You’re listening to part one of a Barefoot Lawyer Reports episode on how Bob Fu, founder and president of China Aid, helped Chen Guangcheng escape from communist China to the United States.

Bill Saunders: Okay, welcome to this broadcast of the Barefoot Lawyer Reports. I’m William Saunders, the director of the Center for Human Rights at Catholic University. And with me, as always, is our distinguished fellow, Chen Guangcheng. And today we have a special guest, Bob Fu, who is the president of China Aid and is himself Chinese. He’s had a long history with Guangcheng, which I’d like to have him tell us about. And let Guangcheng also give his perspective. Bob, when did you first learn of Guangcheng?

Bob Fu: Thank you Dr. Saunders, for having me with my fellow country fellow together. Of course, you know, Guangcheng is a very famous fellow that we are all very proud of. When he was engaging in human rights defense activities, especially when he started, to defend the vulnerable. 

The first time I heard about him, actually, was through the Chinese government official media. He was reported as somebody who defended the vulnerable, of course, for the rights of those who can’t see. That was the initial report. And then, of course, as he moved up to help more people, then the communist party started their 180 turn, instead of praising him they turned against him. I think, then, some of my good friends, who are mutual friends with Guangcheng, some human rights lawyers had been on the side supporting, working with him, on some legal defense cases. So I learned a little more about his activities. 

Bill Saunders: And, as you said, Guangcheng, the more he spoke up for more disadvantaged people, the government got angry with him and eventually they arrested him. He had a show trial and he went to jail. At that point, did you follow that part where he was arrested and put on trial and went to prison?

Bob Fu: Oh, you bet. Really the whole world did.

Bill Saunders: Many of the people listening, Bob, believe it or not, will be people who are, you know, 30 years, 40 years younger than us and they won’t remember any of it. So let’s tell them, right?

Bob Fu: Yeah. And as you just mentioned, after Guangcheng passed the Communist Party’s tolerance line by helping more vulnerable people and documenting these cases, over 150,000 or maybe more than that, these victims of the forced abortion, forced sterilization it made him, of course, on to  TIME magazine. 

Bill Saunders: Right. We remind people listening that Guangcheng was on the cover of Newsweek, as a  Barefoot Lawyer. And then he was on the cover of TIME magazine as one of the most influential people.

Bob Fu: Yes. Number one is for me, of course, as somebody also from Shandong province, my wife actually came from  her hometown nearby, so we speak of the same town. But so that’s a personal interest. Number two, of course, based on my work, years of working with many Chinese human rights lawyers, many of them, of course, all of them are Guangcheng’s colleagues over there and promoting religious freedom and the rule of law that has been China Aid’s mission. So I’d been following Guangcheng’s work and also later on the Communist party’s wrath against him. And I remembered after he was imprisoned, you know, we had been so hungry to know what had happened in his prison time. I mean, of course the crazy charge against him was like blocking traffic, it’s like total nonsense to the whole world. And they sent him to prison for five years. Later on he was beaten up and we were paying close attention, as much attention as possible to find out what would happen after he was released. We launched a campaign in the US, of course, remember that sunglasses campaign? I was traveling in Missouri and outside a university, on a field. So I posted my sunglass campaign. 

Bill Saunders: It was a big international issue, what was happening to him in China; people were really following it. 

Bob Fu: It was. I think it was even inside China, the Chinese people were following it. 

Bill Saunders: What was the purpose of the campaign? 

Bob Fu: The purpose of the campaign was to free Guangcheng, in a real way, with no limitations on  his freedom of movement and freedom of speech that, ironically, is guaranteed in the Chinese government’s own constitution. So, that’s why so many Chinese netizens, citizens, human rights lawyers, went to Dong Shi Gu Village, Guangcheng’s village, to try to visit him and show support for him when he was under house arrest.

Bill Saunders: Yeah, I mean, again, to remind people that don’t know all of this. When he was released from prison, they put him under house arrest, it was like super duper house arrest because they had “thugs,” as he says, or “bullies” around his house to make sure he didn’t go anywhere; they watched him all the time. 

Bob Fu: Hundreds, yeah. 

Bill Saunders: Many human rights people and democracy advocates and Chinese citizens and people from outside of China would try to come see him, and the thugs wouldn’t let them see him, and they would beat people up. How did you do it? Were you in touch with him in some way? How did you follow what was actually going on once he went into house arrest?

Bob Fu: I think that has to contribute to Guangcheng’s genius gift of making things happen, even in the hardest time. I was not a good CIA operative to find him, but he found me. I was thousands of miles away. And one day I received a copy of a video from  Guangcheng’s wife, Weijing, and I think Guangcheng was part of that great plot. And they recorded inside the house during house arrest. I mean, with the thousands, and three layers of those guards. Thugs. Threatening him, beating them up, beating the family members up. And they were able to not only record the video showing those guards, those thugs were on the top of their wall surrounding their house. And, we can even hear the voices of Weijing and Guangcheng talking. 

I remember I was just about to walk into Capitol Hill, I think, the speaker’s office for a meeting, during the national prayer breakfast time. And all of a sudden, I got this video. I said, “Let’s stop.” I had  all my media team stopped right at the Capitol hill office. We just kind of edited it to make it transferable to our video team. That was the first conversation I had, in the remote sense, with Guangcheng and Weijing. These words shocked the whole world. 

Bill Saunders: I was going to say, yeah, that probably woke up a lot of people in America to what was going on against him. What was your plan? How did you get that video? How did you help? How did you reach out to people to let them know what was happening?

Bob Fu: Reveal the secret?

Bill Saunders: You don’t have to tell the secret, but tell what you can tell.

