Given the task definition and input, reply with output. In this task, you are given a text of many news articles seperated by special token "|||||". Your task is to summarize them.

A handout photo from the U.S. Embassy Beijing Press office shows blind activist Chen Guangcheng (C) speaking into a phone in Beijing, May 2, 2012. Picture taken May 2, 2012. 
  
 BEIJING (Reuters) - Blind dissident Chen Guangcheng has demanded the central Chinese government punish officials he blames for false imprisonment and years of persecution, saying on Tuesday that relatives remain under threat despite the international uproar over him. 
  
 Chen, who wants to travel to the United States after saying he does not feel secure in China, said he remains committed to continuing the "rights defence" cause that brought him years of jail and house arrest and now international fame as a symbol of resistance to China's shackles on dissent. 
  
 "I think that at least (continuing) rights defence would be very natural," Chen said of his future in a telephone interview with Reuters from his hospital room in Beijing. 
  
 "Like when someone hits you, don't you flinch? I think that defending our rights is also a basic natural response," he added. 
  
 Chen's extensive comments on his plans and his demands swung between combativeness and frustration, underscoring the uncertainties that shadow him and his family, despite the United States turning his case into a top-level issue with China. 
  
 Chen plans to study in the United States under a deal struck between Beijing and Washington. President Barack Obama's administration had feared a standoff over Chen's fate could sour ties with China and kindle criticism of Obama's policies. 
  
 But even once abroad, Chen said he will keep demanding that Beijing investigate officials in eastern Shandong province whom he accused of engineering his jailing on false charges and 19 months of extra-judicial house arrest and abuse. 
  
 "I think that no matter what I will continue demanding that the central government carries out a thorough investigation of Shandong," said Chen, recounting demands that he said he had made to a central official who visited him in hospital. 
  
 "I raised very specific demands about a series of steps - that Shandong has to be thoroughly investigated, that no matter who the official, no matter how high the official, no matter how many people are implicated, they must all be dealt with strictly according to the law," said Chen. 
  
 Chen said the central government official, whom he did not name, had promised to take up his accusations. 
  
 "He said that as long as the facts are there, it will be dealt with according to the national law and will be investigated and dealt with openly," Chen said of the official he spoke to on Monday. "That's the promise, but for now it's just a promise. There hasn't been any concrete action yet." 
  
 HOPES AND FRUSTRATIONS 
  
 Chen, 40, took shelter in the U.S. embassy in Beijing for six days after escaping from his home village in Shandong. He is now receiving medical treatment for an intestinal problem, a broken foot and other ailments accumulated during 19 months under house arrest and his audacious escape. 
  
 After leaving the embassy on Wednesday under a deal that foresaw him staying in China, Chen changed his mind and said he wanted to spend time in the United States to recuperate from the years of imprisonment and harassment that made him one of his country's most recognized representatives of the "rights defence" movement campaigning for expanded civic freedoms. 
  
 China's Foreign Ministry has said Chen can apply to study abroad. But it remains unclear how soon Beijing could let him travel to the United States, where New York University has offered him a fellowship. 
  
 Chen said family members in Shandong remained under official pressure or custody, and he had been stopped from meeting friends and U.S. diplomats despite official promises to protect him and his family and to respect his freedoms. 
  
 Chen quoted the Chinese government official who had visited him as saying now was "too sensitive" for him to meet friends. 
  
 "I don't know the reason, but anyway the embassy official told me that he wasn't allowed in," Chen said, recalling what he said was a conversation with a U.S. diplomat on Monday. 
  
 On Monday, a spokesman for the State Department, Mark Toner, said American diplomats had been in regular phone contact with Chen over the past couple of days. 
  
 "I know we have not seen him in person," Toner told a briefing in Washington D.C. "I don't know if we've made any attempt to see him in person." 
  
 Chen said he believed a nephew in Shandong, Chen Kegui, was in police detention facing reprisals in the wake of Chen's escape. Chen said his older brother, Chen Guangfu, was out of detention but had "received heavy threats". 
  
 Chen, a self-taught legal activist, came to national fame for campaigning for farmers and disabled citizens, and exposing a campaign of forced abortions in Linyi, Shandong, where officials were under pressure to meet family planning goals. 
  
 In 2006, Chen was sentenced to more than four years in jail on charges - vehemently denied by his wife and lawyers - that he whipped up a crowd that disrupted traffic and damaged property. 
  
 He was formally released in 2010 but remained under stifling house arrest. Officials had turned his home into a fortress of walls, security cameras and guards in plain clothes. 
  
 The village of Dongshigu, Linyi, where Chen's mother and other relatives remain, was under lockdown on Friday. Reuters journalists who tried to visit were turned away by guards. 
  
 Chen said the officials he had asked the central government to investigate included Liu Jie, head of the public security bureau in Linyi, and Li Qun, the former Communist Party boss of Linyi who now runs the port city of Qingdao, also in Shandong. 
  
 "My lawyer has a lot of evidence from back then, so I hope he'll be able to take part in the central government's investigation," Chen said of his accusations of unjust jailing and abuse by Shandong officials. 
  
 "You can't let them escape from legal punishment because it was led by a party secretary and done by officials," he said. 
  
 (Reporting by Chris Buckley; Editing by Mark Bendeich) ||||| A Chinese activist who triggered a diplomatic dispute between China and the United States said Monday he is confident that Beijing will hold up its end of a tentative deal to let him study overseas. 
  
