Chinese activist heads to US

It also is unclear whether the government will allow him to return.

Blind Chinese legal activist Chen Guangcheng was hurriedly taken from a hospital and put on a plane for the United States on Saturday,closing a nearly monthlong diplomatic tussle that had tested US-China relations.

Chen,sitting in a wheelchair and accompanied by his wife and two children,boarded United Airlines Flight 88 for the 12-hour flight to Newark,outside New York City,a few hours after Chinese authorities suddenly told him to pack and prepare to leave.

Thousands of thoughts are surging to my mind, Chen said at the airport. His concerns,he said,included whether authorities would retaliate for his negotiated departure by punishing his relatives left behind. It also is unclear whether the government will allow him to return.

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A self-taught legal activist,Chen asked his supporters and others in the activist community for their understanding of his desire to leave the front lines of the rights struggle in China.

I am requesting a leave of absence,and I hope that they will understand, he said.

The Chens departure to the United States marks the conclusion of nearly a month of uncertainty and years of mistreatment by local authorities for the activist.

Moments after his departure from Beijing,State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland confirmed that Chen was en route to the US and praised the quiet negotiations that freed him. Chinas Foreign Ministry said it had no comment.