Ofcourse, China doesn’t deserve to host the Olympic’s because of it’s gross violations of human rights and it’s absolute apathy towards freedom of thought and expression. But, now that the Olympics committee conveniently gave China the right to host olympic’s even after fully knowing China’s dirty history, All we can do now is hope that there will be a mass pullout from the Olympic’s by all the countries.

That would be great, Jayprashanth, but unfortunately, it will never happen.

I think France has talked about a partial boycott of the lighting of the torch, but that’s about it.

Even Belgium has not ruled out an Olympic boycott. The numbers are low now but could get bigger in the coming weeks and then, hopefully China gets what it deserves. You never know what the future has in store for Tibet!!!

That’s good news.. for a boycott to truly have impact, though, it needs to be global. Will keep my fingers crossed that others come on board.

And hopefully, the fallout of all of this criticism will have a positive affect on Tibet.

Maybe someone from Tibet can come up and win something. Maybe an athlete from some country like France who wins a gold will drape himself in the Tibet flag along with his own national flag. Maybe someone will speak out from the Olympic village about Chinese rule. You never know. China might not represent the Olympic Spirit, but so didn’t Hitler in 36. That did not go down all that bad.

I understand your emotions, but sport follows a different path. Maybe you will see another Jesse Owens and Dhyan Chand challenge autocratic rule. Sportsmen win their wars on the turf and then send a message, but do not back down. Think of this as an opportunity for world media and world bureaucrats to get a look in to Chinese atrocities without having to deal with the Chinese force. If one athlete can dare to stand up for Tibet in open on the top step wearing gold, maybe the world will change. At that point, China cannot resort to force as it would be under world media. I hope this happens... I know it is a long shot, but still...

@attitude
Mate, what you say is very much possible and is one very wonderful idea. The Olympic games is one ultra huge platform by which atheletes can stand up and protest against China’s oppression in Tibet and garner great sympathy for the Tibetan cause and who know’s even persuade China to give Tibet it’s Independence. Great point mate, i bow to you!!!

Who is asking such baseless question? Where were those people when China was bidding for the Olympics and when it won the bid to host Olympics. Criticising China is good because human life is in danger, boycotting major sports event would change nothing. keep the sports away from politics.

I do agree with human right champions that innocent people are being killed in Darfur, China’s dictatorship in Tibet, and increasing population level in Beijing air... BUT I am definitely not in favor of co-relating all these issues with the Olympic Games that is to be staged in China. Criticising China when it is preparing to host the mega event of Olympic is unnecessary and made out of complete prejudice.

If Nobel prize winner intellectuals and Hollywood star and part time social servants like Spielberg are dying to do something for the rights of innocent lives being damaged in Darfur and Tibet, they do it on a political ground. Using the medium of support for political cause is dangerous because sports bring nations together and they shouldn’t go against the nature of sports.

China actually deserves to host Olympics more than any other country including US too.

I just wanna say here for those who thinks China doesn’t deserve Olympics is highly misguided by politicians of western world. where are the other international groups and communities to create enough pressure on China to change its policy or to convince other countries to boycott Olympics?

Think about the athletes who wait for this sports event to make their dreams true. We should keep politics out of the Olympics for the sake of those athletes. They work so hard and supporters of Olympic boycott theory should not ruin their dreams due to political reasons. The Olympics are about sports only.

@ Pratyush,Pippo
Fine, agreed let the atheletes and the countries of the world not boycott the olympics. But why shouldn’t they highlight such burning issues like Tibet and Darfur to a wider audience so that the Tibetand get a voice? Don’t rockstars like Bono participate in concerts to highlight such causes? And why just sports, music also brings people together. So will it be correct to say that we shouldn’t have music concerts to aid and create global awareness about Darfur or Iraq or even the global warming issue? Why should we let the Tibetans suffer the Chinese oppression without a voice just to hold the Olympic games? And are the Olympic games more important than the suffering of the million of helpless people?

