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Chen Guangcheng leaves US embassy in Beijing Chen Guangcheng leaves US embassy in Beijing
(40 minutes later)
The blind legal activist Chen Guangcheng has left the US embassy in Beijing "of his own volition" after being there for six days, state media say, as China denounced the United States for interfering in its internal affairs. Chen Guangcheng, the blind Chinese activist who fled a punishing 19-month regime of house arrest and fled to Beijing, has left the US embassy after a six-day stay.
A brief report by the Xinhua news agency broke China's media silence on the case, which began days before China and the United States were due to hold high-level talks in Beijing. The 40-year-old left "of his own volition", the state news agency Xinhua said in a short statement.
A senior US official confirmed that Chen was out of the embassy, where he had gone after fleeing from house arrest in his home province of Shandong on 21 April. Chen is being treated in the VIP department on the ninth floor of Chaoyang hospital, on the east side of the city.
"Chen Guangcheng has arrived at a medical facility in Beijing where he will receive medical treatment and be reunited with his family," said the official who requested anonymity. Security was tight at the hospital, where the US ambassador, Gary Locke, is believed to be accompanying Chen.
China's foreign ministry said it was extremely unhappy the embassy had taken Chen in. Chen was seen briefly, pushed along in a wheelchair with several medical staff in white coats around him, one of whom was filming with a video camera.
"It must be pointed out that the United States embassy took the Chinese citizen Chen Guangcheng into the embassy in an irregular manner, and China expresses its strong dissatisfaction over this," the ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said in a statement carried by Xinhua. Chen's wife, Yuan Weijing, who was waiting at the hospital with their 10-year-old son and six-year-old daughter, told the Guardian: "I'm OK. We don't know yet [what's wrong with him]. He's having a check-up."
"The US method was interference in Chinese domestic affairs, and this is totally unacceptable to China. China demands that the United States apologise over this, thoroughly investigate this incident, punish those who are responsible, and give assurances that such incidents will not recur." She said she had arrived in Beijing on Wednesday. Supporters had been concerned for the safety of the family, particularly because Yuan had previously been beaten by their guards in Dongshigu.
The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, arrived in China on Wednesday for top-level talks that risk being upstaged by the Chen case. ABC News said it was told by sources that Yuan's family had travelled to the capital by high-speed train escorted by Chinese officials.
It also said Chen was accompanied at the hospital by Kurt Campbell, the US assistant secretary of state, who flew to Beijing earlier this week after news broke of the activist's escape, and Harold Koh, the state department's legal adviser.
Nicholas Bequelin, of Human Rights Watch, said he believed Chen would soon be on his way to exile in the US with his family.
"There is no way [Beijing] would put Chen Guangcheng on the streets on the eve of this summit with Clinton in town. If they had been willing to let him live freely in China they would have done that after the end of the Strategic and Economic Dialogue," he said.
News of Chen's departure from the embassy came as China's foreign ministry strongly criticised the US for harbouring the activist. Spokesman Liu Weimin said Beijing was demanding that the US apologise for allowing him to enter the embassy.
"It must be pointed out that the US embassy took the Chinese citizen Chen Guangcheng into the embassy in an irregular manner, and China expresses its strong dissatisfaction over this," Liu said in a statement.
"The US handling of the situation was interference in Chinese domestic affairs, and this is totally unacceptable to China. China demands that the United States apologise over this, thoroughly investigate this incident, punish those who are responsible, and give assurances that such incidents will not recur."
Officials had been scrambling to resolve Chen's future before the arrival in Beijing of the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, for bilateral talks.
While friends had said Chen was adamant he did not want to leave the country, others asked how China could give adequate guarantees that he and his family would be safe. In the past both he and his wife, Yuan Weijing, have been abducted from the capital by local officials.
The self-taught legal activist was initially praised by officials for using his skills to help disabled people and farmers with problems. But he angered local authorities for exposing forced abortions and sterilisations in Linyi city, eastern Shandong province. He was jailed for more than four years on what supporters said were fabricated charges, and he and his family have been under extralegal house arrest in his village of Dongshigu since his release in 2010.