Pod Save the World - Dissident at the Doorstep Episode 5: Guangcheng’s Year of Living Famously

Episode Date: February 3, 2024

Following a tense negotiation between the US and China, Guangcheng arrives in the United States. He is greeted with a hero’s welcome. He gives speeches. He wins awards. And he tries to adjust to life in New York, hosted by NYU. But quickly cracks start to emerge beneath the glamorous facade.

If you like Dissident at the Doorstep and want ad-free episodes and exclusive content from the show, join Friends of the Pod, Crooked's new subscription community at crooked.com slash friends. Without knowing the context, an onlooker might have thought on that warm spring day in 2012 that New York University was welcoming a foreign dignitary or Hollywood star. A white van pulls up in front of a university building. Chen Guangcheng steps out. A moment of jubilation and liberation for the blind human rights activist Chen Guangcheng. A New York moment, too, with flashbooks and well-wishers and their wholehearted support.

Less than a week ago, Guangcheng was still at a hospital in Beijing, getting treatment for the bones he broke in his foot while escaping housework. arrest. From his hospital rooms surrounded by Chinese police, he dialed into a congressional hearing and expressed his wishes to come to the U.S. Now, still uncrutches, his set foot on American soil. It takes him a moment to steady himself. A man breaks out of the crowd and rushes forward to shake Guangcheng's hand. It's Republican Congressman Chris Smith, who convened the hearing Guangcheng spoke at by phone. Professor Jerry Cohen, who helped make the arrangement for Guangcheng to come to NYU is there too.

While Guangcheng's wife Wei Jing and Congressman Smith look on from the side, it's Jerry who stands beside Guangcheng in front of cameras and microphones. He looks at him admiringly, as Guangzhou addresses the crowd through an interpreter. After much turbulence, I have come out of Shandong. This is thanks to the assistance of men. Many friends.

Watching this scene reminds me of my own arrival to the United States in 2009. A Chinese schoolmate picked me up at the airport and drove me down to the University of Chicago campus. My flight was delayed and O'Hare felt like a maze. It took me a good while to find my schoolmate. On the way to Hyde Park, you tried to comfort me by saying that it's not possible to get lost in Chicago. You just need to remember that the lake is to the east. I looked out the car window and tried to visualize a neatly aligned grid. But all I saw was the darkness of night.

I was overwhelmed, and my arrival was normal and uneventful. Guangcheng's was quite the opposite. And it is a great honor and blessing that we have him now in the United States. No shortage of support here in New York. But Chen Guangcheng says he needs a rest, and he's guaranteed a quieter life, even in this boisterous city. If one looks at the media coverage from this day,

the tone is celebratory, as if the story has reached its happy conclusion. Guangcheng is on free soil now. He's welcomed, he is safe. He will live life as he wishes. But the reality is not a fairy tale. Just one year later, everything will fracture. The truth is,

if you look closely beneath the palm, and fanfare. The cracks are already there. The process of how I came to the U.S. was in itself a process for me of getting to know the U.S. I'm Yang Yang Cheng, and I'm Alison Clayman, and this is episode five of dissident at the doorstep. You treated him fabulously. They spent over $400,000 that first year to take care of the chuns. Jerry Cohen told us that when Guangchung arrived in New York, the university set his family up with everything they needed

to start their lives over in the U.S. And they had his own private security guard and, you know, gave him a faculty apartment. A rent-free three-bedroom right in Greenwich Village. Early on, Jerry was Guangcheng's closest advisor. The two of them talked pretty much every day. Joan got a little annoyed because he'd wake us up every morning at 7 o'clock and say, this is what happened last night, and this is what I heard, and what am I going to do today? And finally I said, let's talk a little later in the morning.

You know, I didn't, 7 o'clock, I'm not at my best. When he came here, he was a rock star. God, we'd go for a walk in the park here, and everybody in New York knew him. His celebrity extended beyond the NYU neighborhood. GQ magazine named him the 2012 Rebel of the Year. In the photo, he's wearing his signature sunglasses and a sleek dark outfit, a long red scarf around his neck, billows in the wind. Anderson Cooper interviewed him for CNN.

