Why did President Obama...fail so much in China?

Barack Obama, often portrayed as a change agent, changed nothing in his recent visit to China as the U.S. President. Heck, he didn't even bring back a Panda, much less any freed prisoners of conscience!

Feckless on human rights, Obama may also prove to be feckless on the economy, because a better U.S. economy begins with recalibrating U.S.-China policy.

Whether we speak of human rights or speak of the economy (or speak of the communist agents who were passed off as college students in Obama's "town hall" in Shanghai), Obama displayed a blithe lack of awareness for the state of affairs between the U.S. and China.

And now, Wei Jingsheng is calling out Barack Obama about these matters. Wei, often described as China's most famous dissident, lives in the United States since his 1997 release from 18 years' imprisonment in Communist China.

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Why Did Obama Come Back from China Empty Handed?
-- Wei Jingsheng

What we all have been most interested in this week, is US President Obama's visit to China. That is because we all had great expectations of this US President's visit.

Chinese at home or Overseas have hoped that President Obama could do something regarding Chinese human rights. Ever since Hu Jintao came to power, the human rights situation in China has been deteriorating. Many people have been arrested, put in jail, and abused. Those who are out of jail also experience more pressure than in the past, to the degree that it is hard to breathe. The Chinese Communist regime controls the media, blocks the Internet, and tightens the room of speech. The Chinese people more than ever wondered if the US president could help them to reduce some of the pressure. In the past, the pressure from a US president always had some effectiveness, because the Communist regime is most afraid of the human rights diplomacy of the USA.

It seems Americans care most about the exchange rate between the US dollars and the Chinese currency RenMinBi. This is the key to reducing the trade deficit. Even 10 years ago, most of Americans already knew that the unfair trade system would increase the trade deficit and thus result in unemployment. But some politicians who were bought out by the big business enterprises forced the passage of the Most Favored Nation status (later on named Permanent Normal Trade Relationship to reduce the attention and pressure) for the Communist regime. At that time, the Americans still enjoyed a pretty good life with a trade deficit of less than 57 Billion dollars, so most Americans took it. After all, we have to respect the democratic system and respect the law.

But now, the US economy has deteriorated with increasing unemployment and depression in every corner. The trade deficit between the USA and China has skyrocketed to more than 268 Billion dollars. Many Americans know that is due to the fact that the Chinese government manipulated the currency exchange rate, in addition to an unfair trade system. Just as the US senator Charles Schumer pointed out: the whole economic crisis started with the Chinese government's manipulation of the Chinese currency. If we do not solve this root problem, other efforts are meaningless.

Yet, President Obama did not bring back anything from China. The United Kingdoms' Times article today has a title: "President Obama returns home from visit to China almost empty handed". This result is indeed totally out of people's expectations. When the strategic advisors in the White House designed the topics for Obama, they felt that these core issues are hopeless. So they left a lot of room to play, such as environment, troops in Afghanistan, etc, even to the details of Iran's nuclear facility. They were not even expecting any substance from the Chinese Communist regime, but simply wanted to express its attitude on these issues.

But President Obama did not even get these issues done in China. In the human rights front, he did not even get the Chinese government to release a few political prisoners just to make a show. Hu Jintao really did not give Obama any face, not even a human rights show, except to waste Obama's trip to China. In comparison to the previous a few terms of not so successful presidents of the USA, Obama seems to be the least successful in dealing with China.

Not mentioning conservative news media, even news media that lean to the left such as the Washington Post published commentaries strongly criticizing Obama for not doing anything to reduce the trade deficit. It went so far as to review the Permanent Normal Trade Relationship that President Clinton signed for China, and narrated in detail how the huge increase of the trade deficit with China is the result of politicians and businesses selling out America. If we read these words in the past, we might have thought the Post was a Republican newspaper attacking the Democrats.

Why did President Obama, who could give eloquent speeches is so popular in Europe, fail so much in China? We could name a list of reasons, but there are two root reasons. One is that he and his advisors do not know either China, or the Chinese. They thought that they are dealing with a democratic country. The diplomacy between democratic countries is the diplomacy of gentlemen. If you release a signal of kindness, then the other must return with the same. Or we could use a popular way to describe it as a "cooperative diplomacy of mutual compromises and mutual benefits."