 People enter and exit the hospital where Chinese legal activist Chen Guangcheng was taken to receive medical care in Beijing, Monday, May 7, 2012. Chen, a symbol in China's civil rights movement, may... (Associated Press) 
  
 A policeman takes a video of petitioners who hold up papers to attractions for their cases outside the hospital where blind activist Chen Guangcheng is staying for treatment in Beijing Monday, May 7,... (Associated Press) 
  
 A police van drives out from the hospital where blind activist Chen Guangcheng is staying for treatment in Beijing Monday, May 7, 2012. The Chinese activist who triggered a diplomatic dispute between... (Associated Press) 
  
 Chinese petitioners hold up papers to attract attentions for their cases outside the hospital where blind activist Chen Guangcheng is staying for treatment in Beijing Monday, May 7, 2012. The Chinese... (Associated Press) 
  
 Chinese petitioners hold up papers to attract attentions for their cases outside the hospital where blind activist Chen Guangcheng is staying for treatment in Beijing Monday, May 7, 2012. The Chinese... (Associated Press) 
  
 Security guards chat at an entrance of the hospital where blind activist Chen Guangcheng is staying for treatment in Beijing Monday, May 7, 2012. The Chinese activist who triggered a diplomatic dispute... (Associated Press) 
  
 A policeman ushers petitioners away from an entrance of the hospital where blind activist Chen Guangcheng is staying for treatment in Beijing Monday, May 7, 2012. The Chinese activist who triggered a... (Associated Press) 
  
 Chen Guangcheng is a blind, self-taught legal activist who made a daring escape from brutal house arrest in his rural town into U.S. diplomatic custody in Beijing more than a week ago, setting off a diplomatic standoff. Under still-evolving arrangements announced Friday by Washington and Beijing, Chen may be able to leave to study in the United States. 
  
 "Since the Chinese government has promised to safeguard my constitutionally provided rights and freedom and safety, I feel that they will fulfill their commitments because it is after all an agreement between two countries," Chen said. 
  
 Chen sounded more relaxed and optimistic than on Friday morning before details of the deal were announced, when he told The Associated Press that he was in a "dangerous situation" because he had not been able to meet with American officials for two days. 
  
 The activist, who is in a Beijing hospital where he was taken to receive medical care and was joined by his wife and two children, said he has asked hospital staff to help him with the paperwork for him and his family to obtain travel documents. 
  
 "I entrusted the hospital with telling the relevant people or department that I have asked them to handle it on my behalf, because I am lying on the bed and I can't move and my friends can't come and see me, so what can I do? I can only ask them," he said. 
  
 Chen suffered three broken bones in his foot when he was escaping from his rural village, a journey that involved scaling walls and making his way through fields and a forest, then being chased by security agents in Beijing. His foot is now in a cast. 
  
 Later Monday, U.S.-funded radio broadcaster Voice of America reported that Chen's nephew Chen Kegui had been detained as part of a criminal investigation into a clash he had with officials in the Chen family's village of Dongshigu in Shandong. 
  
 Several officials reportedly broke into Chen Kegui's home last Thursday after discovering his uncle had fled house arrest. Chen Kegui brandished knives and slashed at them, inflicting injuries, according to an earlier local government statement. 
  
 Chen Guangcheng told the AP that his nephew had acted in self-defense after officials jumped over the wall and broke into his family's courtyard in the middle of the night armed with wooden sticks. 
  
 He said he was told that Liu Weiguo, a Shandong lawyer who volunteered to represent Chen Kegui, had been threatened not to take the case and had his movements restricted by authorities. Liu's cellphone was turned off and he could not be reached Monday. 
  
 Chen said he was also concerned that his nephew might be mistreated by police while in custody. 
  
 "I am extremely worried my nephew will be subjected to severe torture in their hands," Chen said. 
  
 Authorities have prevented American officials as well as Chen's friends and supporters from visiting him in the hospital. Still, U.S. officials have spoken to Chen by phone every day, including Monday. 
  
 U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said in an interview with NBC television's "Meet the Press" broadcast Sunday that he believes Chen's future is in the United States. Biden said U.S. officials "expect the Chinese to stick to that commitment." 
  
 As part of the deal, China's Foreign Ministry said Friday that Chen can apply for travel permits to study abroad. Chen has an invitation to study at New York University. 
  
 Chen, 40, spent most of the last seven years in prison or under house arrest in what was seen as retribution by local authorities for his activism against forced abortions and other official misdeeds. His wife, daughter and mother were confined at home with him, enduring beatings, searches and other mistreatment. 
  
 His escape from house arrest to the fortress-like U.S. Embassy last week put Washington at the center of a sensitive human rights case. It also came just days before Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner arrived in Beijing for high-level talks on trade tensions and global economic and political trouble spots. 
  
 ___ 
  
 Associated Press writer Alexa Olesen contributed to this report. 
  
 ___ 
  
 Follow Gillian Wong on Twitter at http://twitter.com/gillianwong 
  
 (This version CORRECTS Corrects spelling of activist's name in paragraph 10, adds contributor's line) |||||

Chen Guangcheng says that even if he leaves China, he will not abandon his quest for the rule of law to prevail in his home province, Shandong. The central government must investigate and punish the officials who jailed him on false charges and kept him under illegal house arrest for 19 months, where he and his family were abused, he insists. "No matter who the official, no matter how high the official, no matter how many people are implicated, they must all be dealt with strictly according to the law," the blind dissident tells Reuters. Chen says the "public security organs, procuratorial organs, and people's courts are absolutely lawless in Shandong province," and despite the attention his case is now receiving, he fears for the safety of family members still in his home village. Chen says he has spoken to government officials who have promised to investigate his accusations. The village remains locked down, and journalists who have tried to visit have been turned away. Chen says he believes that Beijing will honor its end of a deal allowing him to leave the country and study in the US, reports AP.