Chinese dissident balks at deal for freedom

BEIJING -- The blind dissident who boldly fled house arrest and placed himself under the wing of U.S. diplomats balked yesterday at a deal delicately worked out between the two countries to let him live freely in China, saying he now fears for his family's safety unless they are all spirited abroad.

After six days holed up in the U.S. Embassy, Chen Guangcheng, 40, left the compound's protective confines yesterday for a hospital for treatment of a leg injury suffered in his escape. U.S. Ambassador Gary Locke escorted Chen to Chaoyang Hospital, where he was reunited with his family.

A shaken Chen told The Associated Press from his hospital room that Chinese authorities had warned he would lose his opportunity to be reunited with his family if he stayed longer in the embassy.

U.S. officials verified that account, but they adamantly denied his contention that one U.S. diplomat had warned him of a threat from the Chinese that his wife would be beaten to death if he did not leave the embassy.

"I think we'd like to rest in a place outside of China," Chen told the AP, appealing again for help from Washington. "Help my family and me leave safely."

Only hours earlier, U.S. officials said they had extracted from the Chinese government a promise that Chen would join his family and be allowed to start a new life in a university town in China, safe from the rural authorities who had abusively held him in prison and house arrest.

That announcement had been timed to clear up the matter before strategic and economic meetings start today between Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and their Chinese counterparts. Clinton spoke to Chen on the phone when he left the embassy and welcomed the resettlement agreement. -- AP