However, if you ever hear an American president referring to the Chinese Communists as a cooperation partner, then you know that they do not know about the Chinese Communist Party at all. Even those Western diplomats who speak good Chinese do not know that this "cooperation partner" is an error of basic concept. The logic of the Chinese Communist Party is a "philosophy of struggles" that believes "when the enemy retreats, we shall invade". If you retreat, it will believe you are afraid of it. If they do not take a step forward, they will be teased within the Communist Party, even be attacked as a result. In dealing with the Chinese Communist Party, it is totally wrong to practice this spirit of compromise and cooperation that the Western democratic societies are accustomed to. So if we view the stand that Obama offered to China before his trip, we could tell that his visit would come to a total failure.

The second most important reason is the impedance from the business community. The biggest beneficiary of the trade deficit with China and unemployment in the USA is big business in both America and China. Ever since many years ago, these businesses have voluntarily defended the interests of the Chinese Communist party. In these issues of unfair trade and manipulation of currency, they share the interests of the Chinese Communist Party. Just ten years ago, they were already able to manipulate both the US Congress and the US administration to the degree that they went against the desires of the majority citizen voters in the USA. Even with the prerequisite of being unable to hide from the public, they were able to pass a resolution that the majority of voters were against and thus offered free trade to the Chinese Communist Party unilaterally. Now, their benefits are already 4 or 5 times more dependent on business, so the average voters have even less power to against them. Even President Obama has a hard time to go against the businesses' will. This is one of the root reasons that the US President had to put down his posture in front of the Chinese Communists.

Therefore, the US-China relation is not just an issue of economy, or Chinese human rights. It is already testing the Western democratic system. Both Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin were unable to dissolve the Western democratic system, yet the current Chinese Communist Party is in its effort to realize Lenin's wish: to make the "American imperialism" be the last stage of capitalism. It seems to be successful so far. This is why this one time visit of the America president to China received so much attention from the people. People are not only caring about the issues of currency exchange and unemployment. People are concerned mainly if the Western democratic system as represented by the USA will be defeated by an autocratic Communist system.

The ZYJ Case: No verdict, lots of coverage

A hearing was held today in Shehong County Court, in Suining of Sichuan Province, for "ZYJ" or Zhou Yongjun, the prominent Chinese dissident who once led the Tiananmen Square uprising. Chinese authorities have held Mr. Zhou arbitrarily without trial for over a year, and today was the overdue trial.

No verdict was announced at the end of the five-hour hearing.

For an array of press coverage about today's action, see the following links.

Times Online: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6923192.ece

Reuters via Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/19/AR2009111901506.html

Associated Press: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ih_hP1LWb_3qhbcM1onJF6W1XpHgD9C2JNI00

DPA: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/295437,dissident-handed-over-to-china-by-hong-kong-goes-on-trial.html

China Policy Still Lousy

#ObamaFAIL:
U.S.-China Policy
'Still Lousy After All These Years'

During Obama's visit, China quietly sets a trial for Tiananmen Square student leader Zhou Yongjun
- Trial to occur Thursday, one day after Obama leaves China -

By John Kusumi

This is a newsbreak, coming to you from the China Support Network. Yes, it's more than 20 years after the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy uprising and massacre of civilians at the hands of the Chinese army. But never mind that; Communists, dictators, tyrants, and thugs continue to rule China, and they still don't know when to quit, or when to stop persecuting the participants of the pro-democracy uprising that was led by Chinese college students back in "Spring Semester, 1989."

In fact, Communists, dictators, tyrants and thugs have slated more such persecution to be coming up this week -- one day after U.S. President Barack Obama leaves China. During this week's presidential summitry, China has quietly scheduled a trial to be held on the morning of Thursday, November 19 2009, in Shehong County Court [in Suining] of Sichuan Province.

They will put on trial Tiananmen Square student leader Zhou Yongjun, who is now in his third stint as a prisoner of Mainland Chinese authorities. Zhou was previously a political prisoner from 1989-1991, and from 1998-2001. When he is not a political prisoner, Zhou is a U.S. permanent resident who lives in California and has two U.S. citizen children.

The China Support Network has worked as part of RAZY, the Rescue Alliance for Zhou Yongjun, during much of 2009. Zhou's case has been submitted to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention; we have held press conferences in New York and Hong Kong; and, we have allied with Hong Kong legislator (and Chairman of the Democratic Party) Albert Ho to pressure Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang to explain why Hong Kong authorities performed the arbitrary detention of Zhou -- followed by the secret rendition of Zhou to authorities of Mainland China.