Calling to boycott Olympics is bad. Other countries should respect China's policy of not to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries. China is sleeping giant and it’s economy is performing much better in comparison with several developed countries. Who talks about the population and smog in Beijing should disclose what they have done to stop global warming. 300 million Chinese people are still living in poverty and the country boosting its economic growth to change the lives of people living below poverty line. Don't disturb China, it won't be good for the world.

A correction in the first sentence of my comment- ”increasing ’pollution’ level in Beijing air...”

Just like the thousands of atheletes work so hard to participate in the Olympics, millions of people around the world suffer every single day under autocratic barbaric regime’s. Don’t they need our support? So, what is so wrong in using the Olympics to get the message across and highlighting peoples’ suffering. By the way, even countries suffering oppression also participate in the Olympics and they have a right to express themselves, be it the Olympics or for that matter anywhere other event of global magnitude.

When the World Cup of Cricket was held in Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe was co-host nation) No one from Hollywood came forward to say anything, Nobel prize winners were sleeping at that time. What happened to them all of a sudden. Did the USSR leave Afghanistan when several countries boycotted the Olympics in 1980?

@Jayprasanth, Jajo
Ok, let the human right champions stage the protest to boycott China Olympics and we will see what happened finally to the people on Sudan and Tibet...just as it happened in Afghanistan in 1980..

@pratyush
Fine, boycott not too happening.
But how about atheletes highlighting issues and forcing the Chinese government to sit down and talk and be accountable for it’s lapses???
Is that too much to ask for?
Killing innocent people just cannot and should not go unchallenged.

All in one line - Keep political, social and environmental issues away from sports because sports is the sole medium that bring nations of all continent together peacefully at single platform.’

Add this to that statement-All nation’s coming together for the Olympics in a Country that cares a damn for not only it’s own people but also oppresses other countries including Tibet and India. The country where the Olympic’s will be held might not even hesitate to brutally shoot down anyone who opposes it’s policies. But still we will have sporting events and ”COME TOGETHER” and play games. Pun very intended.

You are free to name a single country in the world, which can host Olympics, that is ideal and never did wrong to anyone in the past...

tibet

Hmmm..so, you think Tibet can host Olympics :-)

Mate, it’s not about whether Tibet can host the Olympics or not. It is about Tibet being a country that hasn’t wronged other countries and hasn’t oppressed other countries. Sorry if you couldn’t catch the purport of that reply. Get the Pun? Now, everybody knows the kind ofinfrastructure a country needs to host an olympics. Infrastructure alone in not required to host an Olympics. There is something called accountability and humane principles.

I repeat the comment here - ’You are free to name a single country in the world, which can host Olympics, that is ideal and never did wrong to anyone in the past...

And you answered Tibet..thats why I couldn’t catch the purport of that reply, I still didn’t..

Maybe New Zealand. I had to really think a bit to come up with that and i know i might look very dumb if someone around here come up with something to counter me on that. But having said that, now please don’t tell me that they had a couple of squabble’s here and there, so they become bad countries. What China is like, is something no country should try and emulate. And i won’t go too much into narrating the Chinese government’s various misdeeds.

And if you still feel that the Chinese should host the Olympics, okie let them but even now i stand by my statement of denouncing China’s barbaric acts not only now, but even in the not so distant past and by arguing for China, you are just trying o justify the Chinese government’s horrific mistake’s. And there are a number of other countries that are more eligible than China(on the human rights and civility) front which can host the Olympics.

Target other sport events too for the same cause where China involves...You can target US, UK for killing innocent lives in Iraq, Pakistan for killing innocent people in India and India also for killing Kashmiris (as Pakistan says because we easily believe what other says to China)..target each sport events involving these countries.

One day you kill the word - SPORTS.