You say it's natural to want to speak out against evil, but many people remain silent. Why do you think you must be very courageous? I only felt it was a natural reaction. And radio personalities like Brian Laird invited Guangcheng to their shows to talk about his new life in New York. So have you discovered any new foods in New York, new music in New York, or new activities in New York? I have discovered some new things. For example, in Indian restaurants, I've discovered mango Lassie, which I really enjoy.

Mangalasi is very New York. In all these interviews, of course, reporters wanted to hear about his escape. But he also remembers American journalists asking him big questions about one issue in particular. He very much to hear what to my current things of some kind of. They were very willing to listen to my views on current issues, like democracy and human rights. It's like they had been in a room full of flowers for so long, they stopped noticing the fragrance. They thought there were many problems with democracy. They kept asking me, why do you think democracy is so good when we think it's so bad?

It's such a great Chinese expression. Jiu Hua Shi Buzuu Shui Buechang-la. The idea that when you're so used to something, you may stop appreciating it, or even just noticing its basic attributes. The saying is paired with a second line. If you stay in a room with pickled fish for too long, you stop noticing the stench. I think Guangcheng was picking up on what he represented

as a celebrity dissident to the people who were admiring him in that moment. In their minds, he came from somewhere where he'd been fighting so hard for what we Americans take for granted. And now that he's here, enjoying what we have, maybe he can help us notice the flowers again. Besides interviews and academic lectures,

Guangcheng also found himself on the Human Rights Award circuit. He attended galaes like the one where Colin and I first met him in person. At another event, Richard Gere presented him with a human rights prize that had previously been given to the Dalai Lama. Long live the troublemakers. Long live the troublemakers. Long live the troublemakers. And Christian Bale, who less than a year earlier, had brought a CNN camera crew to Guangcheng's village only to be punched by a plain-closed guard, finally got to meet Guangcheng face-to-face at the ceremony for Human Rights First's Human Rights Award.

Attendees sit in the darkened room at round banquet tables with lit candle centerpieces. On the stage in front of them is Christian. He represents the people of China, the people that I met. The bright blue backdrop behind him has the organization's logo and tagline repeated over and over. Human rights first. American ideals, universal values. He slid by these thugs. He climbed walls.

He navigated fields and ditches and woods and journeyed hundreds of miles to make it to the U.S. Embassy. all while keeping his shades on. Christian looks over at Guangcheng off stage as he says this next part. I may be naive, but I hope that one day that I can meet Guangchang and his family back in their home, in China,

and we can walk the streets and China's leaders or recognize what a national treasure they have in this man and how proud they should be of him. Huang Chung has helped onto the stage to receive the award. He feels around to embrace the actor and throws one arm around him. Christian reciprocates, but it's a little fumbling and awkward

until the two eventually lock in a deep, long embrace. Huang Chung buries his head into Christian's right shoulder and begins sobbing. Christian puts his hand on Guangcheng's head. Beyond the spotlight at NYU, the atmosphere was less triumphant. Maddie Bikink was one of the people NYU engaged to help support Guangchung when he arrived.

She was consulting for them already because NYU was planning on opening a Shanghai campus. She'd lived in China for years and spoke fluent Mandarin. Maddie was also connected to people who played an important role in getting Guangchung to the U.S. She knew Jerry Cohen

and counted. Harold Coe as a mentor. She'd interned at the State Department, and Chelsea Clinton was a close friend at Stanford. I was really felt as though I was going to meet and work with and support a kind of living legend, to some extent, a hero. Tell me about arriving and meeting Guangchang and first impressions. So I met him and his wife and his children, and it was quite warm and quite personable, and he was still kind of recovering from some of his injuries at that time and still seeking treatment. And, you know, my immediate concern was also just thinking, wow, this is a whole family that's landed and been so upended. And I need to do everything I can to support not just him but them.

Maddie felt like there was a lot to do. So in the summer, the children were, we found a Mandarin language camp to give the children an activity and help getting them acclimatized. But then I also designed a program where we hired graduate students to kind of offer what we kind of called life lessons. And it was kind of how to go to the grocery store and how to open a bank account and like really fundamental things because it was just not something that obviously either Guangcheng or Wei Jing had ever had to deal with in their life. And in English, of course, and I lined up this series of classes and activities. A lot of them were more for Beijing, Chen Guangcheng's wife, because she was

of one at the end of the day who was kind of lifting the domestic or household burden. I wondered how Wei Jing felt as she went through the classes and activities Maddie and company had arranged for her. We wanted to interview her for the series, but she declined through Guangcheng. So when I first got there, they were ordering takeout every night. And of course, you know, NYU was paying for everything. And it wasn't just, you know, a question of expense, but it was also just like long term and health-wise, you should probably learn to cook. So I think we even lined up cooking classes at some point. Guangcheng doesn't entirely agree with this version of events.

