Chinese human rights activist Chen Guangcheng has received an offer from the New York University to be a visiting scholar either in its campus here or at any of the institution's global sites.
Getting ready to travel to the United States on a fellowship, blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng spoke to American lawmakers for the second time in a week and gave a detailed account of his alleged persecution and that of his family by Chinese authorities.
Blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng has accused the New York University of ending his fellowship due to "unrelenting pressure" from China, leaving him and his family stranded.
Blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng, who was at the centre of a recent Sino-United States diplomatic row, said he was thankful that Beijing had dealt with the situation with "restraint and calm" as he arrived in the US with his family.
Blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng, who was at the centre of an extraordinary diplomatic crisis between China and the United States, on Saturday left for New York with his family after the Chinese government granted them passports. Chen, along with his wife and two children boarded a flight to Newark, near New York, after being taken from a Beijing hospital to the airport.
A diplomatic row over a blind Chinese dissident overshadowed the inaugural meeting of the annual China-US strategic dialogue here after he sought American asylum for himself and his family over fears that "anything could happen" to them if they remained in the country.
United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Beijing on Wednesday for annual strategic and economic talks. Clinton's visit comes at a time when there is renewed tension in the South China Sea over China's dispute with US-ally Philippines over an island claimed by both countries.
Fearing a threat to his life, blind Chinese human rights activist Chen Guangcheng has appealed to United States lawmakers to ensure that he would be allowed to leave his homeland for America.
"We are alarmed by recent incidents in Tibet of young people lighting themselves on fire in desperate acts of protest, as well as the continued house arrest of the Chinese lawyer Chen Guangcheng," Clinton said in her remarks at the East-West Centre in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Chen Guangcheng, who had claimed to have escaped from house arrest from his village in Shandong province, was holed up in the US embassy for the past six days and had become a political hot potato between the two sides.
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