UPDATED: 5:36 p.m. ET -- Blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng spoke on the telephone during a Congressional Executive Commission on China hearing, asking for help to leave China with his family.

Chen told the commission he would be in a much worse situation had he not been taken into the U.S. embassy, adding that he wanted to thank Secretary of State Hillary Clinton face to face.

Speaking through a translator, Chen said he is concerned about the safety of his mother and brothers, adding he would want to find out how they were doing.

---

Frantic efforts to resolve the diplomatic wrangle surrounding Chen continued in Beijing Thursday after he appealed for asylum following what was described as a "change of heart" over an earlier deal.

U.S. officials said they are still trying to help the lawyer, who says he fears for his family's safety, and denied he was pressured to leave the American Embassy to resettle inside China in exchange for guarantees about his future treatment.

Chen said by telephone from hospital, where he was escorted by U.S. officials and was being treated for a broken foot, that he had changed his mind about the resettlement deal after talking with his wife, who spoke of recent threats made against his family.

In a string of interviews, he said he now wants to leave China as soon as possible. “My fervent hope is that it would be possible for me and my family to leave for the U.S. on Hillary Clinton’s plane,” he told the Daily Beast.

A senior State Department official told reporters on Thursday that officials were "trying to get full, frank and candid conversation with him," adding: "We are not there yet. If he is changing his view, we're starting from square one with the Chinese."

"When we feel that we have a clear view of what his final decision is, we will do what we can to help him achieve that," the official said.

A source familiar with the situation said Chen and his wife appeared to have had "a change of heart" about a deal, agreed on Tuesday, to remain in China after receiving guarantees about their safety.

China censors 'Shawshank' as Clinton heads to Beijing amid dissident drama

"We don't know if there was intimidation or pressure from friends who think he made the wrong choice, or whether he got in the room with his wife and she was looking at a different situation," the source added.

The New York Times reported that the saga leaves Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's scheduled summit meeting in Beijing "under a cloud of confusion."

It reported that the Obama administration was "exposed to criticism from Republicans and human rights groups that it had rushed to resolve a delicate human rights case so that it would not overshadow other matters on the bilateral agenda," such as the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs and China's currency and trade policies.

'I feel unsafe'
Chen, a self-taught legal activist, explained his change of mind: "I feel very unsafe. My rights and safety cannot be assured here," he said. His family, who were with him at the hospital, backed his decision to try to reach the United States, he added.

Blind activist: Chinese officials threatened my wife

The activist, citing descriptions from his wife, Yuan Weijing, said his family had been surrounded by Chinese officials who menaced them and filled the family home. Chen, from a village in rural Shandong province, has two children.

"When I was inside the American Embassy, I didn't have my family, and so I didn't understand some things. After I was able to meet them, my ideas changed."

Gary Locke, the U.S. ambassador, told reporters he could say unequivocally that Chen was never pressured to leave the embassy.

Locke said Chen had two conversations with his wife before agreeing to the original deal on Tuesday. "We waited several minutes and suddenly he jumped up very eager and said 'let's go' in front of many witnesses," the ambassador said.

Clinton urged China to protect human rights but made no specific mention of Chen, whom she had spoken to on Wednesday after he left the embassy.

Blind dissident's case a 'hot potato' for US-China relations

"Of course, as part of our dialogue, the United States raises the importance of human rights and fundamental freedoms," Clinton said. "We believe all governments have to answer our citizens' aspirations for dignity and the rule of law and that no nation can or should deny those rights."

US-China relationship under pressure
Despite Chen's change of heart about staying in China, it was unclear if he would be able to travel to the United States. Having left the Embassy and the protection of U.S. authorities, his fate is now in the hands of the Chinese government.

U.S. officials appeared no longer to be with him on Thursday, with the dissident saying he had still not had an opportunity to explain his change of heart to the U.S. side.

"I hope the U.S. will help me leave immediately. I want to go there for medical treatment," Chen said from the hospital, where a pack of camera crews and reporters was waiting outside, kept away from the entrance by a few police.

Chen, 40, is a legal activist who campaigned against forced abortions under China's "one-child" policy. On April 22, he escaped 19 months of house arrest, during which he and his family faced beatings and threats.

Chen's dramatic escape from house arrest and his flight last week to the U.S. Embassy have made him a symbol of resistance to China's shackles on dissent, and the deal struck by Beijing and Washington would have made him an international test case of how tight or lose those restrictions remain.

Now, however, his change of mind throws not only his own future into doubt but also raises questions about the wider U.S.-China relationship. 

Reuters, The Associated Press, NBC's Kristin Wilson and msnbc.com's Alastair Jamieson contributed to this report.

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Updated at 10:50 p.m. ET: BEIJING -- In a visit to China on Thursday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton cautioned China to protect human rights, the Associated Press reported.

Without mentioning Chen Guangcheng, the blind Chinese dissident who sought refuge in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing for six days, Clinton said, “all governments have to answer to our citizens’ aspirations for dignity and the rule of law and that no nation can or should deny those rights.”  

Only hours earlier, U.S. officials said they had extracted from the Chinese government a promise that Chen would join his family and be allowed to start a new life in a university town in China, safe from the rural authorities who had abusively held him in prison and house arrest for nearly seven years.

