Analysis: New stage in U.S.-China relations

WASHINGTON -- A tentative deal to allow activist Chinese lawyer Chen Guangcheng to study in the United States serves as a face-saving measure for all involved: Washington can say it safeguarded human rights, Beijing can point to its cooperative diplomacy, and Chen gets a new start in America.

After a week of hectic back-and-forth negotiations and Chen's own flip-flop on staying in China, Friday's announcements by U.S. and Chinese officials pointed to a positive end for a standoff that embarrassed the Chinese government by shining a light on its human rights record and put President Barack Obama in a tight spot while campaigning for re-election.

Several steps remain before Chen can take up an academic fellowship in the United States. But the speed with which a near-calamity was resolved illustrates the maturing partnership between the world's biggest powers, after years of stumbling over lesser disputes.

"It is a testament to how far we've come in building a strong and resilient relationship and being able to have very candid open discussions about issues where there is disagreement, without it endangering the entire range of significant matters that we are working on together," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday in Beijing.

Chen, a blind, self-taught lawyer, has emerged as a symbol of the Chinese civil rights movement after exposing forced abortions and sterilizations as part of China's one-child policy and then enduring almost seven years of prison and house arrest.

His dramatic, nighttime escape two weeks ago from local authorities into the halls of the U.S. Embassy -- just before Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner were to arrive for unrelated meetings -- had all the ingredients for a diplomatic fiasco.

The escape forced the Obama administration to balance its defense of an internationally renowned human rights defender against its courting of the Chinese to help advance the global economic recovery and deal with North Korea and Iran.

It also presented tough choices for Beijing, whose violent crackdown on pro-democracy protesters at Tiananmen Square 23 years ago is the portrait of its human rights behavior retained by much of the world. Chinese leaders still are extremely concerned about internal security and chafe at any foreign criticism of the nation's domestic affairs. But China has also become increasingly conscious of its global image.

Somehow the worst was avoided this time. Eschewing the public grandstanding that has long prompted the Chinese to dig in their heels, U.S. officials worked behind the scenes to first secure a deal that saw Chen leave the embassy on Wednesday to be reunited with his family and receive hospital care. Clinton avoided shaming China publicly. She issued one written statement but said nothing else.

When on Wednesday Chen backed out of the deal and demanded to leave China, officials from both sides hammered out a second compromise within 48 hours. The understanding came even as Clinton and Geithner were holding sensitive talks with the Chinese on issues such as currency, trade and territorial claims in the resource-rich South China Sea.