Activist Chen Guangcheng wants to leave China amid fears for family's safety after leaving embassy

Updated at 1:35 p.m. ET

(AP) BEIJING - The blind Chinese activist at the center of a six-day diplomatic tussle between the U.S. and China said he fears for his family's lives and wants to leave China, hours after American officials announced an agreement with Beijing that was to guarantee his safety.

Chen Guangcheng escaped from illegal house arrest and other mistreatment in his rural town, placing himself under the protection of U.S. diplomats last week. On Wednesday, after six days holed up inside the American embassy, he emerged and was taken to a nearby hospital. U.S. officials said they had extracted from the Chinese government a promise that Chen would reunite with his family and be allowed to start a new life in a university town.

Hours later, however, a shaken Chen told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from his hospital room that U.S. officials told him the Chinese authorities would have sent his family back to his home province if he remained inside the embassy. He added that, at one point, the U.S. officials told him his wife would have been beaten to death.

"I think we'd like to rest in a place outside of China," Chen said, appealing again for help from U.S. officials. "Help my family and me leave safely."

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State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in a statement that no U.S. official spoke to Chen about physical or legal threats to his wife and children. Nor did the Chinese relay any such threats to American diplomats, she said. She did confirm that the Chinese intended to return his family to their home province of Shandong, where they had been detained illegally and beaten by local officials angry over Chen's campaigns to expose forced abortions, and that they would lose any chance of being reunited.

"At every opportunity, he expressed his desire to stay in China, reunify with his family, continue his education and work for reform in his country," Nuland said. "All our diplomacy was directed at putting him in the best possible position to achieve his objectives."

A close friend of Chen's said Chinese officials forced Chen to choose between going into exile alone or staying in China with his family. Beijing activist Zeng Jinyan said she spoke by phone with Chen and his wife while he was in the hospital. Chen told her that his wife's life had been threatened, she said.

"He said what he wanted was totally different but because no one can protect his wife and children" he had to accept, Zeng said via Skype.

The differing accounts could not be immediately reconciled. But the turn in Chen's fate comes after nearly seven years of prison, house arrest and abusive treatment of him and his family members by local officials.

Chen's flight into the protection of U.S. diplomats in Beijing last week had created a delicate diplomatic crisis for Washington and Beijing. It also threatened to derail annual U.S.-China strategic talks with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton starting Thursday.

Under the agreement that ended the fraught, behind-the-scenes standoff, U.S. officials said China agreed to let Chen and his family be relocated to a safe place in China where he could study at university, and that his treatment by local officials would be investigated.

Chen, 40, said he never asked to leave China or for asylum in the U.S. and said American officials reassured him they would accompany him out of the embassy. At the hospital, Chen was reunited with his wife, his daughter and a son he hasn't seen in at least two years. But after they got to his room in Chaoyang Hospital, he said no U.S. officials stayed behind and that the family is now scared and wants to leave the country.

"The embassy told me that they would have someone accompany me the whole time," he said. "But today when I got to the ward, I found that there was not a single embassy official here, and so I was very unsatisfied. I felt they did not tell me the truth on this issue."

He also took issue with another facet of the U.S. version of his departure — that on his way to the hospital Clinton called him and he told her in halting English "I want to kiss you."

"I told Clinton that I want to see her now. I said" — he said speaking in Chinese. Then switching to English he said, "I want to see you now."

Chen had become an international symbol for human dignity after running afoul of local government officials for exposing forced abortions carried out as part of China's one-child policy. He served four years in prison on what supporters said were fabricated charges and was then kept under house arrest with his wife, daughter and mother, with the adults often being roughed by officials and his daughter searched and harassed.

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[Anh_Thuan]

Chen Guangchen is simply a western puppet. The silly Americans and western media use him as a clown to insult China. First,l they say Chen Guangchen was blind when he was an infant. Then they say that he was blind after he grown up. He is a self taught lawyer who is a an human right activist, but they didn't say what kind of human right issue he was fighting for. Then they say that he was an human right activist against forced arbotion of China's one child policy. The silly Americans and western media just love to make things up to insult China. Not long ago, Lisa Ling and the silly western media made a documentary video to insult China's one child policy. In that document video, Lisa Ling made a lot of silly nonsense, un-proven commnents about China's one child policy, but there was a Chinese lady stated in that document video that abortion is illegal in China. Lisa Ling was a stupid person as well a the silly Americans and western media. Chen Guangcheng is one of the bad Chinese who just want to be the western puppet. Not every Chinese love China, but majority of the Chinese love China.

