NEWARK, N.J. – 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 out of view of the scores of journalists and supporters who gathered to greet him. He then headed to New York City.

The departure of Chen, his wife and two children for 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.

“Thousands of thoughts are surging to my mind,” Chen said before he left China. His concerns, he said, included whether authorities would retaliate for his negotiated departure by punishing his relatives left behind. It also was unclear whether the government will allow him to return.

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.

Before he left China, Chen asked his supporters and others in the activist community for their understanding of his desire to leave the front lines of the rights struggle in China.

“I am requesting a leave of absence, and I hope that they will understand,” he said.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland praised the quiet negotiations that freed him.

“We also express our appreciation for the manner in which we were able to resolve this matter and to support Mr. Chen’s desire to study in the U.S. and pursue his goals,” Nuland said in a statement.

The White House also said it was pleased with the outcome of negotiations.

China’s Foreign Ministry said it had no comment. The government’s news agency, Xinhua, issued a brief report saying that Chen “has applied for study in the United States via normal channels in line with the law.”

Chen’s supporters welcomed his departure. “This is great progress,” said U.S.-based rights activist Bob Fu. “It’s a victory for freedom fighters.”

The 40-year-old Chen is emblematic of a new breed of activists that the Communist Party finds threatening. Often from rural and working-class families, these “rights defenders,” as they are called, are unlike the students and intellectuals from the elite academies and major cities of previous democracy movements and thus could potentially appeal to ordinary Chinese.

Chen gained recognition for crusading for the disabled and for farmers’ rights and fighting against forced abortions in his rural community. That angered local officials, who seemed to wage a personal vendetta against him, convicting him in 2006 on what his supporters say were fabricated charges and then holding him for the past 20 months in illegal house arrest.

Even with the backstage negotiations, Chen’s departure came hastily. Chen spent the last 2 1/2 weeks in a hospital for the foot he broke escaping house arrest. Only on Wednesday did Chinese authorities help him complete the paperwork needed for his passport.

Chen said Saturday by telephone that he was informed at the hospital just before noon to pack his bags to leave. “I hope that the government will fulfill the promises it made to me, all of its promises,” he said.

 

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