As we arrived in China last week covering Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s visit there, this column of mine was published in our newspaper chain. It concluded:
The Chinese are sensitive about [human rights issues]. They do not like to be called out on their lousy human rights record. The Chinese need not worry. The Canadians this week are here for pipelines and pandas.
After reading that column, someone named Will Wei on my Facebook page accuses me of “hate speech”, calls imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo a “terrorist”; and labels the Dalai Lama a “slave lord”. I’m not sure if this is a spoof or if there really is a Will Wei out there at UBC. In any event, this sure is amusing:
David you know nothing about my country. So please stop your hate speech on China and stop accusing my government as cracking on our own people. My friends are practicing Christians and Muslims in China and they don’t have any issues with freedom of speech.
It’s you who knows nothing but keeps bringing your ugly Western values to us. I had enough of you Euro-centric world views that must make us accept your values.
Also as a duo-Chinese Canadian citizen who have lived in both countries for more than 10 years, I can tell you don’t know anything to judge my government that imprisoned a terrorist called Liu, what experience do you have as a Western educated white man to charge my government? You are embarrassing yourself with the ignorance. Also Dalai Lama was a slave lord who literally owned thousands of slaves until our so called “Communist” government took over. Under the new leaderships, I don’t have to listen to your stupid ideas on inefficient government health-care and the so called corrupted democracy.
Will is quite right about one thing: I don’t know one scintilla as much about China as he does but I do know this: While in China, no Web site was allowed to even display the name “Liu Xiaobo”. Why on earth would a government of more than a billion people be so afraid of a few essays from a 60-year-old literature professor?
I`ve seen other commenters elsewhere make similar remarks. And Liu was imprisoned for his latest poem, I believe. At least there is some place on the planet where they take Poets seriously… *shiver*
I’ve offered a reply to this blog comment on my own blog.
http://c11.ca/5415
No visit of the Canadian Prime Minister to China would be complete without western media commenting on China’s censorship policy. Western governments also engage in censorship, and are willing to go to extreme lengths to enforce that censorship. Some of that censorship has been called for by the corporations who own the western mainstream media that has been critiquing China.
Questions have been raised about PM Harper’s trip to China, about whether the question of human rights played a significant enough part in talks with the Chinese.
Former Supreme Court Justice Louise Arbour is far from being a conservative toady. She was interviewed on Radio-Canada’s Les Coulisses du pouvoir by Emmanuelle Latraverse.
The following is a partial transcript (loosely translated) of that interview, available online here (just click on Feb. 12):
http://www.radio-canada.ca/actualite/v2/coulisses_du_pouvoir/guide-horaire.asp?numero=828&PK=828
E.L: Ms. Arbour, thank you for being with us today. To begin with, Mr. Harper just ended a trip to China. Is the era of Western leaders having the political courage to be publicly critical of China on issues of human rights and repression over, for fear of losing the business opportunities that China has to offer?
L.A: Well, China is a very sophisticated international player and I think they expect it, it has now become almost a protocolar dance that questions like these are raised. I think that in diplomatic circles everyone understands fully the kind of speech that must be used and I think that on China’s side it is expected, they expect that certain issues will be raised. They’re probably the same questions of freedom of expression, on tolerating dissent. There are others that might be raised, the death penalty for example. But I think it’s pretty routine now, frankly, it’s not very spectacular, one way or the other …
E.L: But you’ve spent much of your life fighting for those very human rights. Given that, does it worry you that this debate has become so polite, so discreet, with stakes so high for a great power?
L.A: You know, the stakes are high but I think strategy must play a large part. Better results are not necessarily achieved by very public and damaging confrontations … in all international relations authorities are easily ruffled and one’s objectives are not necessarily reached by being … yes … by being tactless. One has to be … one must be strategic.
It seems Ms. Arbour agrees with PM Harper’s current approach.
“Until our so-called ‘Communist’ government took over.”
‘So-called’ because the only legal political party in power then, and now, is the Communist Party of China?
Or is that just a coincidence?