In her remarks, Clinton did not mention Chen by name, although she had spoken with him hours before when he left the embassy. In a statement she welcomed the resettlement as one that “reflected his choices and our values.”

This came after an interview Chen gave to the Associated Press on Wednesday from a hospital room in Beijing where he was taken for medical treatment, during which he said a U.S. official told him that Chinese authorities had threatened to beat his wife if he did not leave the embassy. He said he feared for his safety and wanted to leave.

---

In a separate interview with Britain's Channel 4 News, Chen said he wanted to go to any country that will take him and his family and added he's disappointed that American officials didn't stay at the hospital with him as he thought they would.

"Nobody from [the] embassy is here … I don't understand why. They promised to be here," he told Channel 4 News.

Chen also told NBC News that he asked the U.S. to take concrete steps to guarantee his safety.

The State Department denied much of the AP's account of what Chen said. 

"At no time did any U.S. official speak to Chen about physical or legal threats to his wife and children. Nor did Chinese officials make any such threats to us," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told NBC News.  

Chen was told his family would be sent back home if he stayed in the embassy, she said. 

China censors 'Shawshank' as Clinton heads to Beijing amid dissident drama

"At every opportunity, he expressed his desire to stay in China, reunify with his family, continue his education and work for reform in his country.  All our diplomacy was directed at putting him in the best possible position to achieve his objectives," Nuland added. 

Chen's plight has overshadowed high-level talks on economic and international issues due to begin Thursday. The United States hopes the negotiations will encourage greater Chinese cooperation on trade as well over Iran, Syria, North Korea and other international disputes.

Who is Fu? Chinese exile is 'God's double agent'

In what earlier appeared to be a deal to end the diplomatic tussle between the U.S. and China over his future, Chinese authorities promised he would be relocated to a safe environment where he could study at a university, a U.S. official said, speaking prior to Chen's comments.

Chen, who went to the embassy after making a daring escape from house arrest on April 21, ran afoul of local government officials in China for exposing forced abortions and other abuses. His dogged pursuit of justice and mistreatment by authorities brought him attention from the U.S. and foreign governments, and earned him supporters among many ordinary Chinese.

Chen may have been forced to accept what he's offered, according to Zeng Jinyan, a long-time friend of Chen's family and also a human rights activist. Zeng has been tweeting about Chen's latest situation since Wednesday evening, some in Chinese, some in English, according to NBC News.

Chinese crackdown on dissident's family and friends

According to Zeng, Chen was unwilling to leave the American embassy but had no choice because his wife and two children would be sent back to Shandong province if he insisted on staying. It is not known when and how they arrived in Beijing, but Chen's wife Yuan Weijing told Zeng that local government in Shandong province installed security cameras inside her home and moved in, waiting for her and the children if Chen didn't agree to leave the embassy. Yuan also said she was arrested on April 27th when they found out Chen has escaped.

Teng Biao, a lawyer who's been assisting Chen in the past few years, tweeted about his conversation with Chen Wednesday afternoon, asking Chen "I've heard you were threatened, is that true?" Chen said, "Yes, very true. People from the Foreign Ministry said this afternoon, if you didn't leave the embassy, your wife and children would have been sent back to Shandong." In the same conversation, Chen said the Shandong officials who escorted his family are still in Beijing.

Blind dissident’s case a 'hot potato' for US-China

Meanwhile, Chinese government is taking a more hard-lined attitude on the case, demanding an apology from the American government.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said: "It should be pointed out that Chen Guangcheng, a Chinese citizen, was taken by the U.S. side to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing via abnormal means, and the Chinese side is strongly dissatisfied with the move."

He stressed that China demands that the United States thoroughly investigate the event, hold relevant people accountable and ensure that such an event does not happen again. "What the U.S. side has done has interfered in the domestic affairs of China, and the Chinese side will never accept it," said the spokesman.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton -- who arrived in Beijing Tuesday ahead of the talks -- said that the case had been handled "in a way that reflected his choices and our values" -- comments made before Chen's remarks that he feared for his and his family's safety.

She said it was crucial to ensure that Beijing kept its pledge to leave him unmolested. "The United States government and the American people are committed to remaining engaged with Mr. Chen and his family in the days, weeks, and years ahead," Clinton added.

Chen's supporters said last Friday that he had escaped after 20 months of house arrest and gone into U.S. government protection.

More on Chen: Video reveals blind Chinese activist's plight

NBC News, msnbc.com staff, Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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BEIJING – As China prepares to welcome U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday for an annual meeting on important bilateral issues, the focus of her visit has turned to the unresolved plight of Chinese human rights activist Chen Guangcheng, now under U.S. diplomatic protection. How will the latest controversy impact China-U.S. ties that are already beset by old and new problems?

Last week, Chen staged a daring escape from house arrest. He traveled 300 miles with the aid of supporters and has reportedly entered the U.S. Embassy in Beijing for protection.

His dramatic feat, despite blindness and 24-hour surveillance by Chinese security guards, has added to embarrassment in Beijing – which was already grappling with the leadership scandal triggered by a former Chinese police chief who tried to seek asylum at a U.S. consulate. In both cases, the United States was sought out as a source of protection.

The case of Cheng, a human rights campaigner who spent four years in prison and the last 19 months under house arrest, is like “a hot potato that the two governments will have to deal with,” according to Professor Jin Canrong, who teaches international relations at the People’s University of China.

