The Impact of the Chen Case on US-China Relations

Jeffrey Bader has had an inside view of US policy toward China for several decades.

He served as special assistant to President Obama, and as senior director for East Asian affairs on the National Security Council until last year.

Now he’s a fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Bader speaks with Marco Werman about what’s behind the public statements made by both China and the Obama Administration as the case of Chen Guangcheng unfolded.

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Marco Werman: Jeffrey Bader served as Special Assistant to President Obama and as Senior Director for East Asian affairs on the National Security Council until last year. Currently he’s a fellow at the Brookings Institution. Jeff Bader, the Chinese government says the U.S. government is interfering in China’s internal affairs. What do you make of this?

Jeffrey Bader: I think that’s what one would expect of the Chinese to say under the circumstances. Clearly they were unhappy that Chen Guangcheng, the dissident who’s been in the U.S. Embassy for the last six days, found his way into the embassy presumably with some assistance, so they regard that as interference in their internal affairs, and I’m not surprised that they would say this.

Werman: So China wants the U.S. government to apologize for the Chinese are calling the inappropriate use of a diplomatic measure and they also want the U.S. to promise it’ll never happen again. Does this mean the U.S. and China are at a diplomatic stand-off?

Bader: No, on the contrary. The U.S. is not going to apologize, that will not happen. What the Chinese are seeking here is to demonstrate to their own people that they are in charge of this matter, that this is not a case where the U.S. is dictating terms, and the other thing they want to assure is there is not a repetition, so they’re looking to put the U.S. on notice that this should not become a precedent for future such events where dissidents will show up at the U.S. Embassy and gain asylum. This I think, in both the minds of the Chinese and the Americans, was a one time affair and no one wants to see the U.S. Embassy turned into a regular asylum for this kind of case.

Werman: And still, seeking shelter in an embassy generally, is an age-old tradition all over the globe.

Bader: It’s very rare. The U.S. government, as a matter of law and as a matter of practice, does not provide asylum in its embassies anywhere. There have been one or two cases, Carlo Mensentay [sp?] in Hungary during the cold war, a group of Pentecostals in Moscow during the cold war where people stayed in U.S. embassies for a very long time. The fact of the matter is that the U.S. government has no ability to get someone out of an embassy into exile abroad, even if the individual wanted to, so the U.S. does not have a doctrine of diplomatic asylum in embassies. What we do have a doctrine of is temporary refuse for people seeking protection from a mob or from imminent danger, so that was the legal basis on which Chen Guangcheng was given sanctuary.

Werman: There are reports that a U.S. official told Chen that Chinese authorities threatened to beat his wife if Chen didn’t leave the U.S. Embassy. If the U.S. was aware of those threats, why are they portraying the deal for Chen’s leaving the embassy as satisfactory?

Bader: I am told, I believe authoritatively and accurately, that the U.S. government was not aware of any threats to beat Chen or his family, that no such threats were conveyed by or in the presence of U.S. government officials to Chen. I think that the way the negotiation unfolded, the Chinese conveyed that the deal that they were offering was not going to be on the table forever, and that if Chen did not accept the deal that they had negotiated, then Chen’s wife who was in Beijing, would go back to Jin Dong. There was no conveying of a threat to beat anyone.

Werman: Jeff Bader, you were at the U.S. Embassy in 1989 during the Jin Mei Xin uprising. You were directly involved in the case of Fang Li Jir, that pro-democracy activist who took shelter at the U.S. Embassy and ended up staying there a year. I know Fang’s case and Chen’s case are very different, but just take us back to your involvement in Fang’s case and what it was like.

Bader: Yes, Marco, I was actually the acting Director of the China’s [??] Department on June 4, 1989, when the Chinese assaulted Chen Amana. I came into the embassy the next day and was told that Fang and his wife and son had come into the embassy seeking asylum because he was identified by the Chinese government as “The Black Hand” who was responsible for the unrest, and I was told that the embassy had talked to Fang for several hours and then he had decided to return to the Jinguo Hotel elsewhere in Beijing, not to seek asylum. He was basically encouraged not to seek asylum. I said that this was not satisfactory and that they should bring him, his wife, and his son, back into the embassy for protection. There was some discussion, but finally we communicated to the embassy that they should bring them back in, which they did. He was brought back in and then Ambassador Lilly, James Lilly, negotiated for the next year on Fang’s exile to the U.S. Their case was different in multiple respects as you indicated, one is that Fang was seeking exile from the beginning. He almost certainly would have faced at minimum, life imprisonment or execution, had he stayed in China, so exile was the only choice. The other interesting feature of it was our embassy was essentially frozen out of all relations with the Chinese during the course of the next year while Fang stayed in the embassy. Ambassador Lilly was able to negotiate his departure from China, but there were essentially no other relations between the Chinese government and the U.S. Embassy so long as Fang and his wife were in the embassy.

Werman: So returning to the current episode of Chen Guangcheng, what are the terms that China offered to protect Chen?

Bader: Well, I gather what they’ve said is that he would not be returned to Shantung Province where he was held on house arrest, that he would be taken to a new place with his wife and children, that he would have the opportunity to have university education. He’s a self-taught lawyer, he wants to have a legal education, that the U.S. government would have periodic access to him to check on his status, and that he would be treated humanely. I think that’s the essence of what the Chinese said. This was satisfactory to Chen and that was what our officials were seeking to assure, was Chen being offered something that was his wish.

Werman: How confident are you that the terms will be honored?

Bader: Well, I think the main point is that Chen seems sufficiently confident they’ll be honored, so the decision was made by him to leave. Predicting future Chinese contact on this, I can’t really say. I think the only thing I could say is that the Chinese have made some unusual commitments in this case, given Secretary Clinton’s personal involvement in it and the prominence of this case in U.S./China relationship, if the Chinese were to persecute him or arrest him, obviously it would be a large issue in U.S./China relations, so that gives the Chinese hopefully, some significant disincentive for doing that kind of thing, but one can’t make guarantees. Guarantees are not obtainable in this kind of situation. China’s a sovereign country and they’ll make their own decisions, but they have made commitments which are exposed to the public. It would certainly be damaging to them and to our relationship if they went back on them.

Werman: Just an update, Chen has spoken to the Associated Press and he says he fears for his life and wife’s and daughter’s safety, and he wants to leave, so would the U.S. be willing to bring him to the United States to offer him asylum?

Bader: Marco, to me that’s completely speculative. He, as I say, has spent six days with U.S. officials and never said anything like that. If he is saying that now, the U.S. government officials are reading that in the media. He had five days, six days, in which to say to the U.S. government officials, never said it. We’re dealing with a new situation based on a media report that I can’t judge. I just don’t know how to evaluate statements by someone who was saying something very different for six days and now, reportedly, is saying something else.

Werman: Do you think it’s realistic for Chen to continue his work as an activist lawyer in China, given that so many activist lawyers have been arrested recently?

Bader: I think it would be a significant challenge. It would be difficult. The Chinese leadership in the last few years has certainly not shown much tolerance of high profile activism of a sort that Chen has engaged in the past, so I think this would be very difficult.

Werman: Jeffrey Bader, fellow at the Brookings Institution. He served as Special Assistant to President Obama and as the Senior Director for East Asian affairs on the National Security Council until last year. His new book is called “Obama and China’s Rise,” an insider’s account of America’s Asia strategy. Jeffrey, thank you.

Bader: Thank you, Marco.

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