Chen Guangcheng, a blind Chinese dissident, escaped from house arrest last week and disappeared. According to rumors, Chen made his way to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and has been admitted to the grounds, placing him beyond the reach of Chinese security forces. His presence there is no certainty, and both the U.S. and Chinese governments have refused to make any claims. That would normally be a hint that he is there, and that both sides are seeking a solution that would be made more difficult if the United States confirmed Chen's presence or Beijing said he is on embassy grounds.

The mystery is compounded by the question of how a blind man slipped out of his house and evaded security. Apparently, a number of his supporters and friends — the number is unclear but thought to be substantial — planned and executed his extraction and delivered him to the embassy. It is enormously difficult to mount a conspiracy like this in a police state. The probability of being detected while planning the escape is high, and the consequences of being caught before or after that can be dreadful. Many involved in the conspiracy have reportedly already been captured. The question is why his supporters believe that getting Chen to the U.S. Embassy right now is important enough to bring upon themselves at the very least an extended prison sentence. 

Upcoming talks between the United States and China in Beijing as part of the U.S-Chinese Strategic Dialogue might provide an explanation. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will attend meetings in Beijing on Thursday and Friday. Chen’s escape redefines the talks if he actually is in the embassy. The talks will not likely yield much progress while someone the Chinese regard as a criminal is being protected by the United States, and it is difficult to see how the United States could turn Chen over to the Chinese. If the dissidents wanted to elevate human rights issues to the top of the strategic agenda, this was a perfect strategy — it might explain why the dissidents were willing to risk so much. At the same time, it is difficult to imagine how this would force China to shift its position on dissidents. More likely the Chinese will find it necessary to become more intransigent on the subject. While elevating the subject in talks, it will likely not make for a more liberal China.

The incident presents two major mysteries. One, already alluded to, was how this group of dissidents — who we will assume are amateur operatives — managed to extract Chen from his guarded home, move him to the embassy and get him inside gates that are under constant surveillance by Chinese security. Success would require both great skill and luck. The second mystery is why the United States admitted him. Earlier this year, when Chongqing Chief of Police Wang Lijun, a colleague of Chongqing Party Secretary Bo Xilai, tried to gain access to a U.S. diplomatic facility, he was allowed to stay overnight but was not given sanctuary. By both Chinese and American accounts, he chose to leave with Chinese authorities the next day. The decision to provide sanctuary to Chen obviously had to be made quickly and with full awareness of its impact on the upcoming meetings. If the stories on Chen's location are true, he was admitted relatively rapidly. Did the United States have prior knowledge? Had the decision to give Chen sanctuary been made earlier in Washington, and did the ambassador himself decide? Another question is whether the Chinese helped facilitate Chen's escape, at least allowing the operation to proceed successfully. This would explain the entire affair, but would leave open the obvious question, one that could be asked of both sides.

Why would the Americans want to sabotage the talks? Why would the Chinese? Each country is in the process of selecting its top leadership and might have found it somehow advantageous for domestic political reasons to do this. Still, neither side wants to exacerbate relations with the other when the political gains seem so trivial. Either side might have decided that the talks were going nowhere and triggered a crisis instead.

But neither side has behaved as if they want a crisis. Neither side has admitted complicity in the affair, which by all reports diplomats are working to settle. The problem is how to settle it. Letting Chen out of the country would represent a blow to the Chinese on a number of levels. Turning him over to the Chinese would deliver a blow to U.S. President Barack Obama's record on human rights. Two past cases come to mind. In 1989, Fang Lizhi, a Chinese dissident, fled to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. He was given shelter for a year before an agreement was reached allowing Fang to leave China. But relations between Washington and Beijing were very different two decades ago. There is also the precedent of Cardinal Mindszenty of Hungary, who spent 15 years in the U.S. Embassy in Budapest. But the United States was not dealing with a major adversary in Hungary and could afford the friction. Right now we don’t even know if Chen is in the embassy. All we have are unconfirmed claims.

The story itself is fascinating, but there are two reasons why it matters. First, if the account is true, the dissident movement in China has capabilities not previously noted. Its ability to run rings around Chinese security is impressive and worthy of note, particularly in a year when Beijing is being extra cautious about potential domestic instability. The degree to which both Beijing and Washington have acted to prevent this turning into a crisis is also interesting. Either each side wants to orchestrate the crisis in their own way or, more likely, neither China nor the United States wants to put the other in an impossible position.

If Chen is in the embassy, it is hard to predict how this ends. Perhaps authorities will discover that he did not actually go to the embassy, but somehow boarded a flight to Los Angeles and then disappeared. It would solve the problem and allow things to go on. In the meantime, if it turns out Chen is in the embassy, we would not like to be the Chinese security personnel who let a blind man slip past them.