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to the airport or worse, and the Embassy was very concerned. This 
was right before a big showcase Olympics. 
And the ability to embed surveillance equipment and the like in 
the classroom when the Embassy van may have been compromised, 
I don’t know that, but my own and my subcommittee’s computers 
have been compromised at least once and the PRC hacked into 
them. So I am concerned about when someone does go beyond or 
says Tiananmen Square. 
I mean, Chi Haotian, as we all remember, when he came into 
town during President Clinton’s tenure in office, was given a 19-
gun salute. He was the butcher of Beijing, as you know, was the 
operational commander, and then at that point when he was in 
town was the Defense Minister, he said nobody died at Tiananmen 
Square. We put together a hearing 2 days later. We had people 
who were there on the square, including correspondents, and some-
one from the People’s Daily, who said people died and they died in 
large numbers. 
I mean, the ability of this government in Beijing to do unbeliev-
ably nefarious things and to lie in broad daylight, I mean, here he 
was in Washington at the Army War College saying nobody died 
at Tiananmen Square. I thought Mr. Clinton did a terrible thing 
in honoring him. He should have been on his way to The Hague 
for crimes against humanity. But that said. 
So I am concerned, and I completely accept your sincerity and 
the fact that as a very learned man you believe this is the case, 
and I absolutely hope it is true. 
But I do want to ask you a question. The whole episode with 
Chen Guangcheng, and Jerry Cohen was one of my witnesses ear-
lier on, so it is not like I have any animus toward NYU, and I want 
that clear and unmistakable. And we held hearings, like I said, I 
had worked on his case for about 5 years when he first was put 
behind bars. And the way that I was treated, you know, who cares. 
The way Chen was treated was what really concerned me. But 
even as he was flying into Newark International Airport, huge ef-
forts, including Under Secretary Kennedy, who I was on the phone 
with, ensured that I did not meet him at the airport. He was ush-
ered, when he came in, we were at the gate, and I know because 
the man who ran the Port of Authority used to be my intern and 
he couldn’t believe the great lengths and hoops being jumped 
through to ensure that my wife and I were not there at the gate 
to greet him. I thought it was a bit bizarre, frankly. But that said. 
We made our way over to the NYU. I was pushed to the side, 
and I mean literally brought to the side by someone working for 
NYU, and if it wasn’t for Chai Ling yelling, as he got out of the 
van, ‘‘Chris Smith is here,’’ he perked up and walked over to the 
direction of what she said, and I shook his hand, that was the end 
of it, and I was shunted to the side again. 
The meetings that we had with him were always, particularly in 
the early days, and we tried hard to have meetings, they were hos-
tile. And I was bewildered by it, and I mean bewildered. Then I 
heard from Mr. Chen how he repeatedly was admonished, maybe 
threatened, but admonished may be a kinder word, about coming 
to Washington, testifying before our subcommittee. He never got 
the answer from the administration or from anyone else about the 
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94
agreement, which it turns out probably was just oral, it was never 
written, with the Chinese Government about looking into his case. 
So more subterfuge there. 
And then when he came down, as I said in my opening before, 
to an event that we suggested with former Speaker Pelosi and 
Speaker Boehner, which I think was a great success, that was 
frowned upon. And then he was told the day after he testified here, 
and it took almost a year to get him here because of these obsta-
cles, that he was gone. 
Whether it be Lech Walesa or Nelson Mandela or any other 
world-class human rights leader, not to treat Chen with that kind 
of—the respect, I mean, if it was my university, you are here for 
as long as you want to be. And he was even told: See what your 
right-wing friends like Smith can do. And thankfully I was able to 
with phone calls within an hour of his ouster, or information about 
his ouster, to set up for him to become part of a three-part sponsor-
ship, including Catholic University of America, the Lantos Founda-
tion, and the Rutherford Institute. 
So it has been a very strange episode. I don’t have the answers 
for it. I read his book. He had concerns about how he was treated, 
especially by the U.S. Government. 
So a very specific question, and it is done in the hopes of just 
clearing the air. Did the PRC officials in any way pressure, advise, 
or convey any message to NYU personnel concerning Chen 
Guangcheng’s case? And if so, how were those messages conveyed? 
