the wrong direction in dealing 

with this man. 

Chairman SMITH. I understand, Mr. Wolf, you wanted me to 

yield? 

Representative WOLF. Yes, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to let 

the Commission know that I just spoke to the Secretary’s office. I 

spoke to a Dan Fogerty and told them that you had been in conversation with Chen, and that he had made an official request that 

the Secretary visit him in the hospital. I asked Mr. Fogerty, if he 

would get that word to the Secretary immediately and he said he 

would. 

Chairman SMITH. I thank you, Mr. Wolf. 

Let me ask, Ms. Wang, you’ve only been here in the United 

States for about a month. I think we need to underscore, you personally—I am not sure how many times, but several times—undertook trips to visit with Chen Guangcheng. You talked about the 

body searches and the degrading treatment that you endured. 

I think the American public and the world, the Western world, 

frankly, and all people, need to be fully aware of just how vulnerable everybody else is who have aided and assisted Chen, which is 

all the more reason why, as Reggie Littlejohn underscored with exclamation points, He Peirong, why her particular case is so important. If you could just elaborate on what others might face, because 

we’re very worried about you. Yes? Before you go, Mr. Horowitz. 

Mr. HOROWITZ. Just one thing. Somebody just passed this to me, 

Mr. Chairman, and I feel like I ought to read it. Again, I am told 

that there is a news story in the Washington Post or in one of the 

major papers quoting a U.S. official as explaining that U.S. officials 

‘‘had to leave Chen alone and leave the hospital because hospital 

officials told them that visiting hours were over.’’ 

Now, once again, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Wolf, in your examination 

of State Department officials, I hope that that, too, will be high up 
35 

on the list—and that that official who said it, and any official who 

justified it, should have to sit here at this witness table and justify 

conduct of that kind and talk about leaving a man alone and vulnerable, and being certain that that would be the outcome, because 

some guy tells them the visiting hours are over and you’ve got to 

go, and they leave Chen alone in the hands of the security police 

with all of the TV camera monitors that have been installed. 

Excuse me for intervening, but I just got this message. If this is 

true, it’s something that I hope this commission will investigate 

and just put any official responsible for it, if it is true—on the witness stand. 

Chairman SMITH. Well, the concern too, Mr. Horowitz, that the 

visiting hours, at least now, seem to be permanently over. Chen indicated to us that the Embassy has been unable to get back in to 

his room to visit with him, to ascertain his well-being. So, the talk 

of a durable solution is that he would be safe in China, there is 

no safety for any dissident in China. It just doesn’t exist, especially 

with a man that—— 

Mr. HOROWITZ. But the point is, they were there. It’s a lot harder 

to get into a room after you’ve been kicked out of the room, but it’s 

pretty darned hard for the Chinese to forcibly eject an American 

official who firmly says, this man is my responsibility. We gave the 

honor and the full faith and credit of the United States to see that 

he would be and feel protected, and I’m not leaving this room. Why 

didn’t they say that, Mr. Chairman, is the relevant question. 

Chairman SMITH. I appreciate that, Mr. Horowitz. You know, 

hospital or police station, it seems to me it’s a distinction without 

a difference because the hospital is crawling with police. 

Ms. Wang, did you want to answer that question? Again, I think 

it’s under-appreciated, perhaps by some, the risks that you personally undertook, coupled with the risks that you carry today. 

Ms. WANG. As a supporter of Chen Guangcheng, I can tell you 

that there are people from all walks of life, from all industries and 

professions that support him. A lot of people actually have faced 

greater risks and have faced greater danger in doing this than I 

have myself, for instance, government workers, people who work 

for government enterprises or other types of companies. Some of 

them, as a result, their families have been talked to, their families 

have been harassed, and also the government comes and checks 

their books and gets them on economic crimes, financial crimes. 

Then you get some teenagers, 16- and 17-year-olds who were curious and went to see Chen Guangcheng for that very reason. As 

a result, the authorities went and tried to talk a lot to their parents and harassed their parents. The kids were beaten. The parents couldn’t understand what was possibly going on, but there was 

a lot of emotional damage done to the kids as a result of that. 

