US meddling again in China’s affairs

By China Watcher

At a meeting with the New Zealand Prime Minister, US Secretary of State Condolezza Rice WARNED China that they should not use its massive Olympic security apparatus to crack down on legitimate dissent.

She told the press that security threat has to be understood fully by everybody and that it should not be used to cover or deal with dissent. Rice will head the US delegation to the Olympics closing ceremony. She hopes that the coming Summer Olympics will proceed without a hitch and that the Chinese authorities should make good of its promises to “showcase not just the Olympics but an attitude of openness and tolerance”.

The US experts and Chinese critics claimed that the terrorist and extremist threats that China announces periodically are much less than what it seem to be.

First, the US has no right to meddle in the affairs of another independent and sovereign country. But then, the US is the most meddlesome and nosy country on this planet. The US always argued that they have every right if it affects the fate of human beings (inclusive of citizens of that country) once it perceived that the country’s authorities infringe or contravene the universal international laws. Most of these interventions in the affairs of another country are self-justified under the pretext of individual expression of freedom and human rights values. What constitute universal human rights in one’s country may not be so in another country? Each country with its different culture and practices would have it own version of individual rights. In China, it is the right of every human being to be able to go to school and universities and in later life to be able to earn a decent income with a comfortable living (with a house, car or maybe excesses income to travel). That is the basic right – which is assured in the Chinese Constitutions regardless of race and religion. In Chinese societies, the group community’s rights have a stronger leverage than an individual.

The US version is that the basic right also includes the right to dissent, that is, to voice one’s grievances even to the extent of creating disturbances to the existing social structure. To the West, the US or the European version of right is the internationally accepted standards and every country MUST follow these codes like an edict or commandment. Who gives the right to the US to enforce such ruling? Even in the United Nations, the US led Western nations with its total voting power is less than 50%?

The US courts are supposedly viewed to be independence of the Executive. Recently, the rights of those in Guantanamo Bay is evidently infringed – and to date there is no trial for the suspected terrorists under US laws so how could the US talked so much about rights. Most of the Western nations that preaches the US so-called human rights values continually voiced their support and I will be the first in line, to question them when the mainly Christian values and teachings come under threat from Muslim ideologies in the future. There are already instances of conflicts (like the Muslim conservative dressing codes) and how its non-restriction and free flow of dissent can stand up against the growing practices of another powerful group. It will be interesting to see how it envelopes. What if a state of the US or Canada or Spain want to secede from Federal control? I would like to know how the authorities in such places react and at the same time followed closely to its human right values.

Second, if the Chinese were to IGNORE the warnings from Rice, what do you think the US could do? Even the many vociferous protests from China critics and human right activists’ attempts to dislodge the Olympics over Sudan and Tibet have failed miserably.

Third, the threat from the East Turkestan Islamic Movement or ETIM cannot be dismissed lightly. Just 2 days ago, the terrorist organization claimed responsibility for a pair of bus blasts that killed two innocent lives on 21 July 2008 in southwest China. The group said it would target the Beijing Olympics next month. The comments were made in an online video statement transcribed by the Washington-based Intel Center. The Chinese authorities have however denied that the Uighur separatist group is behind the bombing.

A terrorist expert believed that there are many terrorists groups from Xinjiang who planned to attacks or disrupt events leading to the Olympics but he felt that only the ETIM have the resources and capabilities to do so.

A spokesman for the World Uighur Congress, an exile group, commented that Uighurs in Xinjiang did not engage in terrorism. Even after the latest acknowledgement from ETIM, do you really think so they do not indulge in terrorism? He said that China uses terrorism as a reason to continue to repress Uighurs in the region.

It seems that the West only believe in the statement from such dissident groups including the exile government of Tibet.

China should not give in to the West who are hypocrites and I tend to believe that they have a hidden agenda. Tibet and Xinjiang will forever be part of China whether the West likes it or not.