Blind Chinese activist Chen lands in U.S.

Updated 8:54 PM ET

(CBS/AP) NEW YORK - A blind Chinese legal activist who was suddenly allowed to leave the country arrived in the U.S. on Saturday, ending a nearly monthlong diplomatic tussle that had tested U.S.-China relations.

Chen Guangcheng had been hurriedly taken from a hospital hours earlier and put on a plane for the United States after Chinese authorities suddenly told him to pack and prepare to leave. He arrived Saturday evening at Newark Liberty International Airport and was whisked to New York City, where he will be staying.

Dressed in a white shirt and khaki pants and using crutches, his right leg in a cast, Chen was greeted with cheers when he arrived at the apartment in Manhattan's Greenwich Village where he will live with his family. The complex houses faculty and graduate students of New York University, where Chen is expected to attend law school.

"For the past seven years, I have never had a day's rest," he said through a translator. "So I have come here for reparation in body and spirit."

Chen urged the crowd to fight for injustice, and thanked the U.S. and Chinese governments, and also the embassies of Switzerland, Canada and France.

"After much turbulence, I have come out of Shandong," he said, referring to the Chinese province where he was under house arrest. He spoke briefly and didn't take questions from reporters

The departure of Chen, his wife and two children to the United States marked the conclusion of nearly a month of uncertainty and years of mistreatment by local authorities for the self-taught activist.

After seven years of prison and house arrest, Chen made a daring escape from his rural village in April and was given sanctuary inside the U.S. Embassy, triggering a diplomatic standoff over his fate. With Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in Beijing for annual high-level discussions, officials struck a deal that let Chen walk free, only to see him have second thoughts. That forced new negotiations that led to an agreement to send him to the U.S. to study law, a goal of his, at New York University.

Chen's expected attendance at New York University comes from his association with Jerome Cohen, a law professor there who advised Chen while he was in the U.S. Embassy. The two met when Chen came to the United States on a State Department program in 2003, and Cohen has been staunch advocate for him since.

"I'm very happy at the news that he's on his way and I look forward to welcoming him and his family tonight and to working with him on his course of study," Cohen said.

Chen and his family will live in an apartment at the Washington Square Village complex, a New York University housing facility where faculty and graduate students reside, an NYU spokesman said.

Earlier, Chen and his family left China a few hours after they were notified they would be allowed to leave. According to Sky News correspondent Holly Williams, who spoke with Chen as he was awaiting to board his flight, they were informed by the staff at the Beijing hospital where he had been getting treatment for the last couple of weeks.

When Chen and his family arrived at Beijing's airport, they were given their long-awaited passports by U.S. diplomats.

The four departed on United Airlines Flight 88, which took off late Saturday afternoon from Beijing.

Chen said that he was "filled with thousands of mixed emotions that he just couldn't express," Williams said. He also told her that he is very worried about the family members that he's leaving behind. [Some are under house detention, and one has been arrested.]

He said he is not seeking political asylum. He does not plan to stay in the U.S. in the long term and hopes that one day he will be allowed to return to China.

To his supporters and others in the activist community, Chen expressed gratitude and indicated that he hoped to return. "I am requesting a leave of absence, and I hope that they will understand," he said.

9 Photos

Chinese Dissident Chen Guangcheng

Chen and his family were driven up to the plane in a vehicle resembling a minibus, and Chen could be seen being pushed in a wheelchair on the tarmac and then onto an elevator that took them up to a sky bridge that was connected to the plane.

Chen and his family's departure to the United States marks the conclusion of nearly a month of uncertainty and years of mistreatment by local authorities for the self-taught legal activist who made a daring escape from abusive house arrest in his village last month.

His supporters welcomed his departure. "I think this is great progress. We are happy about it," said U.S.-based rights activist Bob Fu. "It's a victory for freedom fighters."

Chen sought the protection of U.S. diplomats at the American Embassy in Beijing, triggering a diplomatic standoff days ahead of unrelated high-level talks on global hotspots and economic imbalances led by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. After days of negotiations, the sides announced an agreement in which he and his family would be allowed to travel to the United States for him to study.

Chen said he was informed at the hospital just before noon Saturday to pack his bags and get ready to leave. Officials did not give him and his family passports or inform them of their flight details until after they got to the airport.