I myself am married, so my personal life hasn’t been dealt with 

in such an exaggerated manner as others. For instance, you mentioned He Peirong. She is not married. If she had boyfriends, let’s 

say, there would be a lot of personal attacks on her personal life. 

That has also been taking quite an emotional toll on her. 

And then there are a lot of supporters who have various types 

of, let’s say, equipment or things that they use in the process of 

trying to show their support for Chen Guangcheng, like any equip-
36 

ment involved or any money that they spent in their efforts, the 

authorities basically just confiscate them. They take them. They’ve 

taken their assets. I haven’t gone to verify, but I do know of cases 

where, for instance, cameras and other equipment that would have 

been used to document it have been taken away or confiscated. 

A lot of us have tried so hard and put so much effort into all of 

this, so if what we are looking at today is what it has all come to, 

I think I am not resigned to this. It’s something that I can’t accept. 

I really hope that the media from all over the world will stand up 

and rise and be tough in the face of what they’re facing. 

I think he needs his freedom and we owe him this. We’ve done 

so much. If we’ve done all of this for nothing it would be as if we 

had done it in vain. What we want to know is that it wasn’t in 

vain, it wasn’t for nothing, it was worth it. We want him to be 

doing much better. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you. Are there any comments that our 

distinguished witnesses would like to make? Yes, please. 

Ms. CAO. One of the good things the supporters have done, the 

supporters inside China who visited or did something concrete, is 

that they quickly write accounts of their experiences and post them 

online, although very quickly, just as quickly, it would be deleted. 

But still, there have been dedicated groups who pass on the messages as quickly as possible, and then within minutes it will be reposted thousands of times, that sort of thing. 

So from that, I particularly want to point out two occasions that 

left a deep impression on me, is that of two reporters who were employed by the Chinese state-owned media until they tried to visit 

Chen Guangcheng, or did something. One of the people’s name was 

Shi Yu. He was a Xinhua News Agency’s regional reporter based 

in Hunan province in the midland of China. 

He went to visit Chen Guangcheng as a private person, of course 

not representing his organization, and he was, just like many others, robbed, his money taken away, his cell phone taken away, he 

was beaten badly. He had a detailed account of how he was sacked 

with a black cloth and pulled into a van, and several people beat 

his head, his body, all over. Then they threw him out in the open 

and he managed to come back and write this. As soon as he returned, his organization fired him. 

There is another reporter. Now it just occurred to me it didn’t 

happen because of Chen Guangcheng, it happened because of Ai 

Weiwei. Let me just quickly recount it. He is a reporter with the 

Global Times, English version. His name is Wen Tao, Tommy Wen. 

He had the guts to run a report in Global Times, a very tough 

paper, on Ai Weiwei’s disappearance and then he, himself, was disappeared. This reporter was disappeared for 80-plus days. Eightyplus days without his family knowing where he was, those sorts of 

things. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you. 

Would any of you like to conclude with any final comment? 

[No response]. 

Chairman SMITH. Okay. Mr. Wolf? 

Representative WOLF. No. 

Chairman SMITH. I want to thank you again for sharing your extensive expertise, passion for human rights, and deep concern for 
37 

Chen Guangcheng and his wife Yuan, and family at today’s hearing. 

We will continue this effort. I am going to reapply for another 

visa, which has been turned down since October. I would love to 

meet with him and his family, but most importantly to hold the administration to account for what they may or may not have done. 

I think some of the questions posed by all of you and by Bob Fu 

need to be answered, and I think we need to take—and I say this 

to the press—with a grain of salt when he gushes with gratitude 

for efforts made on his behalf, I believe we have dropped the ball 

significantly. 

I’ve been in this business of human rights work for 32 years. I 

broke my eye teeth on the Soviet Jewry issue. My first trip was to 

Moscow and Leningrad in 1982. As I mentioned earlier to Mr. 

