WASHINGTON - The Obama administration scrambled Sunday to contain a burgeoning diplomatic crisis between the United States and China, dispatching a senior diplomat to Beijing to discuss the fate of a blind dissident who fled house arrest last week.
Amid intense secrecy, including a nearly blanket refusal to comment, the administration sought to negotiate for the safety of the dissident, Chen Guangcheng, who is apparently in US hands in Beijing - though it remained unclear late Sunday whether he was in the embassy, in a diplomatic residence, or somewhere else.
On Sunday, Kurt M. Campbell, an assistant secretary of state, arrived in Beijing to meet with Chinese officials concerning Chen’s case, and to try to keep the matter from undermining the US administration’s long effort to improve economic and security relations with China, senior officials and diplomats in Washington and Beijing said.
A senior US official said China’s leadership met Sunday to work out their response to Chen’s escape before scheduled meetings this week with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner. Clinton is scheduled to leave Washington on Monday night for China, assuming the trip proceeds.
“They’re trying to figure out what they’re going to tell Hillary Clinton,’’ the official said of the Chinese leaders, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the diplomatic sensitivity surrounding the case. “We’d like to know as much as we can before she leaves.’’
The administration’s effort to contain the crisis - the State Department declined to confirm that Campbell was in China even though he was photographed in a Marriott hotel in Beijing - underscored the fraught political challenge facing President Obama, at home and abroad.
“This is the greatest test in bilateral relations in years, probably going back to ‘89,’’ said Christopher K. Johnson, until recently a senior China analyst at the CIA, referring to the year of the brutal crackdown on student protests in Tiananmen Square.
Mitt Romney, the presumptive GOP presidential challenger, called for the administration to “take every measure’’ to protect Chen and his family. While he did not address the handling of the case so far, he said the matter demonstrated the need for unflinching American support for human rights in China.
“Any serious US policy toward China must confront the facts of the Chinese government’s denial of political liberties, its one-child policy, and other violation of human rights,’’ Romney said in a statement Sunday, his first remarks on the issue since Chen’s escape from house arrest was reported Friday.
Chen, 40, became famous because of his opposition to forced abortions and sterilizations conducted as part of China’s policy of limiting families to one child per couple. “Our country must play a strong role in urging reform in China and supporting those fighting for the freedoms we enjoy,’’ Romney said.
The administration’s only public comment so far on Chen’s case came Sunday from an unexpected quarter: Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, John O. Brennan.
Asked about the matter on “Fox News Sunday,’’ Brennan declined to discuss Chen’s whereabouts in any detail, but he acknowledged that “we are working very closely with the individuals involved in this.’’
He went on to say that the administration sought “an appropriate balance’’ when advocating for human rights in strategically important countries such as China.