China unfairly taking brunt of criticism

May 14, 2008

I find the current anti-Chinese rhetoric disturbing, not that the Chinese government has not done wrong, but because China seems to be singled out with such ferocity and bias.

The Chinese have been called monsters, savages and Nazis. Local publications don’t show photos of Tibetans including priests hurling rocks, of shops being burnt or civilians beaten to death. The Dalai Lama has repeatedly threatened to resign if his followers continued with violent protests, so obviously there has been violence, yet the myth persists here that the protests were entirely peaceful.

Photos of Nepalese police beating Tibetan protesters have been labeled “Chinese” brutality. Doubtlessly Canada is more free than China – I’m a proud Canadian – but I wonder what would the RCMP do if Quebec separatists attacked English speakers?

Anti-China protesters in France who assaulted a physically-challenged female athlete carrying the Torch have been called ‘heroes’ here.

If the Chinese assaulted a French girl in a wheelchair I wonder what they would say? No one mentions the French brutally colonized Indochina and the British invaded Tibet  in 1903, slaughtering hundreds.

More recently their savage conflicts have arisen in Tibet’s neighbours Kashmir and Nepal yet not one protests. In Iraq there are 90,000 dead, no weapons of mass destruction and Abu Ghraib. Elsewhere Canadians are kidnapped and tortured by Americans, yet no talk of “boycott America.” Instead we roll out the red carpet. 

People talk of “genocide” in Tibet yet four million tourists visited Tibet last year. How many visited Iraq?

On the Sudan issue, Chinese oil companies there are partly funded by westerners, including Canadians. American Warren Buffett was one of the largest stockholders. 

I am not criticizing America or protecting the Chinese communists – my grandmother’s entire  family were executed by communists years ago. But I find disturbing the double standards and bias. Protest against all injustice not just China.

Ben Fong

Victoria

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China unfairly taking brunt of criticism

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