Horowitz, in response to his mentioning of the Siberian Seven, the 

Pentecostal Christians, we met with them and we stood firmly, 

clearly, unambiguously with those who were espousing freedom 

and democracy and said we are in solidarity with you. 

In the case of Soviet Jewry, we risked super-power confrontation 

by linking most-favored-nation status, the Jackson-Vanik amendment, with the release and freedom of Soviet Jews who were being 

horribly treated by Moscow. We need that same kind of fire in the 

belly for human rights at the White House. I still find it appalling 

that President Obama had no comment when speaking about Chen 

Guangcheng. 

He should have gushed about this brave leader’s, and equally his 

wife’s, commitment to combating the most horrific crime on the 

face of the Earth, forced abortion and forced sterilization, carried 

out routinely by China. We should stand with Chen and not look 

to facilitate his loss of freedom, which it appears to be. 

Here are good people who have tried within the administration, 

I am sure, to find a way out, but the time line issue remains a very 

troubling issue. This should have been the topic—not even a topic, 

but the topic—at the dialogue. 

What’s the use of having a dialogue on strategic and economic 

issues if you’re not going to link human rights with it and say, why 

should we trust you in intellectual property rights, copyright infringement and the like, if you so maltreat your own people? Chen 

is a hero. This Commission will stay focused on him and we will 

not rest until he and his family and great friends like He Peirong 

are free. 

The hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon at 4:40 p.m. the hearing was adjourned.] 

(39) 

A P P E N D I X 
40 

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
41 
42 
43 
44 
45 
46 
47 

WRITTEN STATEMENT OF CHAI LING, PRESIDENT & FOUNDER OF ALL GIRLS ALLOWED

In Jesus’ Name, Simply Love Her 

MAY 3, 2012

Chairman Smith and Ranking Members of Congress, I thank you for granting me 

the opportunity to share my written testimony on the subject of Chen Guangcheng’s 

escape to and departure from the US Embassy in Beijing. I also thank Chairman 

Smith and Paul Protic for bravely trying to go to China to help Chen. 

I have long admired Secretary Hilary Clinton as a female world leader. She inspired a whole generation—myself included—at the UN Women’s Conference in 

1995 when she declared that ‘‘women’s rights are human rights.’’ She spoke those 

oft-quoted words in Beijing years ago, but what happened to Chen Guangcheng 

under her watch in Beijing yesterday was a betrayal of these very same rights she 

vowed to uphold. 

This is because Chen Guangcheng is not just a ‘‘dissident.’’ In fact, he did not 

even advocate against the central government. He is a folk hero in China, a defender of women, children, and the poor. Chen has worked tirelessly on behalf of 

women who face forced abortion and sterilization at the hands of the officials who 

should be protecting their citizens’ rights. 

Words simply cannot express Chen’s value as a human rights advocate. He is 

fighting one of the most brutal state-sanctioned human rights abuses in the world. 

As a self-taught lawyer, he became troubled at the plight of young women in his 

province of Shandong. Under the One-Child Policy, women are regularly subjected 

to invasive ‘‘pregnancy checks,’’ and officials brutalize them if they try to refuse. If 

they become pregnant, they are forced to undergo abortions, even very late in their 

terms—and many are sterilized under threat. The numbers are sobering: 

• 400 million babies have been forcibly aborted or killed after birth. • Because of the One-Child Policy and a cultural preference for males, one out 

of every six girls is aborted, killed, or abandoned. 

• There are now nearly 40 million ‘‘missing’’ women. • Sex trafficking and crime are skyrocketing in China in conjunction with the 

bachelor boom. Women are increasingly commoditized, with traffickers selling 

girls to families as child brides. 

• These social trends impact women in alarming ways: suicide is the leading 

cause of death for young women in China, and China is the only country in the 

world where female suicide rates outstrip those of males. 500 women kill themselves every day—that’s one every three seconds. 

This is the evil that Chen was fighting. Please pause and think about that for 

a moment. Pray for this incredibly brave man. 

