Romney should have a commercial out about this by now!
If it were a GOP opponent he would.
HONG KONG — The news broke simultaneously from both the Chinese and the Americans on Wednesday afternoon,
Flickr Chinese Dragon Year Statue (Photo credit: epSos.de)
with U.S. officials speaking to reporters on background just as Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, was issuing its own brief bulletin: Chen Guangcheng had left the U.S. Embassy in Beijing of his own accord and was getting medical treatment at a hospital in the city.
Mr. Chen, 40, a blind human rights lawyer, fled house arrest in eastern China last week, making a daring late-night escape by eluding dozens of guards and finding his way to a getaway car driven by a female accomplice. He eventually sought refuge at the U.S. Embassy.
It was not immediately clear what the terms of Mr. Chen’s departure from the embassy would be. But his wife told the BBC Wednesday afternoon that she and their two children were well. Whether American officials and diplomats had already worked out a comprehensive agreement with their Chinese counterparts also was not certain.
But the demand for an apology by the Chinese side was immediate, coming just 9 minutes after Xinhua’s initial bulletin on its English-language site.
Here is the full text of the second report from Xinhua, which moved at 3:46 p.m.:
BEIJING, May 2 (Xinhua) — China demands the U.S. to apologize for a Chinese citizen’s entering the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry said here Wednesday.
It is informed that Chen Guangcheng, a native from Yinan County of eastern China’s Shandong Province, entered the U.S. Embassy in Beijing in late April and left of his own volition after a six-day stay in the embassy, said Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin.
“The Americans did tread on Chinese sovereignty by sneaking a Chinese national — even one who was being persecuted — into their embassy,” the China scholar David Zweig, a professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, said in an e-mail message.
“But it would be political suicide for President Obama to issue an apology; the Republicans would eat him alive!”
Chinese Human Rights@CHRDnet//platform.twitter.com/widgets/follow_button.html?align=right&button=grey&screen_name=CHRDnet&show_count=false&show_screen_name=false&lang=en
“China demands the U.S to apologize” for sheltering CGC– who is going to apologize 2 Chen Guangcheng for beating and family??
