An Outsider Looking In
by Chris Gelken
Around the News Desk Talking China
"For crying out bloodly loud," I yelled at my colleagues around the desk while editing some wire service story about Clinton's trip to China, "when did Bush visit Beijing?"
"Why?" they asked.
"Because I am sick to f****** death of saying 'this is the first visit to China by a U.S. President since the Tiananmen massacre.' I'm not taking a position on this, but I'd just like to vary the copy a bit, y'know what I am saying?"
They did, bless them. A lot has happened since 1989 - but Tiananmen is still used as the yardstick. It is getting very hackneyed. Thailand has never apologised for shooting demonstrators in 1973, 76 and 92. Suharto was never held to account for the Dili massacre. We never, ever heard; "This is the 23rd time a U.S. President has met the Indonesian leader since the invasion of East Timor that has resulted in almost a million deaths, and the 11th time since the Dili massacre."
There was a series on BBC World recently hosted by Alistair Cooke, a veteran journalist who first arrived in the U.S.A. in the mid-sixties. What he found there surprised him. Racial segregration, all sorts of human rights abuses, a class structure just as ingrained and offensive as anything to be found in Europe. And this in a country that already had laws, a constitution, that should have made these things impossible.
He witnessed 'people of colour' being escorted by National Guardsmen into schools that the American Constitution gave them the right to attend. In Bill Clinton's home town, no less. He also saw white students being fired upon by security forces at Kent State University in Ohio. He reported on the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, he was in Watts, he was in Detroit.....
Since the 1960s the United States has made great progress in human rights - but let's face it - it took the U.S. long enough. Some of the laws being abused by the authorities in the 60s had been on the books since the Declaration of Independence. The Peoples' Republic of China has only existed since 1949.
Even today, China does not have some of the human rights laws that were openly abused by many states in the U.S. up to and including the 60s - some that are still abused. Which is worse? Having the laws and ignoring them - or not having them in the first place - and at least not being hypocritical in one's actions? Do China critics want Beijing to emulate the U.S. by breaking its own human rights laws?
Let's not get onto subjects like Rodney King or Haitian immigrants being abused by cops, they are crimes perpetraded by thugs that have no respect for human rights. U.S. government employed officials that have no respect for human rights - if we want to be accurate. Exception to the rule they may be - but that they exist says a lot about the country as a whole. If China had the same laws - and had legally appointed officials abuse them in the same way - would Washington be as ambivalent to Beijing over similar incidents as Beijing was to Washington? Help me out here, was there an official protest by Beijing over the Rodney King beating?
I don't think any long term resident of this region is under any illusion about what the situation is like in China. There is a lot that needs to be corrected - big time. But something we often ask is: How many of the Western political critics of China now venting on the networks or wire services have actually spent time in China? I am not interested in the 'Congressional Committees' that visit for a week. I have no time for the opinions of tourists. How many of the critics have actually lived and experienced the region exclusively for more than a decade?
Reality check. On a personal note, I admit to having my faults. There are things I have done that leave some people aghast - don't ask! I am, however, willing to listen to people who point out how I may improve myself. My fellow editors at APJ - and readers - have offered their valuable guidance. One of my more experienced colleages on the desk here in Hong Kong says I am a good radio editor/announcer, but with some coaching, I could be a great editor/announcer. I listen. But I would resent and reject critics who say I am a lousy announcer and if I want to make my way in this world, I should emulate them without question. Anyone with any pride would do the same thing. Am I right?
Let us give credit where credit is due. By any measure, in my opinion China has made substantial advances since I first spent any time there in the mid-1980s. Okay, there is still plenty wrong with the place, and I mean plenty. But they are working on a constitution first promulgated in 1949 - not 1776. More than 300 years of law still hasn't made the United States the country that its founders envisioned - at least not what they put on paper. What they had in their minds is open to argument. After all, even though many of the writers of the constitution agreed that all men were born equal, they still went home to be served by slaves.
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