Chen Guangcheng: In fact, after more than ten weeks, the Communist Party released me and took me back home and put me under house arrest. So from the beginning, some media talk about this case, after several weekends, it looked silent outside. I discussed it with my wife. I said, we should let the whole world know what’s happening to our family. She said, “More than 60 people surrounded our house. And how do we tell them they set up the jammer? The police took away all our devices, so how can we do that?” And so I said,  “We should find a way. Nothing is impossible. Just keep positive.” 

So later, when I escaped to Beijing, Hu Jia helped me to buy a video camera. But, you know, I don’t know how to use it. I don’t even know how to charge it. I said, “No problem, Show me. I can learn how to do that.” So we made it work. I said, “Okay, take a video.” Then we can find a way to let our friends know what’s happening. They will find a way to work with us to get us free. Weijing tried to use that, and we found a place where the guards couldn’t see us. So we recorded  the video. We almost finished our video, we took more than, I think, more than 40 minutes. Then the guard climbed our wall. We said, “Oh, look at that guard.” He looked for us from outside of the yard. So she took the video and put them in the video. 

Bill Saunders: Wait a minute. He took the video from you, or you took a picture of him?

Chen Guangcheng: Weijing took a video of him. Later, if the guard came in, we would put the video camera in the leaves. It was winter, so we had prepared a lot of leaves in our yard to burn, to get warm. And we just put the camera inside so the guards couldn’t find it. I remember the next day, Weijing took another part of that video, and made that video around 70 minutes. Later, we found a way to ask my family members and my friends to make different copies and send them to Shanghai, Beijing, and different places. I told them, you have the right to make my voice heard. Let the whole world know. 

Bob Fu: He waived the copyright. 

Chen Guangcheng: Yeah. Don’t worry about our situation. Just expose it more and more. So later, we found a way. My brother and another friend tried different ways. Someone arrived, my friend Bob Fu’s organization. 

Bob Fu: Miraculous. I mean, the little story he actually did not mention, the camera had no battery, right? How do you charge the battery? Yesterday, he told me for the first time. I didn’t get time to ask him about it earlier. He said he just asked for a flashlight and he used that and made his own battery charger. I think Elon Musk should hire him.

Bill Saunders: I do, too.

Bob Fu: As the chief technology officer.

Bill Saunders: I do, too. So, Bob, so you’re kind of in touch with him in the sense of you knew what was going on in house arrest, what was happening to him. What did you do then? I mean, did you just try to publicize what was going on to more people, or what did you do after you had seen that video?

Bob Fu: Well, you know, part of China Aid, one of the two missions: expose the abuse, the persecution and encourage the abused. We expose with the highest level advocacy and diplomatic intervention. Guangcheng was reportedly known, but  in order to push the U.S. elected officials and politicians to act, they need voters, they need the voice of the American people. We knew that. We wanted to push Guangcheng’s voice as much as possible to the American people and the world, right? And also, of course, we kept asking the U.S. Congress and the administration to really engage with China. I mean, the more voices, the more often Guangcheng and Weijing and the family’s names are mentioned in their bilateral, dialogue or relations, the safer it means for Guangcheng. We know that, right? I mean, the more silent or more under the table dialogue there is, the less safe for them. So that’s how we operate. 

We went to Congress, asked them to pass a resolution specifically for Guangcheng’s situation. That was the day in the House foreign affairs committee and they basically wrote a resolution and passed it unanimously through the committee just for Guangcheng. I mean, I think it was astonishing, and thanks to the bipartisan support and especially, our hero, the Catholic devotee, Congressman Chris Smith. And of course the European parliament, and then you push the White House National Security Council to act. it’s just a kind of a joint, multifaceted campaign effort. 

Bill Saunders: So Bob this was before he escaped his house?

Bob Fu: That’s right. 

Bill Saunders: So people that are listening that haven’t read the book, his book, you should read his book because it tells you how he escaped, which is a miracle, and if you don’t believe in miracles, you will when you read how he escaped, surrounded by guards and thugs, into the night by himself as  a blind man, it’s impossible but he did it. And he got to Beijing and he got to the U.S. Embassy. Then things got kind of complicated because, although the U.S. welcomed him at first, the Chinese communists tried to get the U.S. Government to return him by promising they would treat him well. And I’m smiling when I say that for people listening because you can’t trust liars. But they were trying to get the U.S. Government to trust them. So tell us, pick up the story from the time he kind of got to the embassy.

Bob Fu: Yeah, as you mentioned, after the miraculous, daring escape of Guangcheng. Nobody believed that, right? But God helps. I heard about it and immediately I contacted my friend in the U.S., who actually was working in the U.S. consulate in Shanghai from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. He used to be there and later on became Senator Rubio. And I said, “Guangcheng is on his way, Guangcheng needs a safe place.” And I remember it was very early in the morning in Shanghai. He said, “Oh, wait for me, wait for me. I can’t say that in my bedroom.” I mean, this diplomat’s bedroom might be bugged and monitored. He rushed to his patio, outside his apartment, basically turned on a special kind of communication method. I shared it with him, he said he will immediately report, and  get things started. 

Of course, Guangcheng has some other friends also in Beijing, and they started the diplomatic push. I think that time was like a real movie. We had maybe the most intensive U.S.-China calculation relations, diplomatic, national interest, national security versus this blind, human rights lawyer that makes headlines for the whole world. And we were honestly, really holding our breath whether the U.S. Government will do what is promised to do to protect.

You’ve been listening to part one of a Barefoot Lawyer Reports episode on how Bob Fu, the founder and president of China Aid, helped Chen Guangcheng escape from communist China to the United States. Check back next week for episode two.