Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng appealed to US President Barack Obama to help get him and his family out of China, saying he fears for his life just hours after leaving the US embassy in Beijing.

"I would like to say to President Obama -- please do everything you can to get our family out," Chen told CNN, according to a translation of his quote.

He also accused US embassy officials of pushing him hard to leave the safety of the US mission on Wednesday where he had sought refuge for six days after fleeing his home in the eastern province of Shandong.

"The embassy kept lobbying me to leave and promised to have people stay with me in the hospital, but this afternoon as soon as I checked into the hospital room, I noticed they were all gone," Chen told CNN by phone.

CNN correspondent Stan Grant said he interviewed Chen, who is in a Beijing hospital, at around 3:00 am Thursday (1900 GMT Wednesday) with his wife sitting by his bedside. The US network aired two short audio clips of the interview.

The 40-year-old won worldwide acclaim for exposing forced sterilizations and late-term abortions under China's "one child" policy, and for using his legal knowledge to help people battle other injustices including illegal land grabs.

He and his family were put under round-the-clock house arrest after he completed a four-year jail sentence in September 2010.

But the blind activist escaped from his home on April 22, and made his way via a series of safe houses to the US embassy in Beijing just days before US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in the Chinese capital for important pre-arranged talks with Chinese officials.

The diplomatic incident is threatening to overshadow Clinton's visit, and CNN said Chen was now feeling betrayed by US officials.

"Chen Guangcheng says he is very much in fear for his life. He says his family is being threatened and he is now making a plea to President Obama to help him," CNN's Grant said.

Chen's wife, Yuan Weijing, also told CNN that she did not want to raise her children in China, but that guards were refusing to let her leave the hospital.

US officials insisted to CNN they had followed protocol, and had asked Chen three times if he was "willingly able to leave" the embassy, CNN's Grant said.

"He says when he left the embassy, he did not know how bad the situation was outside. He did not know about the threats. He did not know what was being done to his wife."

Earlier, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in a statement that Chinese officials had made no physical or legal threats about Chen to US officials during the negotiations to resolve the situation.

"At no point during his time in the embassy did Chen ever request political asylum in the US," she said in a statement.

"At every opportunity, he expressed his desire to stay in China, reunify with his family, continue his education and work for reform in his country."

Chen told CNN Chinese officials had said that "if you stay at the embassy, we're waiting for your wife and family here with weapons in your house," Grant said.

"He also said that the guards have said that they installed cameras inside the house where they can watch their every move and that (he) will be taken back there and never be able to leave again."

Chen left embassy after pledge of Obama support
Washington (AFP) May 2, 2012 - Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng agreed to leave the US embassy in Beijing after receiving assurances President Barack Obama would publicly back the deal, a US friend involved in the negotiations said Wednesday.

"We made a condition of acceptance that President Obama himself show his interest and state the US support for the arrangement and I'm sure Obama, in the light of the campaign, will soon have an opportunity to take that position," leading China expert Jerome Cohen told reporters.

Beijing pledged the legal campaigner and his family would be treated "humanely" and moved to a safe place, US officials said, hours after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in China for pre-arranged talks.

"We agreed if the president of the United States would show sufficient concern of this case and himself make the kind of statement that Hillary made today, that he (Chen) would accept the deal," added Cohen, who is an expert with the Council on Foreign Relations.

Chen, who riled Chinese authorities by exposing forced abortions and sterilizations under the "one-child" policy, fled house arrest on April 22 and sought refuge in the US embassy, where he demanded assurances over his freedom.

Chen agreed to leave the embassy Wednesday after winning a promise to be allowed to undertake law studies freely with his wife at a Chinese university, Cohen said in a telephone conference with journalists.

He added he had spoken twice with Chen during the six days that he was holed up in the embassy building.

Cohen said he hoped Obama "will make an important statement to show at the very highest level of the American government we want to see this new experiment, this daring experiment with China, succeed."

However, there were conflicting accounts of the circumstances under which Chen left the embassy with one rights group saying threats had been made to his family.

"Chen's decision for departure from the US embassy was done reluctantly because 'serious threat to his immediate family members were made by Chinese government' if Chen refuses to accept the Chinese government's offer," a US-based rights group China Aid said in a statement, quoting reliable sources.

"We are deeply concerned about this sad development if the reports about Chen's involuntary departure (from US embassy) is true," added the group, run by exiled Chinese activist Bob Fu, who has been in close touch with Chen and his supporters.

Clinton said earlier Wednesday the United States remained "committed" to the 40-year-old legal campaigner, whose treatment she has repeatedly criticized in the past.

"The United States government and the American people are committed to remaining engaged with Mr. Chen and his family in the days, weeks and years ahead," she said.

Cohen from the Council on Foreign Relations said it was understood that Obama would make a similar statement.

"This one of the most daring, creative gambles we've seen in US-China relations," he said.

"We don't know how it's going to work out. We think it's better than any of the other options, and so does Chen," Cohen said, adding he was confident Beijing would respect the commitments it made.

"I would be surprised if the Chinese government goes back on them in principle," he said.

Cohen said he and Chen reviewed the other options before him: exile in the United States, or to remain indefinitely at the US embassy, as astrophysicist Fang Lizhi did in 1989 after authorities crushed the Tiananmen Square democracy movement, before finally going into exile.

He said they agreed exile was not a solution, because exiled dissidents were not as effective in engaging the internal debate in China.

Cohen, who said he was "good friends" with the militant, said he would travel soon to China and hoped to meet with Chen. "That will be a test" of the authorities' commitment to respecting the dissident's freedom, he said.