And was Chen’s situation perceived by NYU as a threat to NYU’s 
Chinese programs, including at Shanghai campus? 
I know that he was admonished many times not to go into cer-
tain directions. I mean, he was incarcerated and tortured, as was 
his wife, because he brought up the one-child-per-couple policy and 
in Linyi tried to defend women who were being horribly abused. 
And to suggest he ought to talk about corruption and rule of law 
generically and esoterically without getting into details was, again, 
mind-boggling. You wouldn’t say to Nelson Mandela: By the way, 
don’t bring up apartheid. You just wouldn’t do it. That is why he 
was singled out for punishment. 
So if you could answer that question, I would appreciate it. 
Mr. L
EHMAN
. So the simple answer to the question is no. The 
Chinese Government did not attempt to influence NYU’s dealings 
with Mr. Chen. I should say I was in China at the time. I was not 
in New York. No one spoke to me ever. 
Mr. S
MITH
. But that is just you. I am talking about NYU per-
sonnel. 
Mr. L
EHMAN
. NYU personnel in general, I mean, I will say it 
should be remembered that when Mr. Chen sought refuge in the 
Embassy in Beijing and Harold Koh was there and was working to 
trying find a solution so that he could leave China, to my knowl-
edge NYU was the only university that offered a fellowship to Mr. 
Chen to enable him to leave. Other universities were approached 
and they refused. 
And this was at the time that NYU Shanghai was being nego-
tiated. This was before there was any agreement to create NYU 
Shanghai. And so NYU was not worried about the possibility that 
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95
they might lose NYU Shanghai. This was not a motivating factor 
at all. 
Mr. S
MITH
. With total respect, at that point I agree completely. 
It was as he came here and as his time in the United States began 
to unfold that the pressure seems to have been applied. 
Mr. L
EHMAN
. I don’t believe there was any pressure applied. I 
have spoken with people who worked with—I have never meet Mr. 
Chen, but I have spoken with people who worked with him. I have 
spoken with people who worked closely with him while he was 
here. None of them ever felt any pressure whatsoever. And I be-
lieve, Chairman Smith, if NYU Shanghai was being used as a 
lever, I would have been told. 
Mr. S
MITH
. Would anybody else like to say anything before we 
conclude? 
Yes. 
Ms. C
AO
. I just want to quickly make it, because this matters a 
lot, the Internet freedom on these campuses. My research on the 
Chinese sources, my impression is that the situation varies from 
campus to campus. On the campus like NYU Shanghai where you 
have half of the students are American students, it may very well 
be the case that they have free access to Internet. 
But I just read an article on Hong Kong’s Ming Bao that reported 
that on the Shenzhen campus of the Chinese University of Hong 
Kong, the Hong Kong university invested the capability of using 
their own VPN, which is completely free, like on their Hong Kong 
campus, but the university, the students, in the end were not al-
lowed to use the Hong Kong university’s VPN. Instead they have 
a domestic VPN that has the Great Firewall of China. 
So my guess is that from these joint programs their Internet 
freedom probably varies. If the student body is entirely Chinese the 
likelihood is that they won’t have complete Internet freedom. 
Mr. S
MITH
. Thank you. Again, I want to thank you for your lead-
ership, your generosity. This has been a long hearing. 
And without objection, I would ask that Dr. Dawood Farahi, the 
president of Kean University’s testimony be included in the record. 
We did invite Dr. Farahi to be here. We will invite him again for 
a future hearing. But without objection, his statement will be in-
cluded in the record. 
This hearing is adjourned, and thank you very much. 
[Whereupon, at 4:50 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 
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M
ATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY THE
H
ONORABLE
D
ANA
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OHRABACHER
, 
A
 
R
EPRESENTATIVE IN
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ONGRESS FROM THE
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ALIFORNIA
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M
ATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY THE
H
ONORABLE
C
HRISTOPHER
H. S
MITH
, 
A
R
EPRESENTATIVE IN
C
ONGRESS FROM THE
S
TATE OF
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EW
J
ERSEY
, 
AND CHAIRMAN
, 
S
UBCOMMITTEE ON
A
FRICA
, G
LOBAL
H
EALTH
, G
LOBAL
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UMAN
R
IGHTS
, 
AND
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NTER
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NATIONAL
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