As Dan Harris tersely pointed out: Where would you rather be in terms of freedom, Saudi Arabia/Egypt (where Obama just held speeches without directly addressing their human rights record) or China? And without thinking twice, I will say China as well!
Nancy Pelosi isn’t doing anyone a favor by making ignorant statements such as “If we do not speak out for human rights in China and Tibet, we lose moral authority to speak out for them anywhere” (oh please, why don’t you start talking more about human rights in India, Pakistan or the US itself?) or by continuing the mindless mantra that all the participants in the Tianan Men protests were completely pacifistic, democracy seeking heroes.
We know that a lot of protesters were in fact not students and that some of them set trucks and buses on fire, threw rocks and attacked and by some accounts also killed soldiers. Today, some thirty people remain in prison on charges directly related to the TiananMen Incident. What did those thirty people do? We don’t know. Nancy Pelosi thinks she knows. According to her they are in prison simply for “speaking out about anything other than the party line.”
I abhor the 6/4 massacre and the suffering it has brought to the people affected. But how about some historical perspective here? If the US were so vigilant in pointing out all other (or just half or one in ten) injustices going on in the world, then the continual denunciation of 6/4 would seem righteous. But taken in the context of US policy elsewhere, it is just hypocrisy.
What do you think?
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
I think most chinese i know would be really happy to read your article.
there’s certainly some kind of an overfocus on china’s bad everything in our medias, and it’s triggering a pretty negative reaction in chinese people, because it’s felt like agressivity and a denial of their value. they take it very personally.
it’s actually turning them against the west, as they feel we don’t recognise any of their achievements and we’re plotting against them.
why we “don’t like china” is actually quite misunderstood, in my opinion…
the personal freedom concept that we grow up and live with that makes us reject their system isn’t known much to them.
it’s like a “fear of big brother” syndrom, that makes us reject many things that they live with everyday. we’re thinking “how can they accept that!?”… (and sometimes they’d answer “what do you mean?”)
the thing is, we grew up in a different place with a different education in which we were taught that some things were absolutely necessary to a normal life and we look at china with this in mind. but they don’t have all those expectations…
it takes some time to understand. but i think i’ve learned a lot by staying here and making friends with many students. looks like there really isn’t an absolute answer to everything after all…