He told us they weren't ordering takeout every night, that it was off in lunch, and he wasn't the one doing the ordering. When Maddie attempted to connect Guangcheng with a local NGO that works with blind people, they discussed using a white cane. And that was one that at first he was very reticent and was not interested. and I may have been a little bit insulted almost, but it was not coming from a place of telling him how to live. It's just if you want to live an independent life in the U.S.,

these are the types of resources that other blind individuals draw upon to enable independence. Maddie and her colleagues were looking to the future and imagining how Guangcheng would fare independently in the U.S., without the resources of NYU behind him. But Guangcheng says he used a white cane before and that he had more important things he wanted to do with his busy schedule, including recovering from a foot injury and everything else he'd been through

during many years of abusive incarceration. I often wonder if in this moment he could have used more time and support to process the past. Maybe it was too soon to be preparing for what's next. Maddie began noticing that her interactions with Guangcheng came with a fair amount of friction. One of the things that I came to see in Guangcheng, which I think might be true, a lot of Chinese human rights activists overall, is he had a really strong distrust of authority, any authority. And so it was perhaps inevitable, and I didn't realize it at the time, but I became the authority. Guangcheng was also spending time in the classroom.

Jerry had tapped NYU Law Professor Frank Uppam, who specialized in East Asia Law and society, to give Guangcheng lessons on constitutional law and the American legal system. I know nothing about Con law, but that's what I was teaching him. So I had to learn it, literally. Frank says he was not thrilled about giving up his summer, but he felt like he owed it to Jerry, so he agreed.

When Colin got his Ph.D. from Columbia, Frank was a reader on his dissertation committee. So Colin interviewed Frank, and he asked him what Guangcheng was like in the classroom. For a semester, Colin was also an affiliated scholar at the U.S. Asia Law Institute, where Frank and Jerry both worked. How was he as a student? I don't remember him being particularly responsive or questioning. There were no tests, of course, and so I don't think there was any way for me to evaluate. Was he interested in the subject?

Well, he sat there for hours after hour, and there was some discussion going, I mean, I had a couple of students there, and they spoke Chinese. That's why they were there. So I don't mean that he just sat there and daydreamed. I think there was exchange. He was not a sophisticated person. He was an incredibly idealistic and determined and courageous person, but he's not a pleasant human being. He was disrespectful, impatient doesn't capture it, dismissive of the people around him, including his wife, and people who were just there to help him. I don't remember, and he could have done this, and I don't remember, I don't remember ever thanking anybody. He certainly never thanked me that I remember.

point about a lack of gratitude was one thing, but he says that it was the time he spent with Guangcheng outside of the classroom, with his family, that really concerned him. I would be in their apartment at times, and it wasn't a pleasant scene. Can you say more about that? He would strike out, wave his arms around, and he didn't care if he hit people, and I don't know whether he was trying to hit people or, you know, he's blind. So, And he would do it too often to be dismissed as not a problem. It was a problem. We asked Maddie if she ever noticed this thing Frank described.

She said Guangcheng would often speak effusively and would be very animated. She didn't think he was doing it out of malice. But she also got the sense that he wasn't thinking a lot about other people's comfort. We also asked Guangcheng about it. He called it nonsense. There were a number of ethnic Chinese students and research assistants who were very close to Guangcheng and his family at the time. Some of them sat in classes with Guangchang and helped translate.

They also helped waging with laundry and groceries. We reached out to a couple of them, but they would not speak to us on the record. In truth, Guangcheng left a bad impression on other folks too. Not just other people at NYU, also people from the State Department who had a part in handling Guangcheng's arrival at the embassy and deal to come to America. Several people declined to do a recorded interview with us because they basically said Guangcheng was an asshole. Jerry, who was not involved in Guangcheng's day-to-day support the same way Maddie and Frank were, was surprised.