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One of many issues
“There are some people in China who believe that there is some kind of American conspiracy to take advantage of China’s domestic problems to embarrass China, but these people are rather marginalized,”  said Jin, who specializes on China-U.S. relations.

“The mainstream thinking is that certain problems, like the Chen Guangcheng case, can be treated as separate issues, even if they are embarrassing for China in some ways. China’s leaders have learned to accept that China is a big country with so many problems and that some kind of embarrassment is inevitable. [And that] there is no conspiracy behind these issues,” Jin added.

The case of Cheng has only signaled that China and the U.S. are entering a “very difficult period,” he added.

Blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng escapes from house arrest

“We are facing a trust deficit. Old issues will remain like Taiwan, Tibet and others, but there will be more and more new issues,” he said. He noted greater regional leadership competition between China and U.S., the controversy over China’s military modernization, trade and economic conflicts, and what he called “the greater diversification of Chinese society” that is reshaping China’s domestic politics.

“From a diplomatic perspective, it is better to resolve the Chen Guangcheng case, this headache issue, as soon as possible,” he said.

‘Did not violate Chinese laws’
Surprisingly, a prominent human rights campaigner and a supporter of Chen seemed to echo a similar moderate sentiment.

“I hope that Mrs. Hillary Clinton will not regard the case as a diplomatic crisis,” said Hu Jia, who met Chen after his escape.

Hu, a leading activist who spent more than three years in prison on charges of state security violations, was detained for 24 hours for police investigation after he met Chen. “He hugged me warmly, lifting my feet off the ground,” Hu said of his meeting with Chen.

China censors 'Shawshank' as Clinton heads to Beijing amid dissident drama

In a transcript of a telephone interview with ITV News that was shared with NBC News, Hu Jia made a startling revelation that government authorities hold a benign view of Chen’s escape, too. According to Hu, police investigators said that Chen’s escape and the actions of those who aided him to find U.S. diplomatic protection “did not violate Chinese laws.”

“Therefore, the U.S. government should feel confident about this issue… I want to say to Mrs. Hillary Clinton that she should regard this case as an opportunity, not some kind of trouble,” said Hu.

He said the U.S. should see it as a chance for the U.S. government to urge China to respect human rights and to “use the resolution of the Chen Guangcheng case to boost the confidence of the international community” in China.

Providing more details of his meeting with Chen, Hu said that Chen has “grown more silver hair, his hands were shivering, and there were bruises and injuries caused by climbing over the wall.”

Who is Fu? Chinese exile is 'God's double agent'

Both sides looking for a resolution
Hu said that after Chen entered the U.S. Embassy, China’s Foreign Ministry immediately contacted the U.S. Embassy for “negotiation.” So far, “no concrete results,” he said.

According to one well-informed source with close ties to China's dissident community, there is "lots of pressures" to resolve the case. 

"Chen is demanding protection for himself and his family and respect for his rights, but if that cannot be granted, then he may have no choice but to travel abroad for medical treatment," said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

However, despite various reports that both China and the United States are trying to hammer out a deal to resolve the case ahead of Clinton's visit, a government source said that no breakthrough has been achieved. 

"No news yet," according to the source who also requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the case.

More on Chen: Video reveals blind Chinese activist's plight

 

As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton headed to Beijing late Monday for a high-stakes meeting, China blocked Web searches of terms related to blind activist Chen Guangcheng including "Shawshank Redemption," the prison-break film being compared to his case.

The drama over the dissident, who according to NBC News sources is holed-up under U.S. protection in Beijing, threatens to overshadow this week's top-level talks between the two governments.

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In a further complication, the activist is seeking to remain in China and continue his campaign for reform rather than living in exile -- creating a dilemma for Clinton and adding to tension between the world's two biggest economies. 

Chen fled house arrest in eastern China a week ago with the help of supporters, slipping out under the noses of dozens of guards and into Beijing, dissident Hu Jia and other activists have said.

Blind Chinese activist escapes from house arrest

Such is the sensitivity surrounding the issue that neither country has made any official comment or even confirmed Chen’s whereabouts.

According to a report in the Sydney Morning Herald, searches for Chen's name and the Chinese terms for "Shawshank", "blind person", "embassy", and Chen's home village of Dongshigu were all blocked on Sina Weibo, China's leading microblogging service.

Also blocked was "UA898", a United Airlines direct flight from Beijing to Washington, apparently after Web users speculated online about the possibility Chen would gain U.S. asylum, the newspaper reported.

NBC sources: Blind activist is under US protection

Chen's audacious escape from house arrest, under the watch of the world's largest domestic security apparatus, was a "miracle" of planning and endurance, said Guo Yushan, a Beijing-based researcher and rights advocate who has campaigned for Chen and helped bring him to the Chinese capital after his escape. 

But he said the 40-year-old, self-taught lawyer wants to stay in China and campaign for reform. 

Who is Bob Fu? Chinese exile is 'God's double agent'

"He was adamant that he would not apply for political asylum with any country. He certainly wants to stay in China, and demand redress for the years of illegal persecution in Shandong and continue his efforts for Chinese society," said Guo on Monday, speaking in his first long interview since he was released from days of police questioning. 

