China Dissident's Escape 'More Exciting Than Shawshank Redemption'

choi

(1) Michael Bristow, Chinese Activist Chen Guangcheng's Uncertain Future. BBC, May 7, 2012
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17982040
("'I'm pretty safe right now. I'm not allowed to talk to media, but I have been accepting their interviews,' she [He Peirong] said. Ms He added that the authorities had told her she would not be welcome in Beijing or Shandong province before the Communist Party's 18th Congress, scheduled for later this year. * * * Another one of Mr Chen's friends, Teng Biao, is also under pressure from the authorities. 'I am not allowed to talk to the foreign media. I cannot take interviews,' he said on Monday")

My comment: There is no need to read the rest.

(2) Sui-Lee Wee, China Dissident's Escape 'More Exciting Than Shawshank Redemption.' Reuters, May 7, 2012
http://www.reuters.com/article/2 ... USBRE8460E220120507
("In an odd twist, He [Peirong] said, 'The Shawshank Redemption' was showing on television in the hotel room where three security officers questioned her and Guo Yushan, a Beijing-based researcher and rights activist")

Note:
(a) The Shawshank Redemption
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shawshank_Redemption
(a 1994 film adapted from the Stephen King novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption; a lukewarm box office reception; at the fictitious prison, the inmate dug with his rock hammer for two decades and escaped via a tunnel without being noticed)
(b)
(i) Ohio State Reformatory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_State_Reformatory
(located in Mansfield, Ohio; made famous by the film The Shawshank Redemption (1994) when it was used in the large panning scene and for the Warden's office)
(ii) Mansfield Reformatory Preservation Society (MRPS), Ohio State Reformatory  
http://www.mrps.org/
(cornerstone laid in 1886; in use as prison 1896-1990; now a tourist site and rented out for events)

(3) Jerome A Cohen, Chen’s Silent Partner: Luck. Washington Post, May 6, 2012 (op-ed).
http://www.washingtonpost.com/op ... QADncY6T_story.html

Quote:

"Remember Cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty’s 15 years in the US Embassy in Budapest, or the 13 months professor Fang Lizhi and his wife spent at the US Embassy in Beijing after seeking shelter following the Tiananmen Square massacre? Some Chinese officials threatened to indict Chen for treason for seeking foreign diplomatic shelter from the lawless brutality inflicted on him and his family since 2005.

"Even Chinese legal experts, who normally are sensitive to the need to improve their country’s human rights record, had to have been concerned that this apparent attempt to gain political asylum would help establish an exception to prevailing international law, which frowns upon embassy asylum. Hence, China’s public demand for a US apology for the perceived violation of its territorial jurisdiction.

"By Friday afternoon, however, thanks to an unexpected concatenation of events, things had changed. A spokesman for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who previously had condemned the United States taking a Chinese citizen into its embassy “by abnormal means,” gave a succinct, vitriol-free answer to an obviously arranged question about whether Chen might study abroad. Like any other Chinese citizen, he said, Chen could apply to study abroad. That was the signal that a solution had been reached

Note:
(a) For Dr Pangloss, see Candide
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candide
(a French satire first published in 1759 by Voltaire)

Essence: One of the best known works of
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Wilhelm_Leibniz
(1646-1716, a German mathematician and philosopher)
, Monadology (composed in 1714) concludes: "Therefore this is the best of all possible worlds." In the satire, a young man, Candide, lives a sheltered life and indoctrinated with Leibnizian optimism (or simply Optimism) by his mentor, Pangloss. Disasters struck. Then Candide adopts an enigmatic precept, "we must cultivate our garden," in lieu of the Leibnizian mantra of Pangloss, "all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds."

That is what Professor Cohen means by saying, "I am no Dr Pangloss who believes that every diplomatic debacle is for the best in this best of all possible worlds."
(b) József Mindszenty
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B3zsef_Mindszenty
(1892-1975; tortured and given a life sentence in a 1949 show trial; "Freed in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, he was granted political asylum and lived in the US embassy in Budapest for 15 years. He was finally allowed to leave the country in 1971. He died in exile in 1975 in Vienna")
(c) For concatenation, see
concatenate (vt; Latin concatenare to link together, from Latin com- + catena chain): "to link together in a series or chain"
www.m-w.com


(4) Christopher Bodeen, Activist Crisis Is US Envoy's Human Rights Moment. Associated Press, May 6, 2012.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/sto ... mp;TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Quote:

"Chen's sudden escape from house arrest and a US decision to give him sanctuary in the US Embassy gave Locke his first crisis as ambassador, made him a target of criticism from Beijing and earned him respect from the human rights lobby.

"During Chen's anxious six days inside, Locke said he spent up to five hours a day with him, trying to reassure him. * * * 'We spent a lot of time determining what it is that he wanted,' Locke told reporters last week in the thick of the negotiations over Chen.

"Locke likes to tell Chinese audiences that Washington is the U.S. state with the most trade with China.

"Human rights has traditionally been a prominent and contentious issue for US ambassadors, but Chen's case has put the issue at the center of US-China tensions perhaps for the first time since China's bloody 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protests around Beijing's Tiananmen Square. Despite initial doubts in the human rights community, [Bob] Fu, the Texas-based lobbyist, said Locke has won credibility by meeting with dissidents and leaders of Christian congregations that worship outside the direct control of the ruling Communist Party.

My comment: There is no need to read the rest.

(5) Sally Jenkins, What Sustains Chinese Truth-Tellers. Washington Post, May 5, 2012 (op-ed)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/op ... QApCo13T_story.html
("Just as Teng described it four years ago, it’s really an internal contest between China’s lawyers and its secret police for the soul of the country")

Note: elfin (adj): "of, relating to, or produced by an elf"

(6) Keith B Richburg, Chen Guangcheng Breaks Silence With Phone Call to The Washington Post. Washington Post, May 2, 2012.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wo ... QA0dMJwT_story.html