I really fail to understand why you are trying to shield China Pratyush Bhai. Ofcourse i do write agianst the U.S against their atrocities in Iraq. But the difference between the US and China is the US atleast has public opinion and a democracy to which the US president is accountable to but that is not the case in ”communist” China. Furthermore, when you ask why the Olympics. Here is why. The fact remains that China, instead of shutting up and lying low atleast during this sensitive period, again tried to massacre Tibetans in the Tibetans own land earlier this month. And this is precisely what, that is causing all this hue and cry. So the Chinese government itself incited this situation. And to your line about me killing sports. I love sports but i strongly belive that human lives are more important than ”sports” because sports afterall are just games and the olympics too is one game, but on a much, much bigger scale with some very high stakes and honour. But in the end is not too different from the games you and i played when we were kid. It is a game afterall. And lives are more important than mere games.

I really fail to understand why you are trying to shield China, Pratyush Bhai. Ofcourse i do write against the U.S, against their atrocities in Iraq. But the difference between the US and China is that the US atleast has public opinion and a democracy to which the US president is accountable to but that is not the case in ”communist” China. Furthermore, when you ask why the Olympics. Here is why. The fact remains that China, instead of shutting up and lying low atleast during this sensitive period, again tried to massacre Tibetans in the Tibetans’ own land earlier this month. And this is precisely what, that is causing all this hue and cry. So, the Chinese government itself incited this situation. And to your line about me killing sports. I love sports but i strongly believe that human lives are more important than ”sports” because sports after-all are just games and the olympics too is one game, but on a much, much bigger scale with some very high stakes and honour. But in the end is not too different from the games you and i played when we were kids. It is a game afterall. And lives are more important than mere games.

Thanks to everyone for their comments. You make some good points, Attitude. Hopefully some of those athletes will make a statement.

I still hold to my belief that China does not deserve to host the Olympics and I think I my reasons are pretty clear.

No, most countries in the world are not above reproach, however those nations which oppress their people, which take away their basic human rights... countries whose people live in fear, which subjugate women, they do NOT deserve to be rewarded in that way. Yes, it would be nice to separate sports from politics... it would also be nice to separate religion from politics... in a perfect world, but we do not live in a perfect world.

Bullies need to know they can’t bully.

It is a privilege for China to host the Olympics. This is a door for Beijing to open its country to the world. Who knows after the Olympics, more negotiations and bilateral talks can be addressed and its officials will take a time out to review its existing policies and problems.

This is a transition for China to create a more harmonious relationship around the globe. China is a superpower nation and can contribute to the world’s progress if it will be given a chance.

I hope you are right,Maynard, however I wouldn’t hold my breath.

They have to want to change.. and so far i see no willingness to do that. Leopards do not change their spots.

If I found out something a couple of weeks back, then that is that Pratyush has great enth for sports. I still like you idea and totally agree with the fact that we need to keep sports away from other nonsense. But on this one though, I’m not suggesting to link sports with politics, but let human strife be magnified o the grandest stage of them all. Boycott is rubbish and it should never happen as i already mentioned that sportsmen don’t work that way. But what wrong does it do when an Olympic champion campaigns for the cause of humanity.

We all remember Owens a lot more fondly than most others who won more medals at a single Olympics as he chose to stand up for what was right. We respect Ali more than most other fighters not just for his skills, but for how he stood up against a white America years ago. As far as your question of ’Why only Olympics?’. You know the answer... Media Attention. A country that has done no wrong and can host Olympics, you ask- Switzerland. I always read they were neutral... Kidding.

Hope the games go on well and the focus is back on the athletes once it all starts. Sports is not about politics, but human emotions are a integral part of it. I just said that I hope one of those athletes who wins a gold celebrates with a flag of Tibet in that moment of joy. That should be quite a picture. I bet it will hit the headlines. Till then... Don’t hate the player and don’t hate the games too.

I tell you how to express emotions in support of innocent lives being damaged due to China’s policies even when taking part in the Olympics-

# Ask all the athletes to use black ribbon or small flags of Tibet and Sudan till the last day of the event. Let billions of the people of world see the kind of support to the citizens of Tibet and Sudan.

