中国民主党支部的创始人徐文立(编者注：98年11月成立中国民主党北京天津地区党部，并被推举任党部主席。)在中国境内的时候，被政府视为威胁。作为领1979年-1981年民主墙运动的领导者，他监狱里呆了16年，罪名是“密谋推翻中国政府”。
Chen Guangcheng must weigh loss of prominence against protection of U.S. asylum
When Xu Wenli lived in China, the government deemed him a menace. A founder of a branch of the China Democracy Party and a leader in the 1979-1981 Democracy Wall movement, Xu served 16 years in prison for allegedly plotting to overthrow the Chinese government.
Then, in 2002, he received political asylum and arrived on Christmas Eve in a New York City wrapped in snow.
随后，在2002年平安夜，他获得美国政治庇护，抵达了被白雪覆盖的纽约。
A decade later, he speaks little English. Every spring he teaches a dozen or more advanced Chinese-language students at Brown University. He has twice organized meetings of the China Democracy Party, once at the University of Maryland and once at the Hope Club in Providence, R.I. Each time, about 30 people attended.
12年过去了，他能讲一点英文。每个春季，他在布朗大学讲授一些高级中文课程。期间，他两次组织召开中国民主党会议。一次在马里兰大学，另一次在位于普罗维登斯的布朗大学的希望俱乐部。每次与会的人数，都在30人左右。
The fate of exiled Chinese dissidents like Xu could prove instructive for Chen Guangcheng, the blind lawyer who escaped effective house arrest last week and is believed to have taken refuge in a U.S. Embassy building in Beijing. Though Chen has told friends he wants to remain in China, political asylum in the United States seems a likely outcome, China experts say.
像徐文立这样流亡海外的中国持不同政见者的经历对据信已逃出软禁并在美国大使馆避难的盲人律师陈光诚具有指导性。中国专家称，虽然陈光诚曾告诉他的朋友他想留在中国，最终他或许仍不得不接受美国的政治庇护。President Obama declined to comment directly about Chen on Monday. But he said that “every time we meet with China, the issue of human rights comes up,” adding that it was not only “the right thing to do, because it comports with our principles and our belief in freedom and human rights, but also because we actually think China will be stronger as it opens up and liberalizes its own system.”
奥巴马总统在周一时拒绝了对陈光诚事件作出直接的评论。但是，他指出，每一次与中国方面会谈时都会提到人权问题。这不仅仅是符合美国原则与信仰的“正确的事”，如果中国能就此做出改进，将变得更加强大。
China experts believe that Chen will ultimately accept U.S. asylum ― and that U.S. and Chinese officials will agree on such a plan, possibly before Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner arrive in Beijing on Wednesday morning for long-scheduled meetings.
中国专家预计陈光诚最终会接受美国的庇护，同时中美两国会就此达成协议，在国务卿希拉里和财长盖纳特周三上午抵达中国参与会商前解决这件事。
It’s a difficult choice for Chen. Chinese dissidents who have gone into exile in the United States have gained freedom, but most have lost stature.
这对陈光诚来说，是一个艰难的选择。那些流亡在美国的中国持不同政见者都获得了自身的自由，但大多数已失去了声望与影响力。
Jerome A. Cohen, a Chinese law expert at New York University law school, said that the question for Chen is: “Is it better to be in China and be stifled, or to come to America and be frustrated because you’re not able to muster much understanding or support?”
纽约大学的中国法律专家Jerome A. Cohen说，摆在陈光诚面前的问题是，要么在中国被扼杀，要么在美国因无法得到理解与支持而沮丧。
Mixed outcomes
The track record of those who have come to America before Chen is a strange mixture.
那些在陈光诚之前来到美国的人的记录是形形色色的奇怪的混搭。
Li Lu, who came to the United States after the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989, is an investment manager and possible successor to Warren Buffett. Shen Tong, who also fled in 1989 and runs a successful software company, has devoted most of his time in recent months to plotting strategy for the Occupy Wall Street movement.
在天安门事件之后来到美国的李禄是一名投资经理人，并渴望成为巴菲特的继任者。同因“六四”而逃亡的沈彤，开办了一家运营得不错的软件公司。最近几个月，他把大多数时间都投入到了占领华尔街运动中。
“The U.S. was not only my home, but it stood for something admirable or even inspirational,” Shen said, recalling how he felt when he first arrived. “That hasn’t been true for a while.” The Occupy movement has given him a chance to participate, as did the Tiananmen demonstrations. “In some ways, this is what I came for,” he said.
美国不仅是我的家，沈彤说，它代表着令人钦佩的，甚至励志的精神。回忆起第一次来到美国的感受，他在一段时间内都有一种不真实的感觉。而占领华尔街运动给了他和天安门学潮一样的示威机会。“从某种意义上来说，这也是我来美国所追求的”，他说。Wei Jingsheng, a Beijing zoo electrician who spent 18 years in prison for writing that China could not modernize economically without political modernization, makes speeches and has done talk shows on Voice of America. But he has struggled to rally support and has bickered with other exiles since arriving in 1997. He runs a foundation in Washington and lives on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.
因“中国没有政治现代化就不可能经济现代化”言论而入狱18年的前北京动物园电工魏京生曾多次在美国之音发表演讲。他一直试图重整旗鼓。在1997年抵美后，他一直与其他流亡人士吵得不可开交。他在华盛顿运营着一家基金会，生活在马里兰的东海岸。
“I think I have been more effective in the United States than if I had stayed in a Chinese jail,” Wei said in an interview Monday. “That’s not true for most people sent to exile. Most are trapped by the need to make a living. They effectively are disappeared from this world.”
