Sheltering a Chinese criminal

The U.S. owes China an apology, said Mo Nong in China Daily. By taking escaped dissident Chen Guangcheng into the U.S. Embassy “via abnormal means” last month, the U.S. broke both international and Chinese laws. It also absurdly cast itself as a negotiator with the Chinese government over the fate of the blind activist, who escaped from house arrest in his hometown and so dramatically sought the international spotlight. But the U.S. “does not have the right to make any demands on the Chinese government” about how it treats its own citizens. China’s decision to allow Chen to apply for a student exit visa was China’s alone, and should not be seen as a concession to the U.S.

By intruding into this local affair, the U.S. has demonstrated its lack of understanding of China, said Yu Jincui in the Global Times. This is not some simple case of a good and noble dissident being persecuted by a vast and powerful state. Chen did, in fact, start out as a useful Chinese activist, advocating for the rights of the disabled. Later he called attention to ways in which the local government in Linyi might have been “too forceful” with people who flouted the one-child policy. But “he gradually resorted to extreme and violent ways” and was justly sentenced to prison. In seeking the international spotlight, he became a “political pawn” of the West.

This “so-called human-rights hero” has been thoroughly co-opted by the U.S., said the Beijing Daily in an editorial. At this point, Chen doesn’t represent the people of his town, but only “the interests of his behind-the-scenes backer, Western anti-China forces.” He “has become the tool and pawn for American diplomats to throw mud on China.” Ambassador Gary Locke was the first in line to do so, said the Beijing Youth Daily. “Not only did he personally escort Chen Guangcheng to a Beijing hospital, he also personally pushed his wheelchair to catch foreign media’s attention.” But what else should we expect from this attention-seeking troublemaker? From the moment he arrived, Locke has tried to interfere in Chinese affairs. He placed an air-quality monitor on the U.S. Embassy roof and live-streamed the high pollution readings on the Web in an effort to sow discontent.

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Locke is just following Hillary Clinton’s orders, said Graeme Maxton in the Hong Kong South China Morning Post. Since the secretary of state laid out her new foreign policy agenda at the end of last year, “America’s diplomats and politicians have been stomping across Asia like bulls clattering through a porcelain factory.” The U.S. is suddenly wooing Myanmar, where China has oil-pipeline interests; strengthening ties with Vietnam; increasing military cooperation with the Philippines and Australia; and offering high-tech weapons to Taiwan. This “shock and awe” approach has Beijing bewildered—but only temporarily. Given its enormous economic leverage over the U.S. as a buyer of bonds and seller of cheap goods, “China does not just have to sit there and take it.”