What surprised me was none of the people in my group and there were a very nice group. of people. None of them liked Guangzhou. They disliked him. And I don't know why, but I think he gave them the impression that they were all there to serve him. And it wasn't collegial. What strikes me is how personal it still feels for everyone we talk to, including Frank. Giving up their summers, getting him an apartment in the village, letting his family order take out on NYU's tab. I think the NYU folks wanted Guangchung to appreciate

these gestures, to show them how grateful he was for all they had done. Looking back, Frank struck a philosophical note when thinking about how he saw Guangcheng. I think to change unfair social

structures, you have to break stuff. And breaking stuff harms innocent people. Chang Guangchang was out to change stuff, to break stuff. And I don't think if he had been a normal person, he could have done that. Ali and Colin conducted interviews with Frank Maddie. Listening to the tapes was not easy for me, to put it mildly.

For someone like Guangcheng, who had always tried to chart his own course in defiance of social expectations, I can picture how disempowering it must have been, to land in a new country with a young family, not knowing the language, and relying entirely on other people's goodwill to navigate even the basic necessities of life. This is a man who had endured years of torture and uprooted his entire life,

as well as that of his immediate families effectively overnight. This is not to excuse, his poor attitude or behavior. But it will be unrealistic to expect him to behave pleasantly and well-adjusted. But that's not the only reason I feel so uncomfortable

listening to these interviews. Each time I hear the audio or even read the transcripts, my mind shuts down. It's like my subconscious is trying to protect me from further harm. I find myself feeling offended on behalf of Guangcheng.

As a fellow Chinese person, by the patronizing tone, that a group of white people knew what's best for a Chinese family, that Guangchang was not attentive enough to their instructions or grateful enough for their guidance. The tapes grate on a part of me that's already bruised and raw. I'm reminded of the many times I've been on the receiving end of such white entitlement, a savior complex.

But have you considered? I want to say. Maybe I'm not you and do not want to be you. I simply want to be. Then I feel bad for projecting my own experiences onto people I do not know, for being so harsh and judgmental. These are well-meaning individuals facing an impossibly difficult situation and trying their best to navigate.

There were clearly a lot of early challenges in Guangcheng's relationship with the university. a lack of trust on one side and a feeling of lack of gratitude on the other. But Maddie and Jerry began to suspect that there were other people in Guangcheng's orbit exacerbating the situation. Take, for example, Guangcheng's book deal. Jerry himself helped with the negotiations.

I worked hard to get that book published. I sat there for days negotiating with the various publishers to see how much of an advance we could get. So all we could get was, I think, 540,000 out of it. And I was disappointed. I was going for a million. The book deal was important to the NYU folks.

Maddie says it was part of their strategy for helping Guangcheng build a nest egg for his life in America. The most powerful tool you have right now is your story, your escape story. And so early on, we'd said you need to not tell that to anybody because, you know, you need to still try and build a life yourself in this country. and we did, you know, work very hard to negotiate a book deal. We got an excellent publisher. You know, the terms that we got were very favorable, you know, on par with very serious, you know, famous political figures in the U.S. But he'd been hearing voices from other sources saying that he should get $2 million in advance, which is like nobody gets that. And so then he, you know, he would sort of distrust the fact that I and some of the other people at NYU who had been working to,

negotiate it, we're saying, well, you know, you didn't do enough for me. I could have done so much better. I think what Maddie's saying here is that, on his own, Guangcheng would have been happy with a half-million dollar advance on his book. And the only reason he wasn't is because people on the other side were whispering in his ear. And the people on the other side were Republicans. That's after the break. As we heard in the last episode, Danny Russell, who served a national Security Council in Obama administration called Bob Fu a selfish, manipulative zealot for the role he played in Guangcheng's final days in China. The Wall Street Journal, on the other hand, ran a glowing profile of Bob shortly after Guangcheng arrived in the U.S., titled The Pastor of China's

Underground Railroad. It praised Bob's work in helping those persecuted escape China. Remember, when Guangcheng was under health arrest, Bob's organization China Aid, subtitled, and posted online the video Guangcheng and Wei Jing filmed in secret. In the last episode, Bob was the one who translated when Guangcheng spoke at a congressional hearing by phone from a hospital in Beijing. The two men had yet to meet in person, but Bob was already a major figure in Guangcheng's life.

