I love teaching Chinese history and culture. I would love to visit someday to see the Wall, the Qin Dynasty terra cotta warriors and much more. But let's not fool ourselves. Just because China is not ruled by an overtly evil man like Mao Zedong does not mean that the current regime is any less evil.For years the idea was that the more we engaged China through capitalism the more likely we could affect positive change. The communist government, however, has shown that it can make money through free enterprise yet still destroy the humanity of its citizens and the defenseless around the world. Military options of course should be off the table...but China can be hurt in other ways.
China desperately wants to be respected as a modern 21st Century superpower. They especially want to show off the "new China" in 2008. It's time for the international community to gird up and propose a boycott of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. China buys most of Sudan's oil. China is financially supporting the regimes in Burma, North Korea and Cuba.
The Chinese always vetoes UN Security Council mandates that seek to sanction totalitarian regimes. China's vetoes in the past have assisted Milosevic in Yugoslavia (now Serbia), Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran along with countless other tyrants. Christians are imprisoned and executed on a daily basis. All dissent is forcibly quelled. China is still a totalitarian regime which supports evil around the world. It's time for the international community to speak out. China is often the puppet master behind the crazed despots making headlines today. It's time they're called out.
Of course money talks and the West makes too much money off China (and sees even greater market inroads there in the future) for anyone to speak the truth in ways that carry any real weight.