In 2005, Chen investigated the methods of the One-Child Policy enforcers in his 

region, and he found that 7,000 women had undergone forced abortion is his area 

alone. He filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of 130,000 women who suffered 

forced abortions and sterilizations. Retaliation came swiftly: the government imprisoned Chen for four years for ‘‘obstructing traffic,’’ and kept him under lockdown in 

his own home since his 2010 release. There, a pack of guards continually harassed 

Chen and his wife along with their six-year-old daughter. 

Last week, I and other advocates of freedom in China watched with joy as Chen 

Guangcheng made his bid for freedom. Truth mirrored art in his escape, which 

played out like The Shawshank Redemption. (Chinese web censors even placed 

‘‘Shawshank’’ on their list of banned search terms.) The blind lawyer scaled a wall, 

crossed a river, and evaded eight rings of vigilant guards to break free. He then 

traveled on foot through fields for twenty hours before meeting activist He Peirong 

at a pre-arranged location. She and others risked their lives to take him to the US 

Embassy in Beijing, where they knew he would find freedom. 

But we let them down. Shamefully, US officials encouraged Chen to leave the Embassy and stay in China, in accordance with the Chinese government’s request. He 

left the Embassy yesterday morning under duress after being told that the Chinese 

authorities were going to take his wife and children back to Shandong and remove 

the possibility of reunification. The US denied that any coercion took place—but if 

this is not coercion, then what is? What has become of the American Government? 

Is it a mere enabler of the Chinese officials’ brutal treatment of Chen, plus the millions of women and children he defended? 

US Embassy staff assured Chen they would stay with him at the hospital to ensure his safety, but left him without protest after the Chinese told them ‘‘visiting 

hours’’ had ended. They also failed to get a written version of the agreement they 

reached with the Chinese negotiators, an elementary error that could have disas-
48 

trous consequences. They should have known better, having been given the authority to represent America. How could anyone not see the necessity of a written statement? And how could they ignore the fate of the activists who helped Chen escape? 

Many of them have been jailed since Friday. 

Now Chen’s wife is reporting that the family is in grave danger. He is under surveillance and American officials have reportedly been barred from visiting him. 

I do not believe that Secretary Clinton and Ambassador Locke were simply naive, 

that they thought China would honor its word and allow Chen to live in freedom 

and safety. Nor do I want to believe that they willfully misled Chen into thinking 

this was a possibility. Freedom for human rights activists within China is not a reality, and I can only conclude that the current administration viewed Chen 

Guangcheng as a distraction that needed to be dealt with quickly—he was just a 

fly to be swatted away before diplomatic talks began. But this ‘‘fly’’ they swatted 

is a hero to everyone in China who values freedom and admires the United States’ 

commitment to humanity. With sadness, I can tell you that the network of activists 

that watched this week with baited breath is now demoralized and hopeless. 

I will not mince my words: this was an unqualified disaster. It was a disaster for 

the Obama administration, for the America we love, and for those in China who 

pray for freedom. If there is any way to turn this around, we must. And I call upon 

you, Honorable Members of Congress, to try. 

I still pray. I have hope. Please join me in praying for Chen, his family, and the 

courageous people who brought him to the US Embassy. For while I am disappointed with the administration, my hope lies in the faithful and loving God: 

He upholds the cause of the oppressed 

and gives food to the hungry. 

The LORD sets prisoners free, 

the LORD gives sight to the blind, 

the LORD lifts up those who bowed down, 

the LORD loves the righteous. 

The LORD watches over the alien 

and sustains the fatherless and the widow. 

—Psalm 146: 7–9 NIV 

Please join me in prayer, for I believe God will bring Chen and his friends and 

family to freedom. And He is patient with all of us. He gives us the chance to be 

modern Esthers and Mordecais, bravely confronting oppression to join in His glory. 

Let us not miss this opportunity again! 

In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen. 

Chai Ling is the founder of All Girls Allowed, a humanitarian organization inspired by the love of Jesus to restore life, value and dignity to girls and mothers in 

China and to reveal the injustice of the One-Child Policy. 

Æ