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01/27/2005 Archived Entry: "China to hold official memorial for Zhao"

Posted by steve @ 01:17 PM EST [Link]

WHAT, SO THEY ACTUALLY ACKNOWLEDGED HIS DEATH?: The Chinese government will hold an official memorial for Zhao Ziyang this weekend.

The "body farewell ceremony" at Beijing's Babaoshan Cemetery will be a lower-status event than a state funeral. Government officials have yet to say where Zhao would be interred.

Foreign reporters won't be allowed at the event, the Associated Press reported.

Read on.

As a special treat, click on "More" to read an op-ed that wasn't picked up by any papers concerning the minor brouhaha about a Conservative Party MP visiting the Zhao family home.

Persistent and consistent

By Steven Martinovich

A minor controversy erupted on Friday when Conservative MP Jason Kenney visited the Beijing home of Zhao Ziyang, the deposed Chinese communist party chief who passed away earlier in the week after 15 years of house arrest. Zhao is best known for openly opposing the Chinese government's crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protests during the summer of 1989, making the reformer a hero to the students but a persona non grata to his former peers in the party.

The visit, which was possible thanks to the intervention of the Zhao household, was attacked by Prime Minister Paul Martin as a media stunt and an infringement of the family's time of mourning. "I'm quite disappointed that Mr. Kenney was not prepared to respect the family's feelings. You do not defend human rights by simply making statements. You defend human rights by being persistent and consistent," said Martin while in Beijing for a trade mission.

Martin's consistency -- and lack of persistency -- was clear from the outset. Earlier in the week he told reporters that visiting the Zhao home was not on his schedule, that he would "[T]alk to those who control my life, but I can just tell you that it's not on the schedule at the present time."

What apparently was on his schedule, however, was a scripted diatribe directed at Conservative Party Leader Stephen Harper. The prime minister attacked Harper for suggesting that same-sex marriage could lead to legalized polygamy and declared that he would fight an election on the issue if necessary. "But if you're asking me am I ready to go into an election to uphold the Charter of Rights against those who would attack it? The answer is certainly yes," he told reporters.

It's ironic that Martin, who didn't address the issue of human rights with the Chinese government until only at the end of the trade mission, decided to hold a press conference in a communist dictatorship to discuss an expansion of the institution of marriage in a free nation thousands of miles away. In the same city where there are 11 prisons that utilize political reeducation through forced labour and "psychological counseling" -- those prisoners are the lucky ones that don't serve in the far more brutal camps outside of urban centres -- Martin ignored the opportunity to publicly challenge the Chinese government in favour of threatening Canadian MPs.

Hopefully the humour of the situation wasn't lost on his hosts because Martin then declared that a Harper government would "strip away the rights of individuals, would strip away the rights of minorities. That's not my Canada. It will never be my Canada. Unlike Mr. Harper I will stand up for the Canadian Charter of Rights." The only thing Martin didn't accuse Harper of planning to do was persecute members of the Falun Gong movement.

Kenney's act of visiting the Zhao household was a symbolic act but far more powerful then anything Martin managed. Where the prime minister declared his support of the One China policy -- that free Taiwan was a part of Chinese communist territory -- Kenney represented those Chinese who were not allowed to leave their homes, had their phone lines cut or were followed for fear they might try and pay their respects to the Zhao family. Plainly put, Kenney met with those who suffered while Martin spent his time with those who impose that suffering.

Of course, it wasn't surprising that Martin avoided the Zhao household or criticizing the Chinese government's persistent and consistent human rights abuses. The prime minister and his entourage were there for trade opportunities. One of those opportunities may have unintended consequences for the Chinese government. During the week, the China granted Canada the status of an approved tourist destination, meaning that one day as many as one million Chinese tourists could visit Canada annually. While here, perhaps they'll learn about the freedom that Zhao Ziyang hoped for, the same that Martin decided wasn't necessary to publicly call for while he was in their homeland.

Steven Martinovich is a freelance writer in Sudbury, Ontario.