# Ask all the winners of each game in Olympics not to take gold - silver - bronze - medals despite winning the event in the support of innocent people being killed by China.

# Ask every participating country to invite one Tibetan individual in the team just to show their support to Tibet on the first day celebration of Olympics.

# Ask all the winners of the game to visit Tibet before the Olympics and after the Olympics.

Boycotting any event is the worst kind of protest, let Tibetans and human right champions show their influence on other countries and let other countries show their support to Tibetan in open.

Exactly right... All of them are ways of protesting and that is exactly what i have been saying too. I never asked for a boycott. Anyway, it is interesting how only South-East Asians are the ones who are so interested in this. I do not see any comments from Europe, US or even Chinese... hmmmm... Where are the French?

@pratush@attitude
I agree with you mates. Even i realised the boycott is not too happening. So the atheletes doing their bit to empathise with not only the Tibetan cause, but even the Darfur conflict, etc. Maybe that will be a viable and a fitting solution to this debate we’ve had here since yesterday. But i still don’t agree with anyone who might say that sports shouldn’t be involved at all, because i don’t see a bigger opportunity than the Olympics to take advantage of and highlight China’s follies.

Idea of not participating in mega sports event is a personal agenda of some groups or individuals. Where were they when the name of China appeared as host nation of Olympics 2008? Stop using sports for political cause.

This debate here is disheartening and I thought that people still loved the idea of peace and non-voilence, but i guess i was wrong.

Its not linking politics to sports when one says that stop killing people in Tibet, China could have acted bit responsibly over this issue but instead they started killing tibetian’s who were standing for their rights.

”It is a privilege for China to host the Olympics. This is a door for Beijing to open its country to the world.”

This a door for Beijing to open it’s country to the world and shut the doors down on Tibetian’s for their own country.

Unbelieveable thing is that except 2-3 ppl here no one respects life atleast when it’s not of your country mates. Had it been a case of China taking over a small part of US then things wld have been completely different. But who cares for Tibetians, i guess no one.

Tibetian issue can be political for China but for Tibetians it is about their lives, their homes and about their lives. I can’t understand how that is political

Nishant..Don’t get disheartened..I do appreciate your views for Tibetans but look who is saying exactly what majority of people across the world are talking about here - China deserves to host Olympics, says Dalai Lama

Alex, first of all, China unlawfully invaded Tibet. And, frankly, if they were awarded their basic human rights, I don’t think anyone would be complaining. But this goes beyond Tibet. I would say, yes, the Chinese PEOPLE deserve the Olympics, but your government does NOT. A political system that believes shooting innocent people is okay, that spies on its own citizens so that they live in fear, that forces women to have abortions, that executes people without legal process due, does not deserve to host the Olympics.

Nishant, you are absolutely right. China had the opportunity to act in a civilized manner. Everyone has the right to peacefully protest, without being shot and killed or jailed. That goes for physical as well as written protests. It’s called ”free speech”. How many bloggers across the world are being jailed for exercising their right to free speech? Way too many, including China. China is one of many oppressive, restrictive regimes.

This post was not just about Tibet, but how the Chinese government rules its people.

LOL, Ian, to say that Kashmir has been invaded is truely insane and that too coming from China? China has invaded kashmir. And Kashmir is a peice of land that has been disputed since the partition of pakistan and india, terrorised by terrorists.

And Kashmir was always a part of India, unless the partition occured and chinese invaded our land. Comparing it to tibet is really stupid.

BTW Ian, i hope that you don’t think that Kashmir was a seperate country before Indai invaded it? do you? :D


On a more serious note, I know that you are Chinese and you have a right to defend your country, no matter if it’s wrong or right. But please read what people say before you comment, past is past, we are not saying that China must vacate Tibet (coz we all know that wont happen) but we expected China to bit more humane towards Tibetians. Thats all world is asking for, is it the most difficult thing to do?