The New York Times reported that analysts characterized the diplomatic situation surrounding Chen as "fiendishly difficult to resolve."

Behind The Wall: Video reveals blind Chinese activist's plight

Chen, who campaigned against forced abortions as part of family planning, was confined to his village home in the eastern province of Shandong since September 2010, after release from jail on charges he rejected as spurious. 

President Barack Obama nudged China to improve its human-rights record, saying the two countries' relationship "will be that much stronger and China will be that much more prosperous and strong as you see improvements on human rights issues in that country". 

But at a news conference, he walked a fine line between not saying anything that would make it harder to resolve Chen's case while conveying U.S. concern for human rights and appreciation for wider cooperation with China. 

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Updated at 9:13 a.m. ET: After the dramatic nighttime escape of Chen Guangcheng from house arrest in his Chinese village, one of the first people to know that the blind lawyer was safe in Beijing was thousands of miles away — in Midland, Texas.

Pastor Bob Fu, 44, says he knew of Chen’s escape three days before the security guards surrounding the house discovered it. He says he was among the first to receive and post a 15-minute video of Chen, made in hiding, appealing to Chinese President Wen Jiabao to bring to justice the local officials who illegally imprisoned him and his family for months. Fu says he also had a hand in preparing U.S. officials for Chen’s escape and arrival at the U.S. Embassy, while also helping lay the groundwork for alternatives, the details of which he says he cannot divulge.

Fu knows China’s security apparatus from personal experience. He made his own escape from China, arriving in the United States as a refugee with his wife and newborn son 16 years ago.

Now, through his Midland-based nonprofit China Aid, Fu is one of the leading voices on behalf of religious freedom in China, connected with activists in his home country and respected on Capitol Hill.

"Bob Fu is one of the most credible people you’ll ever find about what is going on in China," said Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., who chairs the Human Rights Subcommittee within the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. "He’s very well connected and knows people inside of China who are the agents of reform — people like Chen who (take action) because they want a better China."

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According to tax documents, China Aid has raised several million dollars to fund legal counsel for "house church Christians," financial support for the families of jailed dissidents and publicity for human rights cases in China. In extreme cases, China Aid has helped fund "logistics" for an underground railway, Fu says.

In China, worship is allowed only in state-sanctioned churches, mosques and synagogues. Evangelizing outside those sites and worshipping in independent churches, often called "house churches," is prohibited.

China censors 'Shawshank' as Clinton heads to Beijing amid dissident drama

Fu’s activism goes back to the Tiananmen protests of 1989, when he led a group of fellow students from Liaocheng University in Shandong province to join the massive rallies in the capital. After the crackdown on demonstrators he was one of many student activists required to attend special political study sessions and write self-criticism day after day. He worried that he would be forced to leave his hard-won position at the university.

During this time, Fu said, he read a book given to him by American missionaries who were teaching English in China. It was the story of a famous Chinese intellectual who was addicted to opium in the early 1900s, but was able to shake the drug after he converted to Christianity.

"I was really, really struck by the story," Fu said, in an interview with msnbc.com. "I came to the realization if you want to change China, the first thing you need to do is change people’s hearts. And if you want to change other people’s hearts, you first you have to change yourself."

Fu and his wife, Heidi Cai, began holding underground worship services and Bible studies, he said. At the same time, he was teaching English at the Communist Party School in Beijing.

"I was God’s double-agent," he said, chuckling.

In 1996, they were arrested and held in jail for two months, and then placed under house arrest, Fu said. Then they received word that they soon would be jailed again, he said, in the “sweep” that preceded China’s Oct. 10 National Day.

By this time, Fu’s wife was pregnant with their first child, he said, but without the necessary permission from the government, which controls when a woman is allowed to have her one child. If she had been found out, she would be forced to have an abortion, Fu said.

So in the dark of night, Fu escaped through a second-story bathroom window and Cai left in disguise, he said. They fled to the countryside, Fu said, where they were protected by "house church brothers and sisters."

Fu said that with the shelter of this network, the help of a Christian policeman and travel documents obtained by a highly placed businessman, they were able to join a tour that went to Thailand and then Hong Kong, which was still under British control. Just three days before the territory was transferred to Chinese sovereignty, Fu and his wife were give refugee status, and flew to the United States.

NBC sources: Blind activist is under US protection

Fu and Cai lived in a suburb of Philadelphia, where he started China Aid in his garage while attending Westminster Theological Seminary. They later moved to Midland, Texas, where they are raising their three children.

What prompted Fu to set up China Aid was a 2002 crackdown on a group of Christians in a house church in Hubei province that led to many arrests, among them five people who were sentenced to death, he said.

Fu and a group of contacts in the Christian, dissident and exile communities started publicizing the case and raising money, he said. Ultimately, Fu said, they used the funds to pay for 58 lawyers to defend the accused. They contacted the media, making the front page of The New York Times and The Washington Post.

"That year, all the five death sentences were overturned," Fu said. "It was a major legal victory, and even the 'evil cult' charge was removed."

A group of activists who came of age as he did during the Tiananmen movement, are now human rights lawyers, many of them Christian, he said. Fu said he taps into this network, and links them to Washington by picking up the phone.

'Little ants'
Fu compares himself and fellow human rights activists to "little ants" forcing "one case after another into courts, moving around and mobilizing and going through all the technical procedures" in place under China’s laws, but often not observed or even taken seriously by officials. 