魏京生在周一受访时称，来到美国比留在中国的监狱更加能让自己的努力有效用。但他也承认，对大多数其他流亡人士来说，情况是不同的。他们都疲于应付基本的生计需求而毫无建树。
At times, China’s exiles have floundered. In the early 1990s, the author Orville Schell wrote a profile of exiled Tiananmen student leader Wu’er Kaixi, who was then running a Ranch House restaurant off a freeway near San Francisco International Airport.
有时，中国的流亡者们陷入踌躇的困境。在20世纪90年代初，作家奥维尔・谢尔描写称流亡的天安门学生领袖吾尔开希在旧金山国际机场附近的高速公路边经营餐厅。
The late Fang Lizhi made a poorly received, dogma-laden speech in broken English at the Council on Foreign Relations when he was allowed to leave the U.S. Embassy in Beijing for exile, and later went to teach at the University of Arizona.
稍后，方励之在获准离开美国驻北京大使馆开始流亡生活后，用他憋足的英语发表了效果不佳，极为教条的演说。此后，他在亚利桑那大学执教。
Xu, who was 59 when he arrived, said adjusting to the United States has been difficult in some ways. Learning English and finding work was hard.
徐文立在抵美时已59岁了。他说，某种程度上来说，要适应美国很困难。学英语和找工作都是不轻松的事情。
“Not being able to go back to China for so long has been a very negative experience, because China has been the home that nurtured me for so long,” he said. And he misses his relatives. “Even though my parents have passed away,” he said, “I can’t go tend to their graves.”
而长时间不能返回中国更是一种消极的体验。中国毕竟是长期哺育我的故土。徐文立说，他思念自己的亲人们，即使双亲都已过世，他却不能去祭扫他们安息之墓。
But he said the growth of the Internet has made it easier for exiles to have an impact in China. He is still able to e-mail or Skype people inside China. He has a Web site that has been hacked and rebuilt several times, but he said it still gets about a million hits a month.但，徐文立说，互联网的发展让流亡人士们更容易在中国发挥影响力。他仍然能通过电子邮件和Skype与中国境内的人联系。他有一个被黑无数次的网站，至今每月仍受到上百万次的攻击。
One person whose stature has grown in exile is Rebiya Kadeer, a successful businesswoman from the Uighur ethnic group in the western province of Xinjiang. In China, Kadeer was arrested while on her way to meet a U.S. congressional delegation in 1999. She was put in a small cell in Bajahu women’s prison with two women monitoring her. One day in 2005, she said, the guards left and people in dark suits appeared, telling her she was bound for the United States. She didn’t believe it until she was taken to Beijing and met a U.S. Embassy official.
影响力因流亡而增长的是热比娅，一个西部省份新疆的维吾尔族成功商人。1999年，热比娅在前往会晤访华的美国国会代表团的路上被捕。她被关进女子监狱的狭小单间，并受两名女性的监控。2005年的一天，看守不见了，穿着深色西装的人告诉她，她将被交给美国。而她直到被带到北京并见到美国使馆官员后才敢相信这是真的。
“I couldn’t control myself,” she recalled. “I cried and hugged the embassy official.”
“我无法控制自己”，热比娅回忆说，“我抱着使馆的官员哭了”。
In the United States, she twice met President George W. Bush.
在美国，她两次见到了小布什总统。
“She became the face of the Uighur struggle when she came to the United States,” said Nury Turkel, a lawyer and previous president of the Uighur American Association. “One of the wealthiest people in China before being arrested, she was already high-profile in China. Because of her tireless efforts after her release, she has been able to elevate the status of the Uighur struggle to an international level.”
“当她来到美国后，它成为了维族斗争的代表性头面人物”，维吾尔美国协会的前任主席，律师Nury Turkel说。“她在中国被捕前，就是有名的富商。获释后，通过努力，维族人的斗争得到推动。”
But there have been trade-offs. “We cannot be directly involved in what’s happening inside the country,” Kadeer said. She added, “When we go into exile, our relatives are in absolute danger.” Chinese authorities have arrested two of her sons and put them in a prison next to the one that housed Kadeer.
但这也是有取舍的。 “我们不能直接参与是在该国境内发生了什么，”热比娅说，“我们流亡海外，我们的亲人是绝对危险的。”中国当局已经逮捕了她的两个儿子，并把他们关在曾安置热比娅的监狱旁。
‘A quiet charisma’
That danger is a key one for Chen, who left his wife and child behind in Shandong province. Other relatives and friends have been questioned or arrested. In the YouTube video he posted last week, Chen appealed to Premier Wen Jiabao to protect his wife, who he said had been beaten repeatedly.
For both U.S. and Chinese officials, political asylum in the United States for Chen is likely to be the preferred route, analysts say. If Chen remains in China, U.S. officials fear he will continue to be abused and harassed, and Chinese officials fear he will remain a thorn in relations with Western nations that have put Chen’s treatment at or near the top of their human rights complaints for several years.But for Chen, exile would mean giving up his goal of providing legal services in rural areas through what he called “barefoot lawyers,” a play on the Mao Zedong-era barefoot doctors. Chen also would be unable to continue to pursue the cause of women forced to undergo abortions or sterilization in rural Shandong. Unlike some other dissidents, he has called not for democracy but for the enforcement of China’s existing laws, which he says are widely ignored by courts, police and party officials.
His mission in the United States would be different. Yet Cohen, who met Chen before he ran afoul of Chinese authorities, said the lawyer has a “quiet charisma” that could help him stay prominent.
Xu sympathizes. “The situation in China is very dangerous, so leaving might be a better option for him,” Xu said. “It would be better if he could stay in China, because in China, he acts as a voice for the disenfranchised and unfairly treated.”
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