@ian
Please check your facts before making such frivolous allegations. Kashmir has been a part of India for times immemorial and now to defend the dirty, brutal, heartless Chinese government, please don’t bring Kashmir into picture. And i have absolutely nothing against the Chinese people. All those here criticising the Chinese government are also trying to highlight the suffering of the general Chinese people too.

@devri
This is where commoners like us can come in and voice our views. This is our medium of choice and the only one really available and convenient for us. We were here right from the beginning always debating on different issues. It is you, who has suddenly come in from nowhere to question us which is totally unjustified. And we don’t need to have affliations and hidden agendas to try and speak up for the oppressed people. All we need is to be human with hearts and empathy for our fellow people.

If someone thinks Kashmir is similar to Tibet, then you need to really get your history right.
It is funny how people are all worked up when it comes to blind national pride and put aside all logic.

This is what happens when you give Veto powers to a few countries. Tibet should be a lesson. Not that the UN is a mighty all moving force, but it still is ridiculous that US finds it tough to act against China as it needs China to support it in its own madness.

I hope Tibet sees light finally and more importantly i hope we see a spectacular games. We love sports and we want to celebrate the occasion. Let nothing take the spotlight away from where it should be- ON THE ATHLETES.

Jayprashanth... thank you for your wise comments.. politics etc. aside...your statement ”All we need is to be human with hearts and empathy for our fellow people. ” says it all. Beautifully put!

The word OLYMPICS is in the headline and here we are discussing about disputed regions of the world and all about international politics....Today I heard George Fernandes (India’s former defence minister) was saying on a TV channel that he asked Indians to sabotage Olympic torch in India. He was not in fovour in the entry of the torch in India. He repeated his five-year-old statement - ’China is potential threat no. one for India’.

LHASA, Tibet (CWNews.com/LSN.ca) - China’s forced abortion, one-child policy has come under fire again, this time from Tibetans who are testifying to horrific human rights abuses at the hands of the Chinese, according to an August report in Jane magazine.

Tibetans are accusing China of intentionally trying to gut their population through a 20 year imposition of their one-child policy. According to media mogul Ted Turner’s UN Foundation (UNF), ”allegations of procedures forced on Tibetan women include infanticide, in which lethal chemicals are injected into a baby’s brain, forced abortion after nine months of pregnancy, abortion via electrical rods inserted through the vagina, rusty IUDs that may bring on tuberculosis and other diseases and IUDs left in the uterus for eight years instead of the recommended three.”

We print the following article, written by a Chinese professor of forensic medicine, not because we endorse the ideas it contains. Our motivation is the opposite: We have allowed Dr. Xiong Ping to vent his views in this publication precisely because we find them so starkly reprehensible. We have in the past carried stories about the character and consequences of China’s one-child policy. But no reportage, no editorializing of ours could possibly convey, the way that Dr. Xiong’s effusion does, the degree to which Communist Party-controlled discussions of population control in China are so utterly void of human sentiments, so lacking in any appreciation of human rights.

Dr. Xiong’s ”modest proposal” to breed better Chinese men (and women) is easily summarized. All women would be allowed two children. The first would be born naturally. But the state would insist-presumably by sex-selective abortion-that the majority of second children be boys. The reasons for this ”controlled disproportion,” as he calls it, is frankly eugenic in nature. His aim is to produce a population that is not only smaller, but of significantly ”higher quality” than that which now lives and breathes.

Such is Dr. Xiong’s state of mind that he considers his plan to be progressive, even liberal. After all, as he implies, his proposal would mean that the restrictive one-child policy would be relaxed and replaced with a two-child policy. It would mean the end of the forcible sterilization and abortion of the mentally and physically handicapped.

Yet it would replace these human rights violations with others, no less repugnant: The elimination of large numbers of female fetuses in utero by the state. The conscious denial of the possibility of marriage and family for a substantial percentage of the male population. State endorsement of the notion that the handicapped are somehow less than human and should be eliminated. And continued forced abortions and sterilizations for those who presume to violate the two-child policy.

