Hillary Clinton arrives in Beijing

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has arrived in Beijing for annual high-level strategic and economic talks.

The issue of blind dissident lawyer Chen Guangcheng's future threatens to overshadow the talks, which begin on Thursday.

Publicly, the US and Chinese governments have said nothing about the Chen case. Neither side wants the biggest human-rights issue between the two since Tiananmen Square to damage a working relationship between the world's top importer and exporter, and between the world's biggest military and the fastest developing.

Chen, a 40-year-old lawyer who exposed forced abortions and sterilisations as part of China's one-child policy, was delivered into the protection of US diplomats in Beijing late last week, according to fellow activists.

They say American and Chinese officials are intensely discussing his fate, which could mean getting political asylum in the United States or staying in China, which Chen has told some activists he prefers.

Questioned on Chen's future, President Barack Obama on Monday dodged the issue at a Washington news conference, declining to confirm that he was under US protection in China or that American diplomats were attempting to negotiate an agreement for him to receive asylum.

The president's options are limited. Pressing the issue too hard may prompt a backlash from China, which the US relies on for foreign capital and support in trying to lead the global economic recovery, deal with North Korea and Iran's nuclear programs and prevent a potential war between Sudan and South Sudan.

But doing nothing to help would open Obama to attacks from his presumed Republican opponent, Mitt Romney.

Several Republicans already have demanded that Obama not back down to Beijing. Handing over Chen without adequate safeguards would also draw intense criticism from the human rights community in the United States, one of Obama's core constituencies.

Bob Fu of the Texas-based group ChinaAid, who has been in touch! with pe ople close to Chen, said on Tuesday he had no direct word from the lawyer's wife and two children, but understood they were still at their home in Shandong province.

Chen's older brother, Chen Guangfu, is missing, he said. Rights activists say the brother was detained last week.

Activists say Chen prefers to stay in China if his safety and that of his family can be guaranteed. That would require national leaders to step in and protect Chen from local officials, who have kept him and his wife confined at home since his September 2010 release from four years in prison on charges that supporters say were fabricated.