[Interesting letter<g>, even though I do not totally agree with him]--COMMENT / OPEN LETTER TO CHINA'S PRESIDENT HU JINTAO
BANGKOK POST, SEPTEMBER 3, 2005
The wok calling the kettle black
By PHILIP J CUNNINGHAM
From: America Watch, Beijing Office
Re: America needs help now.
Your Excellency President Hu Jintao's upcoming visit
to the United States is a welcome development with
regards to China-US relations, but is at the same time
fraught with political risk, as you will be dealing
with a regime that is on one hand deeply in debt to
China, but also burdened with natural disaster, a war
with no end in sight, massive corruption, government
malfeasance and documented human rights abuses.
China should first offer condolences to the Americans
dead, displaced and dispossessed by the violent
natural disaster of Hurricane Katrina. China, with its
long history of battling floods, taming rivers and
staging massive relief operations, is in an excellent
position to offer money, manpower and engineering
advice to the storm-battered American south. Although
such humanitarian aid may ultimately be rejected by
face-conscious US politicians for reasons of
nationalistic pride, the offer should stand as a
goodwill gesture between peoples.
China has a long-standing policy of non-interference
in the domestic politics of other nations, but at this
critical juncture, in dealing with a deeply divided
debtor nation struggling to save the sunken city of
New Orleans, a gas-guzzling nation facing rising
prices and energy shortfalls, a politically divided
electorate perhaps on the verge of economic collapse
due to profligate spending on military adventures
abroad, China can offer a helping hand.
In doing so, it needs to reach gingerly beyond the
current narrowly partisan Bush administration to
consult with the political opposition and express
solidarity with all Americans, regardless of political
persuasion.
Honest, hard-working Americans, just beginning to wake
up and make themselves heard after four long years of
being manipulated and misled in the name of a values
revolution and a poorly executed political campaign on
terror, are now beset by an unprecedented
environmental disaster, a war no one wants and an
increasingly fragile economy. Furthermore, the Iraq
quagmire and emergency measures at home in the US have
caused an unprecedented erosion of human rights and
limited free __expression. America's traditional sense
of fair play, long an inspiration to others, is less
and less evident as a wealthy minority wrap themselves
in material comfort while the poor die on the
battlefield and before the neglected dykes and levies,
bearing the brunt of gratuitous war and
mis-governance.
Here in Beijing at America Watch, we understand that
state-to-state relations must be preserved according
to diplomatic protocol, irregardless of how
incompetent the current US administration may be, and
we are pleased that China has taken the high road,
doing its best to constructively engage America at
this during these trying times, in order to keep the
peace. We look forward to the day when China and
America can again fully engage as constructive
Pacific partners committed to peace and justice.
Reading the Chinese press, we are pleased to see that
China has a profound appreciation for world affairs
and has generally shown itself to be on the right side
of history with its principled stands on current
issues of war and peace, racism and social justice:
- China has consistently opposed the unpopular and
unjustified American war of invasion in Iraq.
- China supports the United Nations and a multilateral
approach to problem-solving among nations.
- China roundly condemns the shocking use of torture
at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and other US military
prisons.
- China is outraged that American religious
fundamentalists are permitted to openly promote
terror, especially those with close White House ties
such as Pat Robertson, who recently called for the
assassination of Victor Chavez, the elected president
of Venezuela.
- China is dismayed that the US continues to harbour
known terrorists such as Luis Posada Carriles, a
Venezuelan citizen accused of terrorism by Cuba and
Venezuela for bombing a Cuban Airlines flight.
- China notes the increase in US military spending and
is concerned that the US has long been engaged in
research and development of new nuclear weapons,
chemical weapons, biological warfare agents and other
weapons of mass destruction.
- China notes that over 50 journalists have been
killed in Iraq, many by so-called "friendly fire".
- The Chinese media is following the case of Bunnatine
H Greenhouse, the chief overseer of contracts at the
Army Corps of Engineers who lost her job for raising
legitimate questions about defence industry
corruption. Ditto for whistleblowers Joe Wilson and
Richard Clark.
- China takes note that America maintains a vast
gulag, as documented by Amnesty International, of
unauthorised and inhumane detention centres in America
and around the world.
If, during the upcoming presidential visit, a meeting
with Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld cannot be
avoided, it is highly advisable not to permit any
photographs of a potentially embarrassing handshake
with the architect of the attack on Baghdad. Ditto for
Vice President Dick Cheney, a key power behind the
throne with deep ties to the bloated war industry.
These men, however controversial, should be treated
with the same restrained courtesy that President Hu
extended to Japanese Premier Koizumi Junichiro.
Bearing in mind that the American taxpayer pays the
bill for environmental neglect, weapons production and
war-profiteering that in the end benefit mainly the
wealthy political base of President Bush, it would be
encouraging if China would avoid doing business with
Enron, Halliburton and the rest of the war industry.
According to the precedent established during US
presidential visits to Beijing, President Hu's Yale
University speech on peace and cooperation should be
carried live in full, without interruption, spin or
prejudice by all major US television networks,
including Fox TV and the Christian Broadcast Network.
The question and answer session at Yale should not be
pre-scripted by the American hosts as it was by
Harvard during former president Jiang Zemin's lecture
at Sanders Hall in 1997.
Finally, China might consider establishing a
short-wave radio programme called Radio Free America,
to beam news reports into America around the clock to
provide information that is unreported, under-reported
or otherwise obscured or obfuscated at home, thus
enabling Americans to get a fresh perspective on what
is really going on in their country, and to better
understand the profound effects current US policy is
having on the rest of the world.
The American media, which once held itself to be the
gold standard in news reporting, has in recent years
lost its fabled objectivity and balance due to the
incessant spin and pro-war propaganda disseminated by
the White House.
Wishing you a safe and productive journey to my
homeland.
Philip J Cunningham,
Chairman of America Watch (a non-existent, non-profit
human rights group founded by American citizens in
China in exile from the current US regime).
washeng.net |
