BEIJING: Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng, who was allowed to travel to the U.S. after escaping from house arrest, said Monday that New York University is forcing him and his family to leave at the end of this month because of pressure from the Chinese government. The university denied Chen’s allegations.

Chen said in a statement that China’s Communist Party had been applying “great, unrelenting pressure” on NYU to ask him to leave, though he did not provide details or evidence to back his claim. Chen said Beijing’s authoritarian government has more influence on the American academic community than is perceived.

“The work of the Chinese Communists within academic circles in the United States is far greater than what people imagine, and some scholars have no option but to hold themselves back,” he said. “Academic independence and academic freedom in the United States are being greatly threatened by a totalitarian regime.”

NYU officials called Chen’s account puzzling, saying that his fellowship was meant to be a one-year position and had simply concluded as planned, and that school officials have been talking with him for months about what his next step might be.

Chen sparked a diplomatic crisis between China and the U.S. last year when he fled to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing from house arrest. Since last May, he’d been a special student at NYU’s U.S.-Asia Law institute. He has been working on a book due out later this year.

NYU spokesman John Beckman said in a statement Monday that the conclusion of Chen’s fellowship had nothing to do with the Chinese government.

“We are very discouraged to learn of Mr. Chen’s statement, which contains a number of speculations about the role of the Chinese government in NYU’s decision-making that are both false and contradicted by the well-established facts,” Beckman said.

Beckman said that even before Chen’s family’s arrival in the States the fellowship he was to take at the university was discussed as a one-year position.

“NYU believes it has been generous in supporting this family, and we are puzzled and saddened to see these false claims directed at us,” Beckman said.

The dissident said that as early as last August and September, three to four months after his family had arrived in the United States, NYU was already discussing their departure.

Beckman responded that the university began talking to the Chens “not because of some fictional ‘pressure’ from China, but so that they could use the months to make their transition a smooth one.”

NYU said Chen has two offers for new institutional affiliations. Earlier, a spokesman for New York-based Fordham University confirmed that Chen was negotiating with Fordham Law School’s Leitner Center but said he didn’t know what kind of position was being discussed.

The incident has highlighted the potential public relations benefits and risks that American universities face in engaging Chinese dissidents at a time when many are trying to expand in Chinaand Chinese students are an increasingly important source of tuition income for colleges.

Chinese students form the largest population of foreign students at American universities, with nearly 200,000 this year, up 25 percent since last year — and they often pay full tuition.

NYU raised its profile and earned itself goodwill by offering a fellowship to Chen as a solution to last year’s diplomatic crisis. Beckman said the university provided housing, food, health care and insurance, special law tutorials, translation services, English lessons and connections to a publisher. To help him pursue his advocacy, Chen was also invited to speak at many events facilitated by the school, Beckman said.

However, the university’s association with such a prominent dissident has brought greater scrutiny of the university’s engagement with China. A U.S. newspaper, the New York Post, had earlier reported that NYU’s decision was related to the university’s development of a campus in Shanghai, though the university rejected the claim.

NYU has said that its new campus in China’s financial capital will be a degree-granting, liberal arts and science college, with classes scheduled to begin this fall. Its partners are a Chinese university, the Shanghai city education commission and the government of the city’s Pudong district.

KATHMANDU: China has new leadership in Beijing and a new representative in Kathmandu. Both have stressed on pursuing a comprehensive diplomatic strategy at the global and regional level. And of course, as the closest neighbor, it has special plans for Nepal.

The newly-appointed Chinese envoy to Nepal, Wu Chuntai, while elaborating on some dimensions of this new strategy, said that the comprehensive package includes continuing economic support and the new dimensions that will be pushed further are cultural and people-to-people exchanges.

These packages, the details of which are still in the making, are part of new Chinese leadership’s policy to engage and strengthen economic and cultural ties in the region and across the globe. In his address given on the sidelines of the first session of the 12th National People’s Congress (NPC) in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi had said that Chinese diplomacy will stress on actively “participating in international and regional affairs to build the international system”.

Echoing the statement made by Jiechi, Chuntai in his debut press meet, held some days after he assumed responsibility at the Nepal mission, elaborated on the profound cultural and social similarities that citizens of both nations shared and pledged that China will provide any type of support to Nepal.

“It is the Chinese government´s policy to support Nepal safeguard her sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Chuntai said at the press meet which featured some video footage that provided background to his statements on China’s strategy on international and regional affairs.

After elaborating how Nepalese and the Chinese people were connected to each other through ‘salt-gold’ trade across the Himalayas or the White Pagoda monument built hundreds of years ago in China, Chuntai focused on delivering home the point- “China looks forward to support its neighbors in their endeavours and of course bringing economic support to Nepal is a priority.”

While adding the cultural exchange dimension in Sino-Nepal ties, Chuntai and the new Chinese leaderships’ stress remained on extending economic cooperation.

But is Nepal ready for it?

Presently with more than US $ 100 million investment, over 20 Chinese companies are actively involved in Nepal’s development and commercial projects. Though Chinese side has expressed willingness and in some cases commitment too, some mega projects have been a victim to ‘unstable politics’ of the recipient country.

West Seti Hydropower, Pokhara International Airport, Kathmandu Ring Road upgrading have been in the offing for some time now. Though Chuntai in the press conference said that progress was being made in implementing these projects, the delay in implementing these projects were primarily victimized by Nepal’s political transition and by what can be called ‘personal-politics’.

Nepal is at the centre of contention among global actors where western and non-western forces are at play. If the recent claims of many Nepali politicians and political analyst is considered, then political stability and a homogenous foreign affairs policy among Nepalese political parties will remain elusive for some time now, at least unless the new constitution is promulgated.

Some months back, Chuntai’s predecessor at the embassy, Yang Houlan, had expressed concern over the growing instability and corresponding friction in implementing development projects in Nepal. Houlan’s concern hinted that even though China was willing to open up its resources for Nepal, lack of stable government and policy was depriving it from it.

China had assisted Nepal in some mega projects in the past too. But as Houlan remembered, those projects were implemented and completed as they faced relatively less friction owing to the centralized governance and ideology at the time.

But again as he figured out, times have changed in Nepal and this time around they are turbulent than ever as the nation continues limping ahead without a constitution to guide it. Adding to it, the growing mistrust and confrontation between Nepal’s major political powers, between major and fringe parties and between national and regional political forces has rendered the nation’s political future uncertain.

An Optimist Strategy:

The new Chinese leadership seemed euphoric in announcing their preparations to leading the global economy and in focusing their diplomatic strategy primarily in the regional affairs. And so was Chuntai’s announcement at the press meet.

The proposed people-to-people and cultural exchanges, which features a Chinese cultural event in Kathmandu in the near future, sure seems to be an effort to strengthen ties between people of both nations and to reinforce the cultural and trade foundations between both nations.

People-to-people exchanges are far better options to build and strengthen existing relationship in comparison to centralized top-down model of assistance. It’s the safest road to build ever-lasting bilateral ties.