"We want to move the pile of dirt with 1 million ants," he said.

"I had never envisioned or wanted to establish (a nonprofit) like this," he said, but now that China Aid is nearly 10 years old, Fu is gratified by some success. "We can help the persecuted, and we did advance rule of law," he said.

China Aid is doggedly following and publicizing many human rights cases around China, Fu said.

"You can write to imprisoned Christians to encourage them and to let them know that you are praying for them," through China Aid, the website says.

Video reveals blind Chinese activist's plight

Fu’s group also prints and distributes Bibles in China.

For Fu, the escape of Chen was a major triumph, but it also has generated new concerns — for the wife and daughter of Chen, and for those who helped get Chen to safety.

In an opinion piece published in the Washington Post on Monday, Fu calls out the bravery of one such supporter, He "Pearl" Peirong, who drove Chen the 300 miles to Beijing after he escaped over a compound wall in Shandong.

"I am awed by the courage of those who helped Chen escape. Pearl told me she is willing to die with Chen because he is such a 'pure-hearted courageous person'," Fu wrote. "I was talking to her last week when she said 'guobao laile,'— that state security had arrived."

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Blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng is under U.S. protection in Beijing after an audacious escape from 19 months under house arrest, a U.S.-based group said on Saturday, in a drama that threatens to ignite new tensions between the two governments.

The United States has not given any public confirmation of reports that Chen, who slipped away from under the noses of guards and bristling surveillance equipment around his village home in Shandong province, fled into the U.S. embassy.

---

China has also declined direct public comment on Chen's reported escape, which threatens to overshadow a two-day meeting with top Obama administration officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in Beijing from Thursday.

But Texas-based ChinaAid said it "learned from a source close to the Chen Guangcheng situation that Chen is under U.S. protection and high level talks are currently under way between U.S. and Chinese officials regarding Chen's status".

"Because of Chen's wide popularity, the Obama Administration must stand firmly with him or risk losing credibility as a defender of freedom and the rule of law," Bob Fu, president of the religious and political rights advocacy group that has long campaigned for Chen's freedom, said in an email to Reuters.

On Friday, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, asked about the situation, told reporters:  "I don’t have anything on this issue at all." There was no further update from the department early Saturday.

Blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng escapes from house arrest

The New York Times reported that the situation leaves the United States "with a new diplomatic quandary as it seeks to improve its fraught relationship with Beijing".

The reports of Chen's escape come nearly three months after a Chinese official Wang Lijun fled into a U.S. consulate for over 24 hours on February 6, unleashing a scandal that has rattled the ruling Communist Party months before a once-in-a-decade leadership handover.

Wang's brief flight to the U.S. consulate led to the downfall of top official Bo Xilai who had been openly campaigning for a place in the inner circle of power in Beijing.

Pu Zhiqiang, a Beijing lawyer and rights advocate, said reliable contacts also told him Chen took refuge in U.S. embassy grounds. The incident will be another damaging blot on China's security services, following Wang's flight, said Pu.

Video reveals blind Chinese activist's plight

"Everyone knew about the suffering of Chen Guangcheng and his family but nobody dared raised his head over this and ignored it," he told Reuters, referring to Chinese officials.

"Chen Guangcheng has been the most typical victim of this lawless, boundless exercise of power," said Pu. "But the day has finally come when he has escaped from it."

Chen, a self-schooled legal advocate who campaigned against forced abortions, had been held under extra-legal confinement in his village home in Linyi in eastern Shandong province since September 2010 when he was released from jail.

His confinement under relentless surveillance with his family fanned protests by Chinese sympathizers and criticism from foreign governments and groups.

Chen's escape and the furor it has unleashed could add to the headaches of China's ruling Communist Party, which is striving to ensure stability and authority before a leadership transition later this year.

It also threatens to overshadow a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who are due to visit Beijing next week for the annual "strategic and economic dialogue" between the two countries. 

Reuters contributed to this report.

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BEIJING -- Chen Guangcheng, a blind lawyer who is also one of China’s best-known human-rights activists, has escaped after spending one-and-a-half years under house arrest.

Reuters reported that Chen, who campaigned against forced abortions, had been restricted to his village home in Linyi in eastern Shandong province since September 2010 when he was released from jail.

Groups of local thugs watched him 24 hours a day and stopped anyone who tried to visit him, sometimes using violence, including scuffling with Hollywood actor Christian Bale.

---

He Peirong, an activist and longtime friend of Chen, said on Twitter that the lawyer fled on April 22.

Chen once tried to dig a tunnel in a bid to break out. However, his plan was discovered and the guards, allegedly appointed by the local government, paved cement over the ground outside his home to prevent any further attempts to flee.

Video reveals blind Chinese activist's plight

He Peirong told Britain's Times newspaper that Chen had planned the escape for months. She said Chen climbed over a wall while a guard wasn’t paying attention, crossed a river, and then managed to meet a friend who picked him up and drove him to Beijing.

'100 percent safe'
Reuters cited Bob Fu, president of the Texas-based religious and political rights advocacy group ChinaAid, as saying that Chen was in Beijing and "100 percent safe."

Chen’s whereabouts remained unknown on Friday. Rumors swirled that he may be hiding inside the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, but officials said "no comment" when approached by media.

