Beijing: The United States faces a tense week in China as high-level talks on trade and global hot spots like Iran and North Korea open in the shadow of a blind Chinese activist's bold escape from house arrest to seek US protection in Beijing.
The trip to Beijing would have been challenging for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner even without a human rights dispute over Chen Guangcheng, who a US-based group says is hiding in the American Embassy in Beijing.
The May 3-4 Strategic & Economic Dialogue is the last of such annual consultations before political seasons heat up in the United States and China, giving leaders in both countries less flexibility over contentious economic and security issues.
The United States goes into full campaign mode for the November presidential election, while China's ruling Communist Party enters a leadership transition in the fall that has been complicated by a scandal that toppled senior leader Bo Xilai.
Bob Fu, whose religious and political rights advocacy group ChinaAid is the chief source of information about Chen, said he had confirmed "intensive talks" between the United States and China began right after the activist took shelter in the embassy on Friday.
"I was told the Chinese top leaders have been deliberating a decision to be made very soon," Fu said on Sunday by telephone from Texas. A "Chinese official response (is) expected in the next day or so," he added.
The United States has not confirmed reports that Chen, who slipped away from under heavy surveillance around his village home in eastern Shandong province, fled into the US Embassy. China has also declined public comment on Chen's reported escape.
Fu said he got his information from "both sides" in the talks over Chen's fate. The State Department would not comment.
The New York Times, however, reported that Kurt Campbell, an assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, arrived in Beijing on Sunday for talks about Chen, citing unidentified officials in Washington and Beijing. The newspaper said the senior diplomat was photographed in a Marriott hotel.
Chen, a self-schooled legal advocate who campaigned against abortions forced under China's "one child" policy, had been held under extra-legal confinement in his village home in Linyi since September 2010 when he was released from jail.
Blind activist scaled wall in great escape
Inside a dilapidated house in China's rural Shandong province, Chen Guangcheng feigned illness, lying on his bed for extended periods so that his guards would be lulled into complacency, activists said. Then he made his move, scaled a wall and slipped out to freedom.
He had earlier considered burrowing his way out but gave up on the idea. When he was left unattended for a short period on April 21, the lanky Chen slipped out of the house in darkness and scaled the two-meter (yard) wall.
"He did try to dig a tunnel but he scratched that plan," said Bob Fu, the president of Texas-based religious and human rights group, ChinaAid. "The successful plan happened when he was able to pretend he was lying on his bed."
Fu said omnipresent guards at the house failed to discover Chen's escape until Thursday, five days after his escape.
"Dear Premier Wen, I have finally escaped," Chen announced in a videotaped message from an undisclosed location to China's second ranked leader, Premier Wen Jiabao, released on Friday.
In his video message, Chen said that he had been under continual surveillance at his home and in the surrounding streets.
"As far as I can tell, given that I can't see, there were about 90 to 100 police, Party and government officials," he said.
The United States and China have declined to comment on the activist's whereabouts but his escape appears set to overshadow a high-level diplomatic meeting between the two sides this week.
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