China Visit a Declaration of Misguided Priorities

The President is making a humble visit to the Bank of China this week. China holds 800 billion dollars of US Debt. Given that economic leverage it’s hard for the President to scold the Chinese Government for an unending string of human rights violations, but he picked a moment to scratch it off his to-do list, albeit with the full knowledge and blessing of the Chinese Government.

He held a “town style” meeting in Shanghai to a very small crowd of students. The forum was not covered by the Chinese press or media- no one in China knew that he held the forum, nor did they hear him say, quite gracefully if not pathetically, that great countries are sensitive to the human rights of people- note the third person tone- and great countries thrive when their people have freedom of expression- again in the third person.

It’s almost as if he was having a beer with the leaders of China, and he said something offhanded like, “I’m obligated to say something about human rights, you know the freedom thing, can you help me out here?” And the leaders said, “Sure, no problem.” “Can I do it to an audience of young students?” “Sure, no problem” So off he goes to an oversized closet with a couple dozen well chosen “students” to hold an old fashioned town hall type forum. The western press is all over this like some crusade of freedom and the Chinese Government completely censored the event from the billion or so people that really needed to hear it.

It’s unfortunate; no it’s criminal, that we always place a higher priority on money than principles. What a great country we would really be if the President scolded China in a large public forum before millions of Chinese people, and said, “Keep your money, we don’t need it as much as you need your freedom”, and acted as a real catalyst toward progress in the human rights struggle in China. That would be something to earn the Nobel Peace Prize, not ensuring that the Bank of China will always be open for business on the backs of a billion people who don’t have a clue what’s happening to them.

Here's an article on the subject: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/18/world/asia/18china.html?partner=rss&emc=rss