Boxun News, an overseas Chinese news website, uploaded a recorded video of a monologue by Chen early Friday, with a headline reading "Chen Guangcheng's three requests to Premier Wen Jiaobao."

The 15-minute video started with Chen’s brief statement: "Dear Premier Wen, it was very difficult but I made my escape. I am here to prove, all those allegations online and the accusations against Linyi (government)’s violence on me are true. And the fact is only worse."

His first request to the premier was a thorough investigation for his house arrest, and to severely punish the criminals in accordance with law. Chen claimed dozens of people had been sent to his house, violently beat up Chen, his wife and his mother on multiple occasions.

Chen named all the people who were allegedly involved, including the one who roughed up Christian Bale and CNN TV crew last winter.

Chinese hail 'Pandaman vs Batman'

Security cameras
Chen also gave details of how thugs were grouped to watch and patrol in and around his home, by roads leading to his home and the village, sometime even in neighboring villages. Security cameras were installed around his house and all connections between his home and the outside world were shut off.

Chen’s second request was to safeguard his family members' security: "I’m free now, but I worry about my wife, my child, and my mother. They’ve been persecuted for so long and I’m worried they will be victims of revenge." Chen says his wife has been beaten many times and was prevented from seeing a doctor.

Chen’s seven-year-old daughter was also constantly watched and sometimes even had her school bag searched. She wasn’t allowed to leave home after school. The electricity of Chen’s home was constantly cut off and his mother wasn’t allowed to go shopping. "I will keep on fighting if anything happens to my family," Chen warned.

Chen's last request will resonate with many Chinese citizens: to curb corruption. "When they were persecuting me last August in a Cultural Revolution style, they said, ‘we have spent even more than 60 million Yuan ($9.5 million) on you, but that doesn’t include the money used to bribe officials in Beijing!’…what a corruption."

'Abuse of tax money'
A huge amount of public money is used to crack down protests and human-rights movements, under the name of the "stability maintenance fund." In Chen’s case, he estimated millions have been spent just to keep him locked up. "The officials say they didn't get much and the largest share was taken by others. So, clearly, there is serious corruption and the abuse of tax money and power."

His escape was widely discussed on China's popular Twitter-like service Weibo, with users referring to him as "the blind man" or "Shawshank Redemption" to avoid censorship of his name.

"Some birds aren't meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright," the line from the 1994 drama film "The Shawshank Redemption" has been forwarded many times on Weibo today.

"Every historial period has its own blind prophet. He speaks out the fear hidden in the hearts of those who can see," said a Weibo user by the name of "Zhang Wenwu."

Self-taught lawyer
Born in 1971, Chen became blind after suffering a fever when he young. He studied medicine and later turned into a self-taught lawyer, providing legal support for disabled people and other fellow villagers over their land dispute with local governments.

Since 2005, he campaigned against local family planning agencies on human rights violations including forced abortion, forced sterilization, beatings, fines and illegal arrests. He was sentenced to four years and three months in prison in 2006 for the crime of "deliberate destruction of property and disrupting traffic."

He had been under house arrest along with his family since his release in 2010.

He Peirong, the friend and possible collaborator who published the news, has not been heard from since this morning. Her phone was picked up by a man who told journalists "you’ve got the wrong number."

It is not known if Chen’s family has been subjected to reprisals at the moment.

Chen ended his speech with a question: "Premier Wen, if you continue to neglect this, what will people think?"

(Horace Lu contributed to this report.)

BEIJING – Just days after Christian Bale made a red carpet appearance in Beijing for the premiere of his blockbuster new movie, “The Flowers of War,” about the 1937 Japanese sacking of Nanking, he made even bigger headlines in China off-screen on Friday.

Bale invited CNN’s Beijing bureau crew to accompany him Thursday as he attempted to visit Chen Guangcheng, an activist who has been under house arrest since his release from a four-year-long jail sentence last year.

The 40-year-old Chen, a blind self-taught lawyer became a persecuted dissident after he filed a lawsuit in 2006 on behalf of residents of his hometown, Linyi, over the city’s practice of forced abortions and sterilizations, a municipal policy that runs counter to national regulations.

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He was thrown in prison on what human rights activists say were trumped-up charges of “intentional damage of public property” and “gathering people to block traffic.”

Related link: Video reveals blind Chinese activist's plight

Since Chen’s release in September 2010, dozens of Chinese and foreign reporters, as well as supporters, have gone to Dongshigu village, in Shandong Province, to try to visit him, but all have blocked from even entering the town. Some were even violently manhandled and beaten up by unidentified thugs, and some TV crews had their equipment damaged or confiscated.

Bale was no exception.  

He and the crew were stopped at a road checkpoint when government security guards wearing green army coats asked what they were doing and punched the camera. When Bale took out his flip camera to record, he was punched and shoved, exactly the same treatment the CNN crew received just a few months earlier when they tried to visit.

After the scuffle, the crew got back into their vehicle and drove off, but they were followed by a security van for about 40 minutes.

"I'm not brave doing this," Bale said on camera. "The local people who are standing up to the authorities, who are visiting Chen and his family and getting beaten or detained, I want to support them."

In a later interview on CNN, Bale said, “It’s amazing a superpower like China is actually terrified of this man. It shows such an intrinsic weakness within the fabric of the country.”

