Chen Guangcheng, the blind Chinese activist, has said he wants to leave for the US rather than stay in China, throwing into doubt a deal used to coax him out of the US embassy in Beijing and defuse an impasse that has strained China-US ties.

Chen, a self-taught legal activist, is under Chinese control in a Beijing hospital, having left the embassy on Wednesday.

Al Jazeera's Rob McBride reports from Hong Kong.