Attacking China does not promote human rights

From anecdotal evidence and what I have read about how their economy was set up after 1949, it looks to me like China is a capitalist country, and the Communist Party of China seems revisionist and capitalist.  That said, China seems to be especially under attack now, which benefits US interests, under the cover of human rights. 

 

Tibet might have a right to self-determination, and a real communist cannot deny that all nations have the equal right to determine their own futures, but the Western "Free Tibet" types are glorifying the feudal Dalai Lama, who is apparently not even for independence, unlike the Tibetan protesters in Tibet.  The independence of Tibet would weaken China and strengthen the US, which would probably be the new imperialist over Tibet.  I think the Kosovar Albanians had a right to secede from Serbia, but at the same time the way they did it has put supposedly free Kosova under the control of US and European imperialism and strengthened those powers, while weakening Serbia and imperialist Russia.

 

Now in the past few weeks we have been barraged with attacks on the military dictatorship in Myanmar, a Chinese ally.  In this case, the USA's junior partner, the UK, has been a leader.  On the BBC they call Myanmar Burma and are focused on it, while NPR usually calls the country Myanmar.  The often progressive radio and TV program Democracy Now (on 90.7 FM here, at 6:30pm on weekdays, after Free Speech Radio News) also uses the name Burma.  There are calls for forcing Myanmar to accept aid, and I cannot believe that otherwise progressive people are calling for invasions of Myanmar and Sudan (another client of China, and it was reported in the N&O on Tuesday that at least one Darfurian guerilla group has ties to al Qaida, which is rarely mentioned by the dominant US media).  These same people are against the occupation of Iraq, which former British Prime Minister Tony Blair justified on humanitarian grounds.  The US is throwing stones from a glass house, given its response to Hurriance Katrina and what would we have done if Cuba used force to deliver the aid it offered in that disaster?  If I remember correctly, while little was being done here, the Bush Administration refused to accept aid from Cuba and even from friendlier countries. 

 

Below the fold in the Herald-Sun's Metro section on Monday they reported on the Human Rights Torch Relay on Foster Street.  At least the writer said "reportedly" the "Communist regime" is (insert your anti-communist abuse here) "oppressive, abusive and soul-shattering."  They want a "liberalized China," which to me means a liberal economic China that is lead by people who admit that they are capitalists, not a China that defends human rights.  It is odd to me what a Chinese expatriate who was imprisoned there between 2003 and 2006 on the charges of wanting to sabotage "broadcasting equipment" and says he went "to expose the persecution" of Falun Gong" said.  Supposedly "The Chinese Communist government is the most brutal regime in history.  It's even worse than Nazi Germany.  It shows no respect for life at all."  In prison he says he had to go to "brainwashing sessions every day and do slave labor" and had no privacy, but I think the Nazis would do worse than that.  Revisionists in power often act like fascists though.  That account is at the end of the article.  I hope most readers saw that as exaggeration.  I'm more used to Stalin and the USSR being called worst, though Mao's China often comes in for lumps too, especially now. Maybe this comes from the vilification of "communism" (but what does that have to do with China?) by Falung Gong type groups here, such as The Epoch Times.  Earlier a person with a European name says China has had "waves and waves of violence since 1949," which is true but does not mean the CPC is at fault.  We have had waves of internal violence too, as classes fought each other, especially before WWII.       

 

Human rights are important, but imperialist countries focus on violations by their opponents, while trying to hide or even encourage the violations by their allies.  China might be aiding the government of Sudan, but Bush and Congress encouraged Israel in its war of aggression against Lebanon in 2006.  China has its violations and oppressive clients, but we are no better, and at least China has not recently invaded countries, besides supporting the occupation of Haiti and allowing the US, UK, and France to have their way too often in the UN Security Council.  The internal affairs of China are up to the Chinese people, and I don't see anything "worse than Nazi Germany" from over here.  If the Chinese people want more respect for human rights in China, they should rise up and reclaim the CPC from the capitalists, or overthrow it, without going the way of Yeltsin.