The Daily OrangeTacit consent of China's oppression
By Lance Warren
Posted: 4/1/04, 2:44 AM EST Section: Opinion
The Tiananmen Square assaults have not ended. On Sunday, three women - mothers of students killed in the 1989 protests - were detained by Chinese intelligence offices for opening packages containing shirts bearing a logo that read, "1989-2004: Tiananmen Mothers." All of the three belong to a group of the same name that hopes to commemorate the murders of their children when the 15th anniversary of the massacre takes place on June 4. Their arrests raise serious questions as to whether they will have the opportunity to remind the world of the unforgivable crimes committed by their government.
But the Bush administration had no comment.
To be sure, America's continued silence over the oppression of China's communist regime makes some political sense: the nation remains a significant trade partner of the United States, and its military represents a powerful and stabilizing presence on a continent that has struggled in vain to maintain peace for many decades. The Vietnam War ravaged much of Southeast Asia in the 1960s and '70s, and the rise of fundamental Islamic terrorist groups poses an equally destabilizing threat to the region today. Supporting China, if it does not promote Asian peace, seems to at least ensure that the current situation will not grow worse. This is the political reality.
But it is an outrage and a scandal that the world's most vocal and powerful representative of freedom tacitly approves the tyranny of Chinese rule. This administration has frequently mentioned the brutality of Iraq's former torture chambers and condemned the arbitrary imprisonment of that nation's citizens as highly objectionable, highly immoral - highly un-American.
But when we read about innocent senior citizens in China put in jail for opening the mail and then being charged with "endangering state security," what might we imagine happens to other, more threatening "criminals"? Surely we do not think that China's punishments are very acceptable, moral - or American.
This is the human reality.
The end of the Cold War taught this county many lessons, perhaps the clearest of which is that the world was never, and will never be, black and white. The shades of gray that define international politics demand close and careful attention, for solutions often prove far more complex than the challenges they confront.
But as the United States forges ahead in this new millennium, we should never forget our obligation to uphold the freedom-loving principles of our founders in our foreign agenda as well as within our own borders. Anything less is a disgrace.
Yet right now, disgrace is precisely what we endorse.
Lance Warren is a senior history and political science major. E-mail him at lance_warren@hotmail.com.
But the Bush administration had no comment.
To be sure, America's continued silence over the oppression of China's communist regime makes some political sense: the nation remains a significant trade partner of the United States, and its military represents a powerful and stabilizing presence on a continent that has struggled in vain to maintain peace for many decades. The Vietnam War ravaged much of Southeast Asia in the 1960s and '70s, and the rise of fundamental Islamic terrorist groups poses an equally destabilizing threat to the region today. Supporting China, if it does not promote Asian peace, seems to at least ensure that the current situation will not grow worse. This is the political reality.
But it is an outrage and a scandal that the world's most vocal and powerful representative of freedom tacitly approves the tyranny of Chinese rule. This administration has frequently mentioned the brutality of Iraq's former torture chambers and condemned the arbitrary imprisonment of that nation's citizens as highly objectionable, highly immoral - highly un-American.
But when we read about innocent senior citizens in China put in jail for opening the mail and then being charged with "endangering state security," what might we imagine happens to other, more threatening "criminals"? Surely we do not think that China's punishments are very acceptable, moral - or American.
This is the human reality.
The end of the Cold War taught this county many lessons, perhaps the clearest of which is that the world was never, and will never be, black and white. The shades of gray that define international politics demand close and careful attention, for solutions often prove far more complex than the challenges they confront.
But as the United States forges ahead in this new millennium, we should never forget our obligation to uphold the freedom-loving principles of our founders in our foreign agenda as well as within our own borders. Anything less is a disgrace.
Yet right now, disgrace is precisely what we endorse.
Lance Warren is a senior history and political science major. E-mail him at lance_warren@hotmail.com.
