President Obama, Push Back on China.
Peter Terpstra
New York Times[Thursday, December 31, 2009 17:18]
By WEI JINGSHENG
WASHINGTON — Last week, a moderate reformist in China, Liu Xiaobo, was
sentenced to 11 years in prison by the Chinese government for the mere act of
organizing and signing a petition, Charter 08, calling for political reform
and the basic human rights much of the world already enjoys.
The message was clear for all those who sought restraint from a newly powerful
China that now sits prominently at the tables of global governance: Since you
made a fuss about releasing Mr. Liu after his arrest, we will punish him even
more severely. In no uncertain terms, that will let you know that not only
don’t we care what you think, but we don’t have to.
Though diplomats from Germany and Australia were among the two dozen people
allowed to observe the “public trial,” the fact that no one from the American
Embassy was admitted should be read as a particularly clear and open challenge
to the United States.
We Chinese are intimately acquainted with this authoritarian arrogance.
During the eras of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, when I was jailed for 15
years for the “heinous crime” of putting up a wall poster, the Chinese
government regarded international public opinion with this same attitude. If
the Chinese people saw how the government blithely dismissed the concerns of
powerful foreigners, the Communist Party rulers reasoned, they would also see
they had no alternative but to submit to the overbearing authority of the
government.
During Jiang Zemin’s time there were some changes. In an effort to reduce
international pressure and develop the economy under favorable trade
conditions from the United States, the Chinese regime yielded. Among other
actions, I was released from jail and deported to the United States. That
resulted in a strong backlash from the hard-liners inside of the Communist
Party despite the fact that, over the years, America’s huge trade deficit is
what largely fueled China’s rapid growth.
Now that China’s leaders believe their prospering nation has emerged as a
player in world history just as America’s prestige has been weakened by the
Iraq war and the recent financial meltdown, the hard-liners have been able to
wrest the upper hand once again.
No doubt there is some truth in the notion that their revived arrogance is
inspired by China’s role as America’s largest creditor. Surely this is one
reason China’s leadership feels free to insult President Barack Obama, as it
did during his visit to China, when they blocked broad news coverage of his
public speech, and when they sent lower-level officials to negotiate with him
at the Copenhagen climate talks until the last minute when Prime Minister Wen
Jiabao finally granted him an audience.
Their humiliation of President Obama was not personal. It served to mark
China’s power on the world stage. But more importantly, as under Mao and Deng,
standing up to the American superpower is meant to stem growing internal
opposition and cow China’s restless people into subservience under a one-party
dictatorship. This is particularly critical as greater democracy in China
would expose its own economic problems.
How President Obama responds to this challenge is not just a matter of his own
honor and position; it is a matter of defending the democratic value system of
the West against a challenge for ideological leadership in the 21st century.
The case of Liu Xiaobo presents an opportunity for President Obama to save
face and stand up to the hard-liners’ untoward arrogance. As Mr. Liu’s case is
appealed to a higher court, the United States and the rest of the West should
insist that his sentence be suspended. Such a strong stance will weaken the
hard-liners while strengthening the voices of peaceful reform within China.
If the United States doesn’t push back, the hard-liners will push on, with
negative consequences across the whole spectrum of issues, from trade and
currency valuations to global security and climate change.
The United States may owe a great deal of debt to China, but it owes a greater
debt to its founding principles of freedom and human rights. If the West, led
by the United States, does not counterbalance China’s new might in the world
order, who will?
Wei Jingsheng, a prominent Chinese dissident who spent 18 years in Chinese
prisons, now lives in exile in Washington.
The views expressed in this piece are that of the author and the publication
of the piece on this website does not necessarily reflect their endorsement by
the website.
http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?id=26320&article=President+Obama%2c
+Push+Back+on+China
--
Amnesty International Report 2009 on China:
http://report2009.amnesty.org/en/regions/asia-pacific/china
rst9
> President Obama, Push Back on China
How would you "push back on China", Peter the Terpster? Start another
war?
> http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?id=26320&article=Presiden...