There is only one point on which Dr. Xiong is to be congratulated, namely, his candor. For his manipulative view of human reproduction, as well as his dream of a race of supermen, is shared by many, both inside and outside of China.

The following is the text of an article which originally appeared in the Hong Kong Eastern Express on April 12, 1995. For more information, contact Bruce Gilley at The Eastern Express in Hong Kong, telephone 011-852-27071111, or fax 011-852-27071122.)


No one could accuse The Chinese of being squeamish about the things they eat - monkeys’ brains, owls’ eyes, bears’ paws and deep fried scorpions are all items on The menu. But most dishes revered as national favourites sound as harmless as boiled rice when compared to the latest pint de jour allegedly gaining favour in Shenzhen - human foetus.

Rumours that dead embryos were being used as dietary supplements started to spread early last year with reports that some doctors in Shenzhen hospitals were eating dead foetuses after carrying out abortions. The doctors allegedly defended their actions by saying the embryos were good for their skin and general health.

A trend was set and soon reports circulated that doctors in the city were promoting foetuses as a human tonic. Hospital cleaning women were seen fighting each other to take the treasured human remains home. Last month, reporters from EastWeek - a sister publication of Eastern Express - went to Shenzhen to see if the rumours could be substantiated. On March 7, a reporter entered the state-run Shenzhen Heath Centre for Women and Children feigning illness and asked a female doctor for a foetus. The doctor said the department was out of stock but to come again.

The next day the reporter returned at lunch time. The doctor eventually emerged from the operating theatre holding a fist size glass bottle stuffed with thumbsized foetuses.

She said: ”There are 10 foetuses here, all aborted this morning. You can take them. We are a state hospital and don’t charge anything.

”Normally, we doctors take them home to eat - all free. Since you don’t look well, you can take them.”

Not every state hospital is as generous with its dead embryos as the Health Centre for Women and Children. At the Shenzhen People’s Hospital, for example, the reporter was in for a surprise.

When a Ms. Yang, the head nurse, was asked for foetuses, she looked anxious and asked other staff to leave. After closing the door, she asked the undercover buyer in a low voice: ”Where did you (get to) know that we sell foetuses?”

The reporter answered: ”A doctor friend in Hong Kong told me.”

”Who? What is his/her name?”

The reporter was not prepared for this line of questioning and could not come up with a name. Yang told him that foetuses were only for sale within the hospital, and were not for public purchase. She added that some staff would, however, sell the foetuses on to Hong Kong buyers.

The reporter learned that the going rate for a foetus was $10 but when the merchandise was in short supply, the price could go up to $20. But these prices are pin money compared to those set by private clinics, which are said to make a fortune selling foetuses. One chap on Bong Men Lao Street charges $300 for one foetus. The person in charge of the clinic is a man in his 60’s. When he saw the ailing reporter, he offered to take an order for foetuses that had reached full-term and which, it is claimed, contain the best healing properties. When a female doctor named Yang - no relation - of Sin Hua clinic was asked whether foetuses were edible, she said emphatically: ”Of course they are. They are even better than placentas.

”They can make your skin smoother, your body stronger and are good for kidneys. When I was in an army hospital in Jiangti province, I often brought foetuses home. They were pink, like little mice, with hands and feet. Normally, I buy some pork to make soup (with the foetuses added). I know they are human beings, and (eating them) feels disgusting. But at that time, it was already very popular.”

A Mr. Cheng from Hong Kong claims he has been eating foetus soup for more than six months. To begin, the man, in his 40’s, would make the trip to Shenzhen frequently for business and was introduced to foetuses by friends. He says he met a number of professors and doctors in government hospitals who helped him buy the foetuses. ”At first, I felt uncomfortable, but doctors said the substances in foetuses could help cure my asthma. I started taking them and gradually, the asthma disappeared,” Cheng said.

