That’s not my question. What would you do in his situation? Would you just shrug your shoulders and say, oh well. At least he tried to do something to bring attention to these issues. I suspect he and his family will pay a heavy price for what he did. We need to applaud and support them in whatever way we can so that others can stand and do the same.
On the advice of an old China hand, who assured me that the worst way to do anything in China is the western way, gives an indirect answer to your question.
There is a “Chinese way” of doing things, which is so ingrained in their culture that to get anything done, much less done well, it has to be done their way and their tempo.
Westerners have a bull-in-the-china-shop attitude about change and getting things done, that is very particular to us. It is also attractive to many others because of its bluntness and simplicity. All the complexity and flow of doing things in other ways is mostly lost on us.
I will confess that I, too, both prefer the western way and do not grasp much of the Chinese way, but can guarantee that as Chen Guangcheng did things, it was almost assured that he would not find success, unless his intent was to appeal to westerners.
I know this sounds odd. There is an anecdote that is instructive, about an American tourist who was run into by an unwary Chinese bicyclist. A traffic cop was there, and wrote a ticket to the bicyclist, but then wrote a second ticket to the American. What for? “Had you not chosen to vacation in China, this accident would not have taken place, so you are also at fault.”
It makes sense in China.