(For CSN's web page that chronicles the Rescue Alliance, see http://www.chinasupport.net/CSN/razy.aspx
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Now, let's have ourselves a thought exercise which might reasonably be called hypothetical conjecture.

Could there be a reason why the American people are distrustful of government? --And a reason why they distrust their news media? Let's conjecture that freedom and democracy matter to the American people, and that human rights are important.

In its day, the Tiananmen massacre was an eye opener. Indeed, it was a jaw dropping atrocity by the hand of evil. More than eye opening, it was eye popping. At that time, Pew Research found that 45% of the American public was "closely following" the political turmoil in China, which was all over the news for months. It was entirely reasonable that some American college students set up the China Support Network; the Tiananmen massacre was an occasion similar to other vast tragedies in the news -- Hurricane Katrina and the Asian tsunami come to mind as eye popping tragedies that played out on world television. For all of these tragedies, many relief efforts sprang up, and the China Support Network was initially just one more effort, among many, to help the cause of the "laobaixing," the common people of China.

Americans would have seen the uprising populace of China as similar to the people of Poland or East Germany or Czechoslovakia. The people were oppressed by Communism and were demanding their freedom. Clearly, that is a cause that Americans can support. Americans could support a rebuke for Tiananmen Square, but not George H.W. Bush, who was then the U.S. President. His policy was loudly criticized by many commenters. There are freedom loving people. There are anti-communists. And then, on the other hand, there is George H.W. Bush (who can be called Bush-41).

The policy of Bush-41 can be summarized thusly: "La Di Da. Mass murder is just fine, or A - OK." For freedom loving Americans, this policy is unacceptable.

The administration had a blind eye for the Tiananmen massacre, but the news media did not, at that time. Tiananmen Square student leaders escaped from China and came to the United States and began working with the China Support Network. The discontent with Bush's China policy continued all the way to the next presidential election cycle, when a challenger named Bill Clinton invited Chinese dissidents to the Democratic National Convention of 1992. That convention was addressed by not one, but two Tiananmen Square dissidents. Bill Clinton vowed that he would "not coddle tyrants, from Baghdad to Beijing," and promised specifically that he would renew China's MFN trade status only with linkage to progress on human rights.

Clinton's promises were "more like it." The tougher stand with China is what the American people wanted, and it contributed to the election defeat of Bush-41, who became a one-term President, and the victory of Bill Clinton. Once he was in office, Bill Clinton threw away his earlier playbook -- he double crossed the Chinese dissidents by breaking his campaign promises -- and Clinton's policy became, like that of Bush-41, "La Di Da. Mass murder is just fine, or A - OK." For freedom loving Americans, this policy remains unacceptable.

To have such easy countenance for mass murder, I believe that it doesn't take a village. It takes an evil, bloodthirsty monster. Bush-41 and Bill Clinton both qualify as evil, bloodthirsty monsters -- in my book.

To the degree that Barack Obama inherits and continues that China policy, and acts just like it's Bill Clinton's third term, then I believe that he also inherits the designation--from me--of being an evil, bloodthirsty monster.

The mass murder of Communist China is not acceptable; the easy countenance of the United States to overlook the Tiananmen massacre is not acceptable; and, the China Support Network has said it well in a prior statement, and we repeat it here and now:

"All Maoism must cease immediately."

Because there is such distance and disconnect -- between a freedom-loving policy as at CSN on the one hand; versus the evil bloodthirsty monster policy of the U.S. administration on the other hand; this leads to the headline on this article, which begins with a hashtag, "#ObamaFAIL," and which headline says: "U.S.-China Policy 'Still Lousy After All These Years'."

And the news media? --is very obviously comprised of buffoons, sociopaths, and propagandists. I've called U.S. television news people "bent, craven, depraved sock puppets managed by a corrupt cabal," and today let's add an additional designation, namely that of being evil, bloodthirsty monsters. At least for myself, when I see faces of people such as Hillary Clinton and Chuck Todd, I imagine the blood of innocents drooling out of their mouths, over their lips, and down their chins. To watch American TV news in the present day is to gaze directly into the faces of evil.

The American people have very good reasons to turn off their televisions and to boycott CNN and other networks. To watch the news is only to watch sociopaths at work; if one has a low tolerance, or not much stomach for sociopaths, then it is best to avoid America's TV news channels.