About a week before Guangcheng's arrival in the U.S., Bob and Jerry met in person for the first time. I remember we had lunch together maybe here. we had a nice walk. I had a sense he was a Republican tinted, and I wasn't sure who he was. I'd never met him. But then once Guangchung came,

then there was a struggle for access. Bob was always trying to get through to Chun. I was happy to let him see him, but I wanted to know what was going on because I didn't want to find out China had been spirited away by the Republican Party. or what was going to happen. Bob told us that was not his plan.

I was not having any, like, Republican talk or, you know, the Democrat talk or any partisan thing at all. Zero. He said he was happy for Guangcheng to have a mentor like Jerry. I trusted him, his wisdom. Of course, his seniority in Chinese. That's very important, right? But he also felt Jerry was acting like a gatekeeper.

According to Bob, it started the day Guangcheng landed in New York. Guangcheng was rushed away from the airport without being able to see his supporters who were waiting for him at the Arrivals Hall, a group that included pro-life activists and Congressman Chris Smith. There's a lot of control. I mean, a lot. At the most basic level, the conflict between Bob and Jerry, is political. Bob is aligned with Republicans.

Jerry is aligned with Democrats. But I wouldn't say it's about one side wanting Guangcheng to endorse Republicans and the other side trying to get him to endorse Democrats. Instead, it's more like one side wanted to help him take an active role in politics, and the other side thought he needed to be protected from getting lost or used in a culture war

they thought he didn't and maybe couldn't understand. My view was, you just got here. You know nothing about America. Give it one year. Don't get involved with either party. Just give yourself a year to get oriented and learn some English, learn about what's going on. And he accepted that in principle,

except Washington kept coming at him. That's not how Bob remembers it. He says Guangcheng never signed off on Jerry's plan. for him. So it seems other people know best interest for him to make a decision for him. And he was not in agreement. He didn't like it. He felt like, I mean, that's he expressed his feelings. He felt that he's controlled almost like losing freedom again in the U.S. soil.

I mean, has they considered his own feeling, right? All these tensions about access have been similar. during Guangchang's first weeks in New York. And then Republican members of Congress invited Guangchang to testify at the Foreign Affairs Committee hearing about human rights in China. I remember some guy from Chris Smith's subcommittee called and why aren't you letting him come to Washington?

It was July 2012, right in the middle of a presidential campaign. Jerry was suspicious about their intentions and timing. There was also a U.S. China bilateral dialogue on human rights happening around the same time. Obama's State Department was leading the exchange. Republicans were critical of it, which was why they scheduled their own hearing. The Republicans wanted Chun to come to Washington and to say how terrible he was created by and how they bungled things in Obama administration in Beijing over his case.

And I said, look, let him come to Washington in January. And he said, that's too late? I said, too late for what? It was obvious too late for the election. They wanted to exploit him. We contacted Congressman Smith's office multiple times with an interview request, but they stopped getting back to us. During my first few years in the U.S.,

in an effort to familiarize myself with a new country, I watched the political talk shows religiously every Sunday morning. There I learned the venerated expression that partisan divisions stop at the water's edge. Dating to the Cold War is a call for political unity in the face of foreign hostility. But it has always been more of an aspiration and reality. On the same programs where the phrases uttered, I would also hear politicians on both sides of the outside. disparage the other party's foreign policy failings

in order to score domestic points. Jerry, understandably, did not want Guangcheng to become an unwitting actor in someone else's agenda. But Guangcheng's work in China and the circumstances of his arrival in the U.S. had already become partisan ammunition. The Obama administration tells their role in his rescue.

Republican opponents criticized hurdles in the process. The Christian right wanted to claim Guangcheng as a pro-life crusader. Skipping a congressional testimony would not shield him from intensifying whirlwinds months before an election. Guangcheng did agree to testify. But as the hearing approached and the committee was trying to confirm his appearance, they couldn't get a hold of him. Bob Fu says he got an urgent phone call from a committee staffer. He called me, he said, Bob, can you help us find Guangchong? He's missing. We could not locate him, we cannot get hold of him, nowhere can be found. And we already, you know, made the hearing public. Bob says he got a hold of Wei Jing later, and she told him what had

happened. Somebody in Iowa you decided to take a radical action by driving Guangchong to a very seclusive outside New York, maybe Long Island or somewhere on a no cell phone signal area and give him a partisan lesson. If you do this, you will be used by the Republicans. You are in danger. They will manipulate you. They will hurt you. Everybody's bad guys.

