Americans Do Not Admire China, and This Is Why

I was immediately suspicious yesterday when I heard that some ChiCom mouthpiece rag had claimed that the Chinese flag would fly on the South Lawn of the White House later this month. Here is China Daily’s report:

The national flag of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) will be hoisted at the South Lawn of the White House in Washington on September 20, media reported Sunday.

Chinese associations in the United States [read: Commie puppet fifth column] had applied to hold a ceremony in front of the US President’s residence to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of PRC. Chen Ronghua, chairman of Fujian Association of the United States, told reporters that their application was approved not only because of the sound Sino-US relations but also because China is a responsible country.

“Many Americans admire China due to the success of last year’s Beijing Olympics,” said Chen.

More than 1,000 people will attend the ceremony and the performances held after it, according to Zhao Luqun, who will direct the performances. Zhao said the performances will demonstrate the friendship, magnanimous spirit and kindness of modern Chinese people. [China Daily]

Americans do not admire China, they are wary of China. But beneath that superficial level, our views of China are deeply conflicted. We admire the beauty of its art, architecture, and culture. We are fascinated by the length and richness of its history. We admire its driven and brilliant people, who have created its economic vigor despite the strangulation of corrupt oligarchy. Many of us could happily spend a whole day giving our undivided attention to the sight of Zhang Ziyi and Gong Li sharing an ice cream cone. We even tattoo malapropisms of its graceful characters on our ungraceful, corpulent bodies. But our country was founded on the idea that just powers are derived from the consent of the governed, and therefore, we do not admire the unelected, unjust fascist regime that has imprisoned all there is in China that is worthy of our admiration.

That is how I knew that the China Daily report was nonsense as soon as I heard it. And sure enough:

The White House on Friday dismissed as inaccurate reports from China that the administration will mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic by flying the Chinese flag on the South Lawn. [….]

A ceremony, indeed, will take place. But it won’t happen on the White House grounds — rather, on the Ellipse, on the other side of E Street from the presidential residence. [Fox News]

President Obama would do no such thing because he knows that China is toxic. To fly the flag of most other nations would not have aroused American rage, but the China Daily report did, because China is toxic. And China is toxic because China treats human beings this way:

A Chinese Christian woman who aided North Korean refugees in their escape to South Korea was sentenced to ten years in prison, her family recently was notified. Li Mingshun and her colleague Zhang Yonghu were arrested while crossing the border to Mongolia with North Korean refugees. Mongolia, unlike China, allows North Korean refugees to seek asylum in South Korea, where they have automatic citizenship.

On Aug. 30, Li was found guilty of providing humanitarian help for the refugees and sentenced to a decade in prison, according to ChinaAid Association. Zhang received a seven-year prison sentence for organizing transportation for the refugees to Inner Mongolia.

“I am shocked at how the Chinese government treats its own humanitarian workers. They are innocent,” said ChinaAid president Bob Fu in a statement Tuesday.

The human rights lawyers defending Li and Zhang hope to raise the profile of the case to draw attention to the Chinese government’s treatment of North Korean refugees. [….]

The United Nations, the United States, and human rights organizations around the world have decried China’s treatment of the refugees, especially because many countries welcome North Korean refugees to resettle in their land. These countries include South Korea and the United States. Human rights groups argue that China has no reason to feel burdened by the refugees. But they are still returned to North Korea where they face torture and possibly death. It is a state crime to leave the country. [Christian Post, Michelle A. Vu]

New visitors to this site may not know that your correspondent is a nominally Jewish deist. In a pluralistic society, that shouldn’t matter; an important part of the social contract that unites us is the willingness to fight, even to die, for the rights of our fellow citizens to espouse views we ourselves do not espouse. We believe the freedom of conscience to be a natural right of all people, so long as you don’t harm anyone else.

If there is a right that is more fundamental than all of the rest, it is the right to live for another day. That is just the last of all of the rights that China willfully helps North Korea strip from its subjects. Instead of abiding by the obligations it undertook when it signed the U.N. Refugee Convention, China sets bounties the capture of refugees and condemns and imprisons those who assist them.

What social contracts unite China? Obedience to the state — which necessarily implies the restraint of the pursuit of happiness — of and state-sponsored nationalist xenophobia. But the former is a fragile thing in today’s China, and the latter, while more persistent, has a destructive power that can be difficult to predict.