Deal to Allow Chen Guangcheng to “study abroad” faces many obstacles and unanswered questions

Reports are that the United States and China have reached an agreement in which pro-life human rights activist Chen Guangcheng would be allowed to ask permission to study abroad. The Washington Post reported that “the Chinese government had promised to quickly process his paperwork so he can leave the country for the United States,” but in the very next paragraph made the key point that Chen and U.S. officials were “in the same position they have been stuck in for days: relying on the word of the Chinese government.”
Chen, 40, embarrassed and angered the Chinese government by exposing its systematic use of forced abortion and involuntary sterilization to enforce China’s coercive “One Child Policy.” 
But as the Post’s Jia Lynn Yang and Keith B. Richburg wrote Friday afternoon , there were plenty of obstacles and unanswered questions. To list just a few; the Chinese state-controlled media began “viciously attacking Chen”; many supporters who’ve tried to visit him in the hospital have been turned away or roughed up; and “In a news conference Friday, the top Foreign Ministry official in charge of U.S. affairs, Vice Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai, twice refused to discuss Chen’s case or even acknowledge a deal on the dissident’s future, even though Cui was said to be the lead official involved in talks.”
“We’re hopeful but not reassured by the latest deal emerging for Chen Guangcheng,”  Catherine Baber, Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific deputy director told the Post. “The fate of Chen and his family is far from certain, given that they are not yet safe and free.”
(read more)