NASCENT DEAL WOULD LET DISSIDENT FROM CHINA STUDY IN U.S.

[At a news conference here, however, Mrs. Clinton spoke cautiously about a definitive outcome. “We are encouraged by the progress we have seen today,” she said. “But there is more work to be done.” Moments after Mrs. Clinton finished speaking, the State Department spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland, released a statement saying that China was expected to issue travel documents to Mr. Chen “expeditiously” and that the United States would speed visa requests by his wife and two children. Mr. Chen, a self-taught lawyer who is blind, has been offered a fellowship at New York University, according to Jerome A. Cohen, a New York lawyer and expert on Chinese law who has advised Mr. Chen since his escape from house arrest nearly two weeks ago.]

By Jane Perlez And Michael Wines

BEIJING — China and the United States reached a deal Friday that calls for the dissident Chen Guangcheng to travel to the United States with his family, in what appeared to be a resolution to an eight-day diplomatic crisis that had threatened to strain the relationship between the two countries and left the Obama administration open to attacks from human rights activists and political opponents at home.

The accord, rushed on the last full day of the visit to China by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, enabled her to salvage a trip tarnished by Mr. Chen’s rejection of an arrangement forged earlier in the week by United States diplomats that called for him to remain in China.

At a news conference here, however, Mrs. Clinton spoke cautiously about a definitive outcome. “We are encouraged by the progress we have seen today,” she said. “But there is more work to be done.” Moments after Mrs. Clinton finished speaking, the State Department spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland, released a statement saying that China was expected to issue travel documents to Mr. Chen “expeditiously” and that the United States would speed visa requests by his wife and two children. Mr. Chen, a self-taught lawyer who is blind, has been offered a fellowship at New York University, according to Jerome A. Cohen, a New York lawyer and expert on Chinese law who has advised Mr. Chen since his escape from house arrest nearly two weeks ago.

The statement was the coda to what was, by all appearances, a carefully choreographed series of declarations by Mr. Chen, the Chinese government and American officials that committed all three parties to a mutually agreeable settlement of Mr. Chen’s future.

But the arrangement was unlikely to silence a fusillade of accusations that the Obama administration had bungled Mr. Chen’s case by essentially handing him over to the Chinese authorities earlier this week, without ironclad assurances that he would be safe. And it only underscored the degree to which Chinese violations of human rights remain a lightning rod in the two nations’ ever more intertwined relationship, despite Washington’s best efforts to the contrary.

It was not clear when Mr. Chen and his family would be able to leave China, senior American officials said, but he would not be allowed to join Mrs. Clinton, as he had requested, on her departure for Bangladesh and India on Saturday. Still, the Americans appeared confident that the Chinese would abide by the accord, largely because Beijing was eager to see Mr. Chen go.

Indeed, as part of their negotiating tactics with the Chinese government, State Department officials seemed to have used the argument that Mr. Chen’s departure would ease a major headache for Beijing both abroad and at home. Unlike the former Soviet Union, China has encouraged outspoken dissidents to go into exile, knowing that they would lose their influence inside China once they left.

Whether Mr. Chen would be able to return to China was not addressed by American officials Friday. It is almost unheard of for Chinese dissidents who leave China to return.

The negotiations with the Chinese government to allow Mr. Chen to leave China were conducted privately as Mrs. Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner attended the annual Strategic and Economic Dialogue on Thursday and Friday.

The formal meetings were overshadowed by the crisis over the dissident, but American officials said the forums were useful for pushing forward a host of hot-button issues.

Mr. Geithner praised China at the closing session on Friday for “significant and promising” currency reforms that, over time, would lead to further appreciation of the renminbi against the dollar and other major currencies.

China announced that it would let foreigners own bigger stakes in its securities firms and promised to limit export subsidies. The cap on foreign ownership of joint ventures involving investment firms would be raised to 49 percent. The two governments said they would begin talks on limits to export credits.

In the foreign policy realm, Mrs. Clinton urged China to join Washington in considering additional sanctions against Syria. She praised China for supporting a United Nations Security Council resolution backing an African Union peace plan for Sudan and South Sudan. Overall, Mrs. Clinton said that the relationship between the United States and China “will determine the course of history in the 21st century,” and therefore it was up to the leaders to get it right.

But behind the lofty talk, the Chen case had intensified to a point on Friday morning where it was clear that Mrs. Clinton and her aides had only a day to find a solution, unless she was prepared to leave China with a very disturbing human rights case hanging over her and the Obama administration.

The situation was volatile because Mr. Chen was criticizing the United States government from his hospital bed. Under the original deal worked out by some of Mrs. Clinton’s top officials, including Gary Locke, the United States ambassador to China, and Kurt Campbell, the assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific affairs, Mr. Chen was to move from his provincial home to a big city, probably Tianjin, to study law. The Americans believed they had secured pledges that Mr. Chen and his family would not be mistreated, and they were proud of what they called “a new model” for a Chinese dissident to stay in China.

But after his release from the United States Embassy into a hospital for treatment of an injured foot, Mr. Chen said he feared for his life. His wife, who met him at the hospital, had been threatened after his escape, he said. Moreover, he felt abandoned at the hospital, where security officers prevented American diplomats from coming to see him.

A friend, Jiang Tianyong, said in an interview on Friday that plainclothes police officers had abducted him and beat him when he tried to visit Mr. Chen.

As Mrs. Clinton moved from one session to another at the high-level gathering, she and her top aides messaged each other about how to persuade the Chinese to fulfill Mr. Chen’s new wish to go the United States, senior officials said.

Mrs. Clinton met the two top Chinese leaders, President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, at the Great Hall of the People in the late morning on Friday. They did not discuss the Chen case, officials said.

A few hours later, the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced that Mr. Chen, as a Chinese citizen, could apply for a passport in the same manner as the 340,000 students who studied abroad last year. It was the first public sign that a deal was in motion.

The Clinton entourage, aware that they needed to maximize Mrs. Clinton’s presence in Beijing, still seemed unsure, however, whether everything would come together in time for her scheduled news conference in the early evening.

Criticized for not getting a written agreement in their earlier arrangement, State Department officials made sure their statement detailed the basic terms for how the departure of Mr. Chen would work. The release said the Chinese government would “make accommodations for his medical condition,” a reference to the fact that Mr. Chen is blind and would not have to travel to his hometown for his passport application. In most cases, Chinese citizens must apply for a passport in their home jurisdiction. Mr. Chen had been badly mistreated by local officials.

The statement said that once Mr. Chen had his passport, the United States would expedite visa requests from him and his family. The statement ended, “This matter has been handled in the spirit of a cooperative U.S.-China partnership.”

United States officials said an American doctor visited Mr. Chen in the hospital on Friday, and reported that his foot, injured as he escaped his house arrest two weeks ago, had three broken bones. The hospital staff gave Mr. Chen’s two children clothes and haircuts, the Americans said. His son received a birthday cake.

Sharon LaFraniere contributed reporting. Research was contributed by Edy Yin, Mia Li, Li Bibo and Bree Feng.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: May 4, 2012

An earlier version of this article misspelled Hillary Rodham Clinton’s middle name as Rodman and Jiang Tianyong’s family name as Jian.

@ The New York Times