China's human rights detainees 2010

He also stressed that he did not inform any members of the movie crew in order not to implicate them with his own actions.

‘Pandaman vs. Batman!’
Bale’s confrontation with the security guards soon made headlines on Twitter and Weibo, China’s most popular Twitter-like, but government-controlled, social media forum. Posts about the encounter spread rapidly on Friday morning with some joking headlines like “Pandaman vs. Batman!”

The cartoonist known as “Rebel Pepper” who posted the Pandaman vs. Batman cartoon on Weibo said he was somewhat surprised that Bale was treated exactly the same as everyone else.

“Dongshigu village is the only place in China that everyone is treated the same [and roughed up] no matter where you are from,” Rebel Pepper said during a phone interview with NBC News.

Some cynics noted it could be a publicity stunt for Bale's new movie, but most expressed their respect and appreciation.

A Weibo user named Shenan wrote, “You could pretend not to see or hear. That blind man is not your relative or friend in a faraway foreign country. Even if the whole 1.3 billion people were jailed, it’s not your business. You really didn’t have to ask for the roughing up, Batman.” 

By Friday afternoon, Weibo administrators censored all the posts related to Bale’s attempted visit. Steven Jiang, the CNN producer who was with Bale, found all his Weibo posts on their journey could not be forwarded.

It is a common practice for social media censors to jump in and try to put out the fire online before the flames get out of control. But determined Weibo users still spread the news with puns or pictures too difficult to censor. 

A post on Weibo joked that Zhang’s movie “Flowers of the War," would be pulled from Chinese cinemas. But another user said, “No, the movie will be there, only all the parts Christian Bale is in will be deleted!”

Bale left China today for the U.S., but Chen still remains off-limit to all his visitors.

Christian Bale scuffles with Chinese guards

BEIJING -- "Batman" star Christian Bale was roughed up by security guards who stopped him visiting a blind activist living under house arrest in China.

Video footage of the scuffle was shot by a camera crew traveling with the Hollywood actor as he promoted a film he has made in the country.

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CNN posted scenes of the confrontation between Bale and the guards on its website Friday.

The run-in and publicity is likely to cause discomfort in China's government-backed film industry, which hopes Bale's movie "The Flowers of War" will be a creative success at home and abroad.

• Behind The Wall: Video reveals blind Chinese activist's plight

The star's actions are sure to focus attention on the plight of Chen Guangcheng, guarded around the clock by plain-clothed and uniformed workers who have blocked dozens of reporters and fellow activists trying to see him in the past.

Bale was to leave China on Friday and his representatives could not immediately be reached for comment.

Bale, who won a best supporting actor Oscar for last year's "The Fighter," traveled Thursday with a crew from CNN to the village in eastern China where Chen, the blind lawyer, lives with his family in complete isolation.

They were stopped at the entrance to Dongshigu village in Shandong province by unidentified men.

'An inspiration'
The video footage shows Bale asking to see Chen, with a CNN producer providing interpretation, but being ordered by one of the guards to leave. He then asked why he was unable to pass through. The guards responded by trying to grab or punch a small video camera Bale was carrying.

"What I really wanted to do was to meet the man, shake his hand and say what an inspiration he is," Bale was quoted as saying by CNN.

Chen's case has been raised publicly by U.S. lawmakers and diplomats, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, all to no response from China.

CNN said Bale first learned of Chen from news reports when he was in China filming "The Flowers of War," China's official submission this year for best foreign language film Oscar.

"Chen Guangcheng is a newsworthy figure ... and as such it is in the interest of CNN's global viewers to hear from him," CNN said in a statement. "Mr. Bale reached out to CNN and invited us to join him on his journey to visit Chen."

• Rebellious Chinese village under siege by police

Chen, a self-taught lawyer who was blinded by a fever in infancy, angered authorities after documenting forced late-term abortions and sterilizations and other abuses by overzealous authorities trying to meet population control goals in his rural community. He was imprisoned for allegedly instigating an attack on government offices and organizing a group of people to disrupt traffic, charges his supporters say were fabricated.

Although now officially free under the law, he has been confined to his home in the village eight hours' drive from Beijing and subjected to periodic beatings and other abuse, activists say.

• Chinese hail 'Pandaman vs. Batman'

While Bale's visit focuses new attention on Chen's case, CNN's role raises questions about activism and advocacy among reporters, said David Bandurski, editor of the China Media Project website at the University of Hong Kong.

"It made me instantly uncomfortable, wondering how it all came together. It raises questions about where the lines are drawn," Bandurski said.

Politically sensitive subject
The incident also drew strong interest — most of it highly positive — on social networking sites such as Twitter and its Chinese equivalent, Weibo.

Having their star's name pinging across the Internet in connection with such a politically sensitive subject puts promoters of "The Flowers of War" in a bind. The film opens in China on Friday and next week in the United States.

Directed by the renowned Zhang Yimou, it is also the most expensive Chinese movie ever made, at $94 million, some of which came from the state-owned Bank of China.

The movie centers on the 1937 sacking of the eastern city of Nanjing, a central event in China's pre-revolutionary "century of humiliation" and has been described by some critics as hewing to official propaganda portraying Chinese as heroic victims and Japanese as one-dimensional cartoon villains.