The mysterious location where Guangcheng was secreted off to in advance. of the hearing? George Soros' house in the Hamptons. If there is one thing the Chinese government and the American right agree on, it's that George Soros is the villainous mastermind plotting world domination. We should note that Soros Fund Management is an investor in crooked media. Bob says he could understand wanting to keep Guangcheng out of partisan politics. But to control his freedom, make him suffer,

He says Wei Jing told him Guangcheng appeared particularly tormented after that trip to Soros's house. I mean, she described Guangchong, wonged the tenhohoba, pale face and staring on the ceiling wet with sweat, agonizing. Like, he was under tremendous pressure, that he was forced to quit. And basically, yeah, no show. We asked Jerry what he thought about Bob's accusation

that the Hampton's outing was a way to force Guangchung to cancel the D.C. testimony. Nonsense. It's the first time I heard there was a conflict. The Hampton's trip was because George Soros invited us. George gave us a contribution to help with the expenses for Chun. So we were there, and we would have gone near whatever was going on.

And Guangcheng was thrilled. And it was an unusual experience. In fact, included my son Ethan tried to get him to play tennis. During our interviews with Guangcheng, he also brought up this whole saga of how he missed the opportunity to testify in D.C. They invited me to to attend a human rights situation. They invited me to this hearing to talk about the human rights situation in China.

Once I accepted the invitation, they were terrified. When Dr. Cohen said, you're going to go, you're going to, the government, just said to me,

if you go, the Chinese government will not come. That was your attitude. They put the pressure on me to rescind my decision. decision. They said, either you cancel it or you do it by yourself. Either way, we're not going to go with you. You figure it out. We emailed Jerry for a response. He said he found Guangcheng's statement puzzling and confused. Jerry could not recall any human rights dialogue that July.

Guangcheng also believed the Obama administration was limiting press access to him. I did not understand how the Obama administration could control who Guangcheng speaks to. Guangcheng claimed the White House was doing so through NYU. He pointed to a PR person NYU had hired to help him, Matt Dorff. He came from a firm that worked on liberal causes and had worked to help elect President Obama. Matt was involved in Guangzhou stay at NYU from the very beginning. But I still cannot figure out why the Obama administration would even be concerned with Guangcheng's schedule at NYU, let alone meddle with it.

So I asked him. Because it was an election year, and I had done work on forced sterilization and abortion. This was a very, very hot topic in the U.S. at the time. They really, really did not want me to talk about this issue and influence the election. That was the real reason. We spoke with Matt Dorf, the PR person hired by NYU, about Guangcheng's claim. Matt said he did not recall any interference or control from the Obama administration. He told us he passed along every press request to Guangcheng for him to decide what he wanted to do.

There were a lot in the beginning, but interest faded as time went on. He pointed out that Guangcheng was on the front page of the New York Times the week he arrived in the U.S. The next week, he wasn't. After the break, Mr. Chen goes to Washington. Like many of these stories, it's hard to get to the bottom of what happened on that trip to the Hamptons. Maddie and Jerry and others we spoke to from NYU insisted they did not want to control Guangcheng. But in practice, it looked like they were trying to control him. It does seem like NYU understood how upset Guangcheng was at this point,

because just a week after the human rights bilateral dialogue, they helped facilitate a trip for him to go to Washington, D.C., to meet with lawmakers and talk about his human rights work. We reached out to NYU's public relations for comment, but they did not respond. We know that Maddie came along, as well as at least one research assistant from NYU, and publicist Matt Dorff. The highlight of this trip was a bipartisan photo op and press conference with then-speaker John Boehner and Nancy Pelosi.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. It's truly an honor and privilege to welcome Mr. Chen to the United States. capital. And unlike many Americans, I have followed his remarkable journey. Let me also personally thank Mr. Chin and his family for the sacrifices they've made in the cause for human rights, religious freedom, and the rights of the unborn. Guangcheng then comes up to the podium and delivers remarks while Maddie translates. Over one shoulder is Congressman Smith, the other Speaker Bainer. Both stands so close it almost looks like they might, be touching him.

I'm going to all of all people, people, and thank you. I am very happy to have the opportunity, and I am pleased and would welcome the opportunity to exchange and dialogue with all people who support human rights and pay attention to these issues. Thank you very much.

