A few weeks ago I wrote an article about the Bo Xilai (薄熙來) dismissal in which I argued that his case was illustrative of the endemic corruption in China and that it would be good for Taiwan to build better firewalls between itself and China so that it is better protected when things go wrong in Beijing (“Leading by example is a good way to influence,” April 30, page 8).
This time I would like to focus on a very different case: that of the blind human rights lawyer Chen Guangcheng (陳光誠), who was able to come to the US with his family last week, but only after protracted high-level negotiations between the US and China. The Chen case attracted widespread international attention because of the outrageous injustice he and his family had to suffer at the hands of the Chinese authorities.
