Activist wants to leave China with family

BEIJING -- The diplomatic disarray deepened yesterday after a Chinese activist reversed course and asked to leave the country with his family, abandoning an arduously negotiated agreement even though he had left the protection of the U.S. Embassy and was in a Beijing hospital ringed by Chinese police.

Bewildered and alone with his wife and children, Chen Guangcheng periodically switched on a cellphone to tell friends and foreign media he felt scared and wanted to go abroad, and that he had not seen U.S. officials in more than a day.

He even called in to a congressional hearing in Washington, telling lawmakers he wanted to meet with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is in Beijing this week. "I hope I can get more help from her," Chen said.

Chen's effort to keep his case in the public eye served to increase pressure on Washington and embarrass Beijing as it hosted Clinton and other U.S. officials for annual talks on global political and economic hot spots.

Taken aback at Chen's change of heart, U.S. diplomats spent much of yesterday trying to confirm that the family wanted to leave, and eventually said they would try to help Chen, who is blind. It remained unclear how they might do so now that he has left the embassy, or whether the Chinese would be willing to renegotiate a deal that had seemed settled a day earlier.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Mark Toner confirmed U.S. officials weren't able to see Chen in person yesterday but spoke twice with him by telephone, and once with his wife, Yuan Weijing, outside the hospital.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration's handling of the case drew sharp criticism from presumed GOP nominee Mitt Romney. Campaigning in Virginia, Romney said reports that U.S. officials allowed Chen to leave the embassy represented a "dark day for freedom" and a "day of shame for the Obama administration."