[heliosheath-101]

Dear China, "The West" speaking here. Your suspicions are correct, we will seek to undermind your political structure, we will seek to minimize your accomplishments, we will always change our minds once you master our methods. This, because we hold the firm belief that only our values are universal, only our societal problems can be interpreted as the potential problems of all humankind, once they magage to catch up to us. Therefore since we have made the most progress, as evidenced by the sophistication of our societal problems, only we have authority to lead. We will not rest until you devalue education, until you cease saving money, until you develop conspicuous habits of consumption, until you abandon your parents, until you forget history, until you foolishly believe that you have ingratiated yourself to us.

[wfw3536]

Way to go Mrs Clinton turning this brave human right fighter over to the Chinese authorities and believing they will keep their word. This just shows how foolish the Obama administration is to believe that China will keep their word. What really is of concern, Obama and his administration will probably be taken advantage of by Iran and made to look foolish when the Iranians develops an atom bomb that will be a game changer for the world if these nuts have the bomb.

[bradkt1]

The last time we waved the flag of human rights with the PRC, their leader asked our President if they let them out, would we take 100 million or so alleged dissidents. That shut Jimmy Carter up for good...and every U.S. President since.

Now they hold several trillion dollars of our commercial paper, too.

We are in no position to lecture the PRC about anything.

[shrinkingviolet42]

This Chinese Patriot has been sacrificed to save Hillary and Geitner's worthless mission.
They have made no inroads so far and in hopes of getting some progress on their side they have thrown this poor guy under the bus!
The OBAMA way!! Remember his Grandma!
Restore the American Way in 11/12.

[Kevin7117]

It is way past time that we boycott China. That we buy absolutely nothing from China. Also this would mean more American jobs for the people, yea, thats right in America. Boycott china, there word in all affairs has never been good, again I state, it is way past time we do this. Get real and Boycott China in all aspects. Leave the table America, do not sit down with the dishonest civil rights violating China.

[Anotheryahoo]

This is the true communist we are dealing with. Ridiculous they get treated like Kings and do these kinds of things to their own people. Corrupt Washington brought us all made in Communist China.

[JACATTACK44]

IF OBAMA HAD A SON IN CHINA,HE WOULD LOOK LIKE CHEN..OF COURSE WE WOULD HAVE TO PUT A HOODED SWEATSHIRT ON HIM..LET CHEN OUT AND LET THEM HAVE HILLARY INSTEAD..ALONG WITH SOME MORE TREASURY NOTES!

[JacksonianBoot]

Huh....the Chinese Gov't is despotic.....our government is composed of gutless cowards of whom I am embarassed...the ying and the yang of it.

[shameonbush]

When Bill Clinton was President and asked about forced abortions in China, I remember his appalling response "we don't want to interfere with China's population policies." This is a human rights violation that Chen Guangcheng has had the guts to confront. The USA should do everything in it's power to protect this brave heroic man. If we don't believe that forced abortions is a human rights violation and if we don't protect Chen Guangcheng and his family, than we are no better than the Chinese government. I want to see something done to protect Chen Guangcheng and his family, they should be in the USA today. This would be a great opportunity for the USA to show the world that we represent a country that upholds human rights. The story of Chen Guangcheng will reveal if we are that country, God forbid we turn our back on this great man.

[Mary_Wilson]

Our government did NOT do much when an US citizen is being jailed illegally and prevented from coming home from China for almost 4 years. Protect your own citizens first!
https://www.change.org/petitions/help-my-father-dr-zhicheng-hu-come-home

[JohnD9876]

The President has appologized to Afganistan, France, Japan, Nicaragua, Turkey, Mexico, England. The probability of appologizing to China is very high.

[Ourdoc1]

As long as he never apologizes to you it's OK with the rest of us idiot.