Seeming ambivalent, Chen said that he was "not happy" about leaving and that he had a lot on his mind, including worries about retaliation against his extended family back home.

"I hope that the government will fulfill the promises it made to me, all of its promises," Chen said. Such promises included launching an investigation into abuses against him and his family in Shandong province, he said before the phone call was cut off.

Chen and other activists fear authorities in Shandong province will punish Chen's extended family for his audacious escape. Chen's nephew, Chen Kegui, is accused of attempted murder after he allegedly used a kitchen knife to attack officials who stormed his house after discovering Chen Guangcheng was missing.

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[smittyc]

We have one in six living at or below the poverty level here in the United States. What Obama and Hilary Clinton did not tell the public is they paid for Chens freedom, China sold him to us and laughed at our stupidity all the way to the bank. What the American public has to address is Obamas track record on spending, he is a spending freak and will bankrupt our nation with the foreign loans from China that he gets and has no personal accountibility for. Obamas stay in the whitehouse is just that, he is a resident, not a president. For Obama being president means golf everyday and basketball every night like some kind of Hollywood celibrity. On weekends he brings in Hollywoods best for his and his families personal entertainment while the American taxpayors foot the bill and while our children die in foreign wars. This man has no concience, he is a complete fraud, figuratively and literally a Bernie Madoff in politics. God bless our soldiers and God bless America.

[Rafterman11]

Good. Does that mean we won't have to listen to him whine in the media any more?

[bbarnes5557]

I wish the media would stop saying blind chinese activist,,,who cares if hes blind, does that fact give him more credibility??? If he weighed 300 pounds would the media say fat chinese activist???? If he had acne would the media say pimpled face chinese activist??? Just think, China has over a billion people and so the odds are that at least 100 million of them are unhappy so does that mean that the US is supposed to bring them all here??? Give me a break....

[GTR5]

How much is this going to cost the American tax payers? Why can't he go to some other country? We don't need more problem people coming to the U.S.

[leticiab5]

i don't get this. how does a blind man, under house arrest in china. under the watchful eyes of their own military police gets to escape & get to enter the american embassy w/out being caught. something here sounds fishy. I thinks we are a very gollible nation.

[rahgoo]

It took a courageous blind man to shove his cane up the butts of China`s leaders. Chen visions that they will be turned into Chop Suey or Chow Mein and served in U.S. take out restaurants. But the loyal Chinese people have faith in their leaders; they believe that one day only cattle will be on the menu instead of cats and dogs.

[fedup12]

werent the R's mad because we let him leave the embassy in China. Now they are mad because we got him.

Cant win for losing.

What a big bag of hypocrits

[smittyc]

It's not politics with me, Obama paid them for his release in borrowed money from China. The man is just another health problem and China dumped him on us and we will provide for his food clothing shelter, education and astronomical health care needs while one sixth of America struggles at or below the poverty line. Our leadership addresses every problem on the globe while ignoring the people who elected them. It has got to stop.

[notparicular]

Romney and your tea party cousins, eat your heart out. Obama and Hillary are doing fine in explosive international situations. Pakistan came around (Afetr Omaba offered free ticket to their President to the NATO meeting) and are opening their borders again to the US. All that is now left to Romney is to support Pakistan's right to sovereignty against Osama killing. Go ahead Romney, people will understand you.

[rahgoo]

The free world must thank the hero Chen for his attempt to bring down a Chinese dictatorship that has kept its 1.3 billion people in rags and chains. Let us hope that he will be the spark that sets off a civil war. Countless millions might have to die before the Chinese people can eat more than fish heads and rice.

[hypnotoad72]

The country is communist, so it owns the businesses that seem fit to pay 50 cents an hour just to enrich "American" company and so-called "free market" supporting CEOs like Jobs, Gates, Schmidt, Zuckerberg, etc, while they sit back and take corporate welfare our own citizens seem to not mind giving out...

[nohater]

am still amazed that mighty China caved and let the USA beat them down. China has to be getting something out of this caving into USA demands. find it difficult to understand how the USA, obama administration and et al, can care so much for a man, his wife and two children from China while millions are homeless, hungry, jobless, poor here in the USA. go figure.

[hypnotoad72]

Unless it's another game of chess...