The office of Vice President Joe Biden overruled State and Justice Department officials in denying the political asylum request of a senior Chinese communist official last February over fears the high-level defection would upset the U.S. visit of China’s vice president, according to U.S. officials.
The defector, Wang Lijun, was turned away after 30 hours inside the U.S. Consulate Chengdu and given over to China’s Ministry of State Security, the political police and intelligence service.
Wang has not been seen since Feb. 7 and remains under investigation. His attempt to flee China set off a major power struggle within the ruling Communist Party and led to the ouster of leftist Politburo member Bo Xilai and the arrest of his wife on murder charges.
New disclosures on the handling of the failed defection come as the Obama administration is facing a new test of its relations with Beijing over another defection, the flight to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing of Chen Guangcheng, a blind human rights activist who is believed to be in hiding there.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was scheduled to leave Monday night for talks with the Chinese in Beijing as part of what is called the Strategic and Economic Dialogue. The Obama administration has sought to downplay Beijing’s human rights abuses as part of its foreign policy toward China.
Read More at freebeacon.com By Bill Gertz
Photo Credit: Floyd Brown Creative Commons
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First, why do all these “mistreated people” want to come to the USA? Why don’t they want to go to other countries such as England, Japan, Switzerland, Nova Scotia or other “free” countries? I say to them go there. We already have enough people living like leeches off the American tax dollars, and that is exactly what would have happened if he and his family had come to America. And hillary and all the other idiots who have embraced China for their progressive moves toward human rights have been made to look like idiots once again by this latest fiasco. What a bunch of jokers we have running our country.
Of course no one has seen him, he’s either dead or imprisoned, in which case he might as well be dead. Biden signed his death warrant just as surely as if he had pulled the switch or trigger himself. Last I knew we didn’t refuse political asylum to anyone if they could prove their case. Another gold star on the bottom rung of the Soetero administrations ladder. As for you True American, your name surely doesn’t reflect your rhetoric.
auhunter: It is so obvious that you cannot see or understand why so many people from countries who are our enemies want to get into the USA. The chinese, like many others, cannot be trusted as has been proven by numerous reports pertaining to their hacking into our computer systems, industrial espionage, and their supplying weapons or giving support to countries like Iran and Syria. Just because a person is a member of an “upper echelon” of a country like China does not mean he is pro-American. He and others who are so narrow minded they cannot understand this are doomed to become slaves to dictators. I have been around over 7 decades, retired military with combat action, duty in many countries, as well as 20 plus years of law enforcement experience.