May 9, 2012
Najmuddin A Shaikh

PERHAPS there has been little in recent years in Sino-US relations that has caused as much of an international furore as the case of the blind human rights activist Chen Guangcheng.

This was not a case of a dissident seeking political asylum but of a blind man, a self-taught lawyer, who had won domestic and international renown for his promotion of human rights. He ran afoul of local authorities in Linyi prefecture because of his protests against forced abortions imposed arbitrarily by local authorities to enforce the one-child law. Theoretically free, he was nevertheless being illegally subjected to house arrest and denial of visitors by local authorities in a relatively remote part of China.

Whether this action of the local authorities had the support of the central government and the party leadership is not clear nor does it seem that the protests by Chinese and foreign activists were such as to force the issue to the attention of the party leadership. What is clear, however, is that in his escape from detention he had the support of a large number of Chinese activists and these activists were prepared despite the possibility of reprisals to make their role in the escape publicly known.

In an earlier era, this would not have been done even by the most courageous among them. It is equally clear that the escape was timed to coincide with one of the most important Sino-US meetings. This was a meeting to which both sides attached importance and in which, on the face of it, America was the one seeking Chinese cooperation in economic matters such as the easing of alleged trade restrictions, revaluation of Chinese currency etc. On the political front, it was seeking Chinese cooperation on making the sanctions against Iran more effective, resolving the nuclear problems of the Korean peninsula and using Chinese influence alongside America’s to prevent the Sudanese problem from escalating further.

For the Chinese to suspect that Mr Chen determined the timing in consultation with the Americans would be understandable. In an NYT story that was obviously based on a detailed official briefing the embassy was approached by one of Chen’s friend. The embassy’s assistance was sought for bringing him there so that his badly injured foot could be treated and the embassy could intercede to allow Mr Chen to regain his freedom while staying in China.

The embassy having secured the approval of the visiting State Department legal adviser carried out a James Bond-type operation to evade Chinese security and bundle Chen into an embassy car and bring him into its compound. All this just before the Sino-US talks were to begin.

While this was the main story in the western press, the Chinese did not respond publicly. They did place restrictions on website searches for Chen but otherwise maintained silence while intense negotiations were held with the Americans to have Chen leave the embassy. It was only after Chen’s departure from the embassy had been negotiated and he was placed in a hospital where his wife and son had been brought that the Chinese issued a statement calling on the US to apologise.

Elaborating, the Chinese Foreign Office spokesman said that “It should be pointed out that Chen Guangcheng, a Chinese citizen, was taken by the US side to the US embassy in Beijing via abnormal means, and the Chinese side is strongly dissatisfied with the move…. That “what the US side has done has interfered in the domestic affairs of China, and the Chinese side will never accept it”… and “The US embassy in Beijing has the obligation to observe relevant international laws and Chinese laws, and it should not do anything irrelevant to its function”.

This was an unexceptionable statement of what a host country has the right to expect from another country’s embassy to which it is playing host. The Americans could not even claim that Chen had somehow made his way into the embassy and asked for asylum. They maintained that from the start he said he wanted to stay in China but wanted the Americans to prevent any further prosecution.

The Americans did not apologise. They only said that this was an exceptional case, which they did not expect would be repeated.

Did the Chinese then make this an issue on which the Sino-American talks could have foundered? All reports indicate that this received only perfunctory mention in the high-level talks which by all accounts were concluded in a manner that both sides regarded as satisfactory.

The various agreements that resulted from the talks also showed the depth that the relationship has acquired and the need for both countries to carry these relations forward in a positive manner despite the doubts and misgivings that have consistently plagued the relationship.

Why did China react so mildly to what was clearly a violation of its sovereignty? It has been said, and this has a certain plausibility, that elements in the Chinese leadership were themselves anxious as part of the reform process triggered by the earlier Bo Xilai affair to prevent local authorities riding roughshod over citizens’ rights and that they wanted to use the Chen case as a good starting point to push for such reforms. This, however, is only a partial answer.

China is a powerful country and all indications are that those pushing for reform have found ammunition enough in the Bo Xilai matter to be able to push a reform agenda, which would meet the demands of what is seen to be an increasingly restive population.

The Chinese leadership took the position it did because it believed that even if the Americans acted with malice aforethought the stakes they had in the Sino-US relationship were too high to be put at risk because of this incident. It had the confidence in itself to do this and to start a process of moulding public opinion to accept the rationality of their decision rather than allow nationalist public outrage to determine their reaction.

In the light of what we have been going through in the laboured effort to repair US-Pakistan ties, there is an obvious lesson to be learnt. Let pragmatism rather than emotion govern decisions. Do not just kowtow to hysterical populism but use the considerable resources at the government’s disposal to direct public opinion in a direction that best suits Pakistan’s national interest.

The writer is a former foreign secretary.
-Dawn