U.S. asylum likely for China dissident, group says

Beijing •The blind Chinese lawyer at the center of a diplomatic storm between Washington and Beijing is a taboo topic in each capital. Neither side wants the biggest human-rights issue between the two since Tiananmen Square to disrupt high-level strategic and economic talks set to begin on Thursday.

President Barack Obama's administration and China's officials have signaled that the global economy, North Korea, Iran and Sudan — issues in which millions of lives are at stake — are far more important in U.S.-Chinese relations. Thus, both refuse to admit anything is amiss as a high-profile dissident is believed to be sheltering with U.S. diplomats in China.

Officials in both countries consider Chen Guangcheng invisible.

"I have nothing for you on anything having to do with that matter," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland responded repeatedly to reporters' questions on the subject on Monday. Although she confirmed that the top U.S. diplomat for Asia, Kurt Campbell, is in Beijing to prepare for the fourth round of the Strategic and Economic Dialogue, she refused to say if he was discussing Chen and pointedly refused to even utter his name.

Campbell arrived in Beijing early Sunday, at least a day ahead of schedule. According to activists, he is in intensive discussions with the Chinese to resolve the Chen matter before Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner get there. But Nuland said the strategic meetings will go on as planned.

Despite the silence, the handling of his case — the most serious U.S.-China rights crisis since the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre and the most serious overall since an American spy plane was forced to land on China's Hainan Island in 2001 — will have profound ramifications on both sides of the Pacific.

Obama's options are limited. Facing a tough fight for re-election in November, he cannot afford to ignore the situation. Doing nothing to help a visually impaired, self-taught lawyer who has fought against forced abortions and corruption in China would open Obama up to attacks from his presumed Republican opponent, Mitt Romney. It would also draw intense criticism from the human rights community in the United States, one of his core constituencies.

But, at the same time, pressing the issue too hard may prompt a backlash from China, on which the U.S. is increasingly reliant for foreign capital and support as it seeks to lead the global economic recovery, deal with North Korea and Iran's nuclear programs and prevent a potential war between Sudan and South Sudan.

The key to resolving the situation may well rest with an aging cadre at the top of China's Communist Party, who could either promise protection for Chen and his family in China or allow him to leave the country, possibly even to Hong Kong or Macao, as they prepare for their own leadership transition later this year.

The ouster of powerful politician Bo Xilai following a deputy's visit to the U.S. consulate in Chengdu in February has already laid bare some of the party's dirty laundry ahead the changes and the Chinese will be loath to lose more face over Chen, whose case was raised repeatedly by American officials, including Clinton herself, until the information blackout began last week.

Human rights has been a distasteful issue for Beijing for decades and it has criticized the U.S. approach as lecturing. Clinton made waves on her first trip abroad as secretary of state when she said that human rights could not dominate the entire agenda with China at the expense of other pressing issues.

Her comments drew fire at the time, but the relationship has clearly evolved as global priorities have shifted.

While China in the 1990s was in need of foreign investment and diplomatic partners and was willing to send jailed dissidents into exile to get them, Beijing sees little need for such concessions now, with its diplomatic clout and coffers bulging with foreign exchange. As the first and second largest economies, the U.S. and China have intertwining interests, and as the reigning superpower and burgeoning world power, they are frequently jostling for advantage across the globe.

With human rights so intractable, other issues like the global economic crisis or proliferation have naturally come to the fore, gladly for Beijing.