While China has the world's third-largest film industry — both in box office and output — it has made relatively little global impact. Story lines are often heavily influenced by the ruling Communist Party, whose culture commissars must approve scripts and have final say over whether a film gets released.

More from msnbc.com and NBC News:

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The Associated Press and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.

BEIJING– For years, in the name of social harmony, China’s ruling Communist Party has been highly successful in masking, placating or simply distorting the tens of thousands of protests – dubbed “mass demonstrations” – that occur here ever year.

The Wukan rebellion will prove a tougher dilemma for Beijing to solve.

From The Telegraph newspaper’s Malcolm Moore comes details of the stunning story of Wukan, a fishing village of 20,000 in China’s southern Guangdong Province.  Earlier this week, the entire town rose up and threw out local party officials and police forces following years of having the people’s land sold out from underneath them.

The villagers’ frustration mixed with anger over news that one of the protest organizers, Xue Jinbo, died in police custody, allegedly from a heart attack.  Since the start of the revolt in September, Wukan residents have successfully thwarted multiple attempts by the police to re-enter the town by creating roadblocks out of fallen trees or just using themselves.

They are now in a tense standoff with security forces, which earlier formed a cordon around Wukan--although a villager inside the perimeter told NBC News earlier today by phone that the cordon has been removed, leaving one checkpoint blocking the central access into the town.

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Scores of state security officers are said to be still positioned around the edge of Wukan, which has begun seven days of mourning for the fallen protest leader.

Moore also reports that the town has enough food to last ten more days and that the security cordon is in fact still in effect (Click here to read more on how Malcolm Moore slipped through the security cordon).

 

That we know anything about this explosive story – which has been months in the making but appears to be coming to a head this week – is largely due to Moore, who earlier successfully slipped through the security cordon and since has been filing articles and Tweets on events occurring within Wukan.  (Follow him on twitter: @MalcolmMoore)

The reports have given everyone a rare inside look at the mindset and mechanics of a popular uprising in China--a rarity for foreign journalists who often face tight, sometimes arbitrary restrictions, and harassment by local government forces when trying to report on issues deemed sensitive.

Slipping through China’s security
To say that foreign journalists in China know a thing or two about security cordons is an understatement.

Over the years, the security apparatus has become exceptionally good at quickly sealing off and containing problem areas while at the same time wallpapering over dissent with state media coverage.

In 2008, during the spring Tibetan uprisings, NBC attempted multiple times to enter the Tibetan areas of Sichuan Province for coverage but was turned back by security forces that had formed roadblocks around the region to prevent independent reporters and observers from entering.

Similar restrictions have continued this year.  Journalists have attempted to enter those areas again following a wave of self-immolations by Tibetans that has called renewed attention to the plight of China’s Tibetan minority.

Most recently, local government officials in the Shandong town of Linyi have effectively bottled up local dissent by keeping blind lawyer and social activist, Chen Guangcheng, under perpetual house arrest.

Supporters of Chen – who in 2006 famously filed a lawsuit on behalf of his fellow residents against the local government over its practice of forced abortions and sterilizations – and foreign journalists have attempted many times this year to visit the activist and his family.  But they’ve been met at the town’s edge by plain-clothed security agents who forcibly restrict visitors from entering by throwing rocks and swinging sticks.

It was only in the last week – under intense public pressure – that the provincial government of Shandong intervened, permitting ulcer medicine to be brought to Chen.

Will other Chinese dominos fall?
The dramatic chain of events in Wukan begs the obvious question, could this be the proverbial “first domino” that falls in a wave of similar copycat protests nationwide?  As Moore stresses in his coverage of the rebellion, the people of Wukan are counting on the central government to come to the rescue and depose the corrupt local officials whom they believe responsible for their current plight.

That hope has manifested itself in the numerous rumors, as Moore reports, swirling around the village.  The most recent is that China’s state news channel, CCTV, is coming later this week to cover the standoff.  Some of the villagers have concluded amongst themselves that national coverage of their plight will lead to swift action by China’s ruling party against the corrupt Wukan government.

How the central government manages Wukan’s revolt against party authority is a source of intense speculation.  Its action will generate strong responses both nationally and abroad and will reveal to China watchers which audience the party wishes to anger less.

On one hand, Beijing could do as Wukan’s villagers wish and come down hard on the local officials, reaffirming the Communist Party’s often-repeated mantra of “serving the people.”  This path, however, could have the unintended consequence of convincing local governments throughout the mainland that Beijing is willing to sell out its own in order to preserve social harmony, potentially forming a rift between local and central government apparatuses.

On the other hand, Beijing could determine that preservation of Party rule is the single most important priority and elect to crush the rebellion through force or the threat of it.  Such a tack would instantly draw international condemnation, but as China has shown in the past international opinion plays a very distant second to its interest in preserving national stability.

A dark horse in changing that thinking is the ever-evolving Chinese blogosphere, which increasingly has filled the role as national zeitgeist.  Ironically, even as state censors work overtime to scrub the web of news and discussion of socially delicate issues like Wukan, decision-makers here increasingly must account for public reaction on these matters and factor potential online anger in the complex calculus that is governing.

Where China will fall on this matter remains to be seen, but the next few days will tell us a lot about how Beijing plans to handle mass disturbances in the near future.

NBC News producer Bo Gu contributed to this report.