To my reader, thank you for reading to the bottom of this thought exercise, which might reasonably be called hypothetical conjecture -- as long as freedom, democracy, and human rights are only window dressing for the United States of America. If rights mattered, the news media would revolt against a China policy that is akin to its very own crime against humanity. As it stands, I think that every newscast of theirs -- if excluding the Chinese democracy movement -- is a crime against the American people. (And indeed, sending Americans' jobs to China is a crime against the American worker, so the White House has got crime in progress too.)

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CSN publishes letter to Obama re: China trip upcoming this month

China Support Network

President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20500

November 5, 2009

Dear President Obama,

The China Support Network is aware that you will visit China soon. We are a human rights group with a long history of solidarity with Chinese dissidents and their pro-democracy movement seeking reform in Mainland China to include freedom, democracy, and human rights.

Our work began in 1989, as American college students witnessed the eye-popping atrocity of Tiananmen Square’s crackdown and massacre, by troops of the Communist Party, which still runs China today with no freedom, no democracy, no human rights, and no accountability nor justice for the victims of that among other crackdowns.

A current of thought says that U.S. politicians lose sight of the forest for the trees. They get lost in the weeds of issues. What happens if we step back and look at the top line of Mainland China’s experience under the Communist Party-led regime founded by Chairman Mao?

When the Maoism has passed, the history will be written. And, history will neither be kind to that regime, nor to the pliant Baby Boomer Presidents of the U.S. who turned a blind eye and gave Chinese Communists a nod and a wink to tacitly bless their disregard of human rights.

When the history is written, the reign of Maoism – including three recent successors to Mao – was the world’s largest humanitarian disaster ever, anywhere, bar none. For the number of untimely deaths caused by the regime, credible estimates range from 65 million to 80 million dead.

That is larger than the death toll of World War II. The Chinese Communist regime is the world record holder in mass murder. As we observe this situation and the unforgiveable U.S. China policy which followed Tiananmen Square, there is a lack of situational awareness that smacks of George W. Bush during Hurricane Katrina.

Observing the scene, one might conclude that at the U.S. White House, there is no such thing as a humanitarian emergency; and that in U.S. newsrooms, there is no such thing as a humanitarian emergency. But, history knows, and history will tell.

Will you appear on the right side or the wrong side of history? Will Wolf Blitzer appear on the right side or the wrong side of history?

The tenures of yourself and Blitzer reflect either an absence of situational awareness, or a deliberate choice to feign an affected nonchalance. That is to say, a blind eye, a deaf ear, and a choice to see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil may in fact be willful on your part. However, you each have ongoing tenure, hence may yet appear on the right side of history.

We urge you to do so, and to stop the trade deficit which the U.S. runs with Communist China. When the Maoism has passed, the Chinese leaders must answer for genocide and crimes against humanity. And the indifferent leaders of the Western world will need alibis or plausible deniability, lest history record them as accessories during the fact of genocide.

You will soon visit China. If you follow in the footsteps of Bill Clinton, you may be wheeling and dealing to enlarge, rather than reduce, the U.S. trade deficit which robs the U.S. economy of jobs and purchasing power. That trade deficit ought to be categorized as a crime against the American worker, while it also finances genocide and crimes against humanity at the other end of the trade.

Again, we urge you to reduce and then eliminate the trade deficit. The health of the U.S. economy requires at least balanced trade, if not a surplus.

Do we want a Reaganesque, "Tear down this wall" speech? –It would be a step in the right direction.

Short of that, we urge you to speak up for prisoners of this cause. Zhou Yongjun and Liu Xiaobo are leaders from the Tiananmen Square action, again suffering deprivation of their liberties -- over 20 years after that historic occasion. When in exile, Zhou is based in California, has U.S. permanent residency, and applied for citizenship. He has two U.S. citizen children.

Wang Bingzhang is the father of the China democracy movement overseas and referred to as China’s Nelson Mandela figure. When in exile, Wang is based in New York, and he has four U.S. citizen children who have not seen their father since 2002.

Gao Zhisheng is an attorney famous for taking on cases of the persecuted (e.g., Christians and Falun Gong practitioners) and referred to as China’s Conscience. The regime has vengefully persecuted Gao in reply, and he disappeared on February 4 of this year. His wife and two children fled to safety in the United States.

President Obama, reunite these families! It’s the right thing to do; it would be a step in the right direction; it would give Wolf Blitzer something to talk about; and thereby enable his redemption.

The China Support Network has its own message that might be delivered to China, that "All Maoism must cease immediately!" Thank you for taking in our missive. May God bless America and China both.

Sincerely,
/s./ John Kusumi, President
The China Support Network
http://www.chinasupport.net