As he finishes, Guangcheng breaks into a big smile. Congressman Smith says something and pats him on the back. It's so tight around the podium that Guangcheng can only nuzzle in between Smith and Boehner. So they're squeezed together shoulder to shoulder as Pelosi steps up to the mic. I don't often say this, Mr. Speaker, but I do wish to associate myself with your remarks because I thought, because I think that you said very well all that we, our country stands for and our relationships with other countries and in relationship to Mr. Chans. Pelosi,

paying Bainer a compliment, plays like such a laugh line. But actually, this moment really underscores how both Democrats and Republicans are clamoring to associate publicly with Guangcheng. Pelosi doesn't comment on Boehner's reference to the rights of the unborn. She seems happy to be part of this bipartisan moment. Up at the podium with Boehner and Pelosi, Guangcheng is being celebrated for his activism in China. But the human rights condition in China, or even Guangcheng himself, is only a backdrop to the real hero in this story. The righteousness of the United States.

The praises heaped on Guangcheng are ultimately self-congratulatory. After the press conference, Guangcheng held some private meetings with pro-life lawmakers. Maddie was there with him as his interpreter. She said she usually didn't get invited to sit in on these kinds of meetings.

What struck me at the time was that we were just having different conversations. Like I was literally translating the words, but both sides were just hearing what they wanted to hear, where candidly on the one side it was precious babies. And the other side, it was, you know, fighting against state coercion. And those were not the same thing.

And it was just kind of mind blowing on a personal level because I wanted to sort of stop them both. And in English, say, do you not realize that you're, like, he's not saying what you think. Like, do you not hear the words out of my mouth? And I would want to turn to Guangcheng and say in Chinese, like, this is not what he's not talking about what you're talking about. Like, he's not concerned about the, you know, oppressive power of the Chinese. state per se, except as it relates to the unborn. I don't know exactly what was said at these meetings, but Maddie is pointing to something important. When it comes to the politics of abortion in the U.S., Guangcheng's work doesn't map neatly on

one side of the debate. Fighting government-sponsored forced abortions and sterilizations could be seen as a great example for pro-choice advocates about how government control in the arena of reproductive health is a bad thing. But that's not what was happening. Conservative politicians felt a stronger affinity with Guangcheng on this issue and were actively courting him. We all can be capable of kind of hearing what we want to hear. Even if we think we're having a conversation, we might not be.

Maddie thought what was happening might have been lost on Guangcheng. But it seems more likely to me that he just wasn't bothered by their pro-life stance. As the evening approached, Guangcheng, Madi, and a couple others headed to Union Station to take the train back to New York. The day seemed like a big success. Then a standoff happened at the train station. Guangcheng and Madi gave completely different accounts of this episode. The common denominator is distrust.

Some journalists' friends who had been paying attention to me for a very long time, they were in D.C., So we plan to meet up after the visit to Capitol Hill. The schedule would allow it. Our train was at 7, and the congressional business concluded shortly after 4. So I said, we could get together, have dinner, and head to the train station after 6. It's perfect. Then she said to me, well, there's so many buildings around the Capitol.

Your friends will have a hard time finding you. So let's go to the train station. You just stand at the entrance of the train station, tell your friends to go there, and then you can meet up. because it's easier to find. So I believed her. I chose to believe her. We got to the entrance of the train station, and I said, we're at the entrance, let's wait here.

And then she said, oh, let's wait inside. We can find a place to sit and wait. We don't have to stand by the entrance, you know. But I had already told my friends I would be at the entrance. If I went inside, how did my friends find me? Actually, I had already sensed something was wrong, but I wanted to see what kind of tricks they'd play. Maddie tells this story totally differently.

It became apparent that it looked as though Guangcheng had made a plan to go protest outside the Chinese embassy in D.C., which, of course, would have had to involve losing me somehow in Union Station and that he'd arranged with somebody to be picked up and taken there. And so we ended up having this kind of showdown in Union Station where I said, Guangchung, like, you can't, you can't, you can't, do this. Like, you can't leave me. You can't do this. You know, I'm also not going to be fast chasing you. I'm very pregnant.

But, you know, this is, we have to catch our train. To Guangcheng, this was all a sneaky attempt to control him. And unreasonable. All he wanted to do was meet friends for dinner who were already at a restaurant holding a table for him. It's just a dinner with my friends. What's the big deal? Why do you have to be so steered? I said, you don't need to live here.

