Chinese Leader Disingenuous About Tibetan Issues, Improving Human Rights

OKLAHOMA CITY – As President Obama grovels before Chinese President Hu Jintao this week during the (to quote Sen. Harry Reid) dictator’s U.S. visit, the Communist Chinese government continues to crackdown on dissidents, Tibetan activists and anyone who gets in the way of Chinese dominance in the world.

We here in the U.S., those who care about a free Tibet and human rights for all are saddened by Obama’s weak stances in the face of tyrants like China’s Hu. Just look at all the Chinese flags in Washington and in New York’s Times Square. It’s as if we’re celebrating the fact that China has America in an ever-tightening economic vise.

In a Reuters article published today, Obama and Hu held a brief press conference together in Washington and when Hu was pressed on the issue of China’s horrible human rights record, Hu pretended that “technical difficulties” prevented him from understanding the question.

Sure.

The Reuters report noted: “Obama used part of his opening statement at the news conference to say the United States supports dialogue between China and representatives of the Dalai Lama and wants Beijing to respect the religious rights of the Tibetan people.”

Embarrassingly, Hu had the gall to say that China respects the “universality of human rights” while telling the U.S. to stay out of their business.

And as pro-Tibetan and human rights activists dogged Hu and his entourage during the visit, reports coming out of Tibet and China show

A ChannelNewsAsia.com article headlined “Tibetans, Chinese protest Hu’s US visit,” it notes that much still has to be done if China expects to be respected internationally, particularly when it comes to human rights and Tibetan autonomy, which the Dalai Lama seeks.

“The activities of the Chinese government, the economic exploitation in Tibet and the resulting environmental devastation of Tibet have consequences beyond Tibet’s borders,” Tenzin Dorjee, executive director of Students for a Free Tibet, told AFP.

He accused China of damming rivers in Tibet that irrigate much of Asia, stripping the region of its mineral riches and killing off the nomadic and religious way of life on the remote plateau.

“It is the responsibility of the entire world, and particularly the US government under the leadership of President Obama, to speak directly to the leadership responsible for these actions, to ask President Hu Jintao to speedily negotiate a resolution to this issue,” Dorjee said.

In the meantime the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy released a report for the year 2010 which notes that “the Chinese regime has targeted prominent Tibetan writers, bloggers, intellectuals and cultural figures” and wrongly labeled these Tibetans as “criminals.”

The report, it notes, also outlines further restrictions on the Tibetan way of life. It cites laws issued by the Chinese regime, aimed at controlling religious life in the primarily Buddhist region. It also cites plans of replacing the Tibetan language with Mandarin in local schools.

And then there is the elephant in the room, as noted by Paul Joseph Watson and Alex Jones writing for Infowars.com, the article “Meet the New Boss: China owns the United States.”

Pretty sobering stuff. Something tells me Hu, his unsmiling entourage and many in the Communist Chinese government don’t respect us all that much.