© AFPChen Guangcheng, left, with the US ambassador to China, Gary Locke, before leaving the embassy where he spent six days after fleeing from house arrest.
Blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng has pleaded for help to let him leave the country with his family, with a US-brokered deal for his future unravelling within hours of his leaving the Beijing embassy where he had taken shelter.
Chen said he never asked to leave China in his six days at the mission, which followed his incredible escape from a brutal 19-month regime of illegal house arrest. But he said he only left the embassy because US officials told him Chinese authorities would send his wife and children back to their home province - where they have been watched around the clock and harassed by a team of 100 guards - if he remained inside. He added that, at one point, an American official told him his wife would have been beaten to death - a claim denied by the US.
"I think we'd like to rest in a place outside of China," Chen told Associated Press, in an interview from a hospital room in the capital. "Help my family and me leave safely."
His appeal was in stark contrast to the US secretary of state Hillary Clinton's statement hours earlier, which said the handling of his stay and departure "reflected his choices and our values". She said that China had offered Chen understandings that he could pursue higher education in a safe environment. "Making these commitments a reality is the next crucial task," added Clinton, who arrived in Beijing on Wednesday morning. A friend said Barack Obama was due to make a statement on Chen's case as part of the deal, and the activist initially told his lawyer that he had "received clear assurances".
The state department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in a statement that no US 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.
But Nuland confirmed US officials had passed on the Chinese warning that his family would be returned to Shandong.
"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," she said.
Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, tweeted: "US says it didn't convey threats to harm Chen's family but did say they'd be returned to site of abuse. Same thing."
The US ambassador, Gary Locke, assistant secretary of state Kurt Campbell, and Harold Koh, legal adviser to the state department, accompanied Chen to Chaoyang hospital in the east of the city, where he was reunited with his wife Yuan Weijing, their 10-year-old son and six-year-old daughter. Yuan told the Guardian the trio arrived in Beijing on Wednesday, adding: "I'm OK. We don't know yet [what's wrong with him]. He's having a checkup."
Lawyer Teng Biao, a friend who spoke to Chen several times by phone, said via Twitter the activist appeared to change his mind between 8pm and 10pm. Teng advised Chen to call the US embassy, but the activist said that no one answered.
In a phone interview with The Guardian, Chen said he was worried about his health, the safety of relatives still in his home town and his lack of communication with the outside world. "I can't go out. No friends visit me. For a time, my cell phone did not work last night so I worry so much about my relatives back home." Although his wife was with him, he said the main concern was family members still in his home village, where security has been tightened. "There are many people around my home with sticks and they have installed close circuit cameras. I heard they are putting an electric fence around my home."
His health is another worry. "My condition is not very good. The blood in my stool is still very serious, and my leg is broken and in plaster," he said, before the phone was cut off.
Supporters had already expressed grave concern about whether his safety could be protected. "There are no reassurances I can trust that Chen and his family will remain safe in the long term," said Nicholas Bequelin of Human Rights Watch.
Wang Songlian, of the Chinese Human Rights Defenders network, warned: "The government has a record of not honouring its words regarding human rights. The most worrying part is his extended family is in Shandong and authorities could retaliate by detaining or torturing them."
China has demanded the US apologises for taking Chen into the embassy in "an irregular manner". "The US method was interference in Chinese domestic affairs, and this is totally unacceptable to China. China demands that the US apologise over this, thoroughly investigate this incident, punish those who are responsible, and give assurances such incidents will not recur," the foreign ministry spokesman, Liu Weimin, said in a statement carried by Xinhua. The state news agency said Chen left the embassy "of his own volition".
US officials said staff had helped Chen enter the mission because he needed medical care following his escape. "This was an extraordinary case involving exceptional circumstances, and we do not anticipate that it will be repeated," one said.
Chen's friend Jerome Cohen, who was involved in his negotiations with US diplomats, said the "barefoot lawyer" was initially reluctant to accept the deal - which involved remaining in China and studying law at university - but agreed if Obama would make a public statement expressing commitment to the deal. US diplomats and Clinton were also due to do so.
Cohen, a law professor and senior fellow for Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, spoke for hours with Chen and American diplomats by phone after the activist asked for him.
"It would be a sad outcome if Chen went to war with the US, as this was his only guarantee of safety," Cohen added.
Chen's case has been regarded as one of the most egregious examples of official abuses. The self-taught legal activist was initially praised by authorities for helping other disabled people. But he angered officials in Linyi city, Shandong, after attempting to help women forced to have abortions and sterilisations. He was jailed for more than four years on what supporters described as fabricated charges and put under house arrest following his release in 2010.
It seems his 'blindness' is not just physical if he really expected more from the USA. There is no 'safe environment' unless he wants to move to Gitmo and join other 'expatriots'? This seems to represent the type of 'pursuit of higher education' Hillary had in mind for him. Let's hope Chen wakes up to the reality of his situation. Perhaps seeing the evil of the frying pan (the evil you know) misled him to think the fire was better (the evil you don't know)?
It is nice to see so many others partake in this lesson as it expands exponentially.