Don't be like this. We are all tired after a long day. The world doesn't revolve around you. Well, I don't need you to revolve around me. You could have gone bad first. And she said it's a misunderstanding. What misunderstanding is that? It's a premeditated part. It's outrageous.

To be honest, I was helping them save face. If I had revealed what they did at the time, they would have been very embarrassed. Under those circumstances, they would have been very, very embarrassed. They were violating the loss of the United States, illegally restricting my freedom. It's easy for me to imagine how I would feel being pregnant and on a work trip on a hot August day in D.C. I'd also probably want to sit in the AC and not miss my scheduled train to get home. But when Maddie was telling this story, she said something that hinted at another motivation behind her actions.

part of my role was, yes, supporting him, but also kind of protecting U.S.-China relations in some sense. You know, like the State Department wanted to make sure we didn't have another big incident because of this one individual. And maybe that sounds too grandiose protecting U.S.-China relations, but it would have been very bad, I think, overall, for the bilateral relationship had he been allowed, had he shown up outside the embassy to protest? Was it something actually spoken when you say you were sort of asked for him not to do that? Was that was someone actually, you know, communicating what you said from the State Department? Actually, to be fair, it was more that I took it upon myself. Like nobody said, like, don't let him go protest. But I realized that was happening.

And I just thought, like, I need to, you know, if part of my role is to try in, because part of the reason I was brought over, too, is because the State Department knows me and, you know, trusted me to kind of exercise good judgment about how to help him navigate in the U.S. and good judgment is not protesting outside the Chinese embassy within two months of arrival, basically. Guangcheng is someone who risked his life on countless occasions to speak out against the Chinese state. If Maddie felt her role was to protect bilateral relations,

I think it's obvious Guangcheng was not going to be on the same page. Besides, Guangcheng says he was just planning to go to dinner with friends. Ely and Maddie won, and they rode home together. He was very upset with me. And the train ride back to New York and getting on the train was not our happiest time, I will say. But, you know, we survived. Our relationship recovered. He was disappointed, but he got over it.

When Guangcheng spoke to us, it did not seem like he got over it. This situation is, I always very angry about this, but I didn't mention it when I got back. I thought NYU must have known, because Maddie certainly had to report it when we got back. I thought after she reported it, the school would come to me to talk about it. But I waited and waited and months passed, and no one had mentioned this. Not even Jerry, not a word. Once I realized this, I was very upset. It's not right.

So I went to Jerry. By then, Maddie had left the position. She left over two months ago. So Jerry told me, well, she's already gone. what's there to do? Why didn't you haul me from the train station at that time? So you see, the waters are deep here. If you're not careful, we can slip and drown. It's very easy to ruin a reputation. Very easy, really. Maybe even worse than, say, must-touching someone's die.

This seems to be a reference to reports in 2022 that Elon Musk had allegedly exposed himself to and touched the leg of a flight attendant on Space Access Corps. project. Musk denied the claim and suggested that the accusation was politically motivated. These days, Guangcheng spends a lot of time reading about Elon's companies and listening to his speeches. My mother in China is also a big fan of Elon's. So when I see what's happening now, whether it's with Mr. Trump or Mr. Must, whether it's about vaccines, censorship and so on, I realized that freedom of speech in the United States. United States. It's not nearly as free as people think it is. It is really bound up by many

strings, and these strings are waiting for you and me to cut them off. Next time on Dissident at the Doorstep, cutting off those strings. Dissident at the Doorstep is an original podcast from Crooked Media. Our hosts are Colin Jones, Yang Yang Chung, and me, Alison Clayman. From Crooked Media, our executive producers are Tommy Vitor, Sarah Geismer, and Katie Long, with special thanks to Mary Knopf and Alison Falzetta. Our senior producers are Maria Byrne and Meg Kramer. Mara Walls is our story editor. Our producer is Wudan Yan.

Our associate producers are Bowen Wong and Sydney Rap. Translation by Valerie C with additional translation by Yang Yang Chung and Richard Yeh. Voiceovers by Richard Yeh. Our fact checker is Tamika Adams. Sound design and mixing by Hannes Brown. Original score by Ilan Isakov. And our podcast art is by John Lee.