Now, Cheng only eats foetuses occasionally to top up his treatment, but there was a time when he made regular cross border trips with the gruesome merchandise. ”Everytime [I made the trip], I carried a Thermos flask to Shenzhen and brought the foetuses back to Hong Kong to make soup. If they gave me 20 or 30 at a time, I put them in the refrigerator. I didn’t have the soup every day - it depended on the supply.

”Usually, I washed the foetuses clean, and added ginger, orange peel and pork to make soup. After taking it for a while, I felt a lot better and my asthma disappeared. I used to take placenta, but it was not so helpful.” When asked if he was concerned about the foetuses containing diseases, Cheng was dismissive. ”I bought them from government hospitals. They would check the pregnant women before doing the operations and only sell them to me if there was no problem. Also, I always boil them over high heat which kills any bacteria.” Although Cheng has overcome any squeamishness over eating foetus soup, he says he draw the line at consuming whole dead embryos. He also refrains from telling people of his grisly dietary habits.

Zou Qin, 32, a woman from Hubei with the fine skin of a someone several years younger, attributes her well preserved looks to a diet of foetuses. As a doctor at the Lun Hu Clinic, Zou has carried out abortions on several hundred patients. She believes foetuses are highly nutritious and claims to have eaten more than 100 in the past six months. She pulls out a foetus specimen before a reporter and explains the selection criteria. ”People normally prefer (foetuses of) young women, and even better, the first baby and a male.” She adds: ”They are wasted if we don’t eat them. The women who receive abortions here don’t want the foetuses. Also, the foetuses are already dead [when we eat them]. We don’t carry out abortions just to eat the foetuses.

Xi Chang Market. December 1997
Xichang, known as China’s ”space city” and capital city of the Liangshan Yi Nationality Autonomous Prefecture in southwestern Sichuan Province, People’s Republic of China.

These are pictures of a market area on an embankment above the river in the old part of town. At the front there are puppies and kittens for sale as pets and further back are about 100 dogs waiting to be selected by customers. When selected the vendor puts the dog in a sack and weighs it. After a price is agreed the purchaser kills his dog and butchers it (sometimes in that order, more often in the reverse order). Business was brisk with a dog being killed about ever 5 minutes. There seemed to be two techniques. The one man technique was to hit the dog twice on the head with a wooden plank which dazed it sufficiently to make it safe for him to plunge his knife into its jugular without getting bitten. He then held the dog up by the tail until it bled into unconsciousness - he would then proceed to butcher it with the dog coming in and out of consciousness. With the two man technique, one man held the dog up by her tail while the other pulled the neck back with a wire round the dog’s neck. The first man was then able to reach down, again without fear of being bitten, to sever the jugular vein. Since the dog was in no way stunned, she struggled and howled and urinated until passing out. The watching dogs were also shaking and howling. The dog was flung onto her back and the butchering began - consciousness returned on lying flat but she was too weak then to struggle much. One of the men laid down his knife and put his mouth to the inside of the dog’s hind leg.

CNSNews.com
Thursday, Feb. 15, 2001

LONDON - Shocking pictures of an apparent victim of China’s ”one-child policy” - a newborn baby girl lying dead in a gutter, ignored by passers-by - have prompted shock and revulsion.

The pictures, published in a British newspaper Wednesday, come at a time British government officials are holding talks in China over human rights issues.

The U.S. administration is also this week expected to decide on whether to support an annual U.N. resolution condemning China’s human rights record. Members of the Senate Tuesday introduced a resolution urging President Bush to ”take the lead” in an international censure of Beijing.

The photographs were taken by a horrified visitor and smuggled out of China after police questioned her for photographing the dead child, and confiscated films.

The woman said the baby’s naked body, spotted lying alongside a road in a small town in Hunan province, was still warm - she had clearly been dumped and had just died.

Many passers-by on their way to work ignored the child, the Mirror quoted her as saying, while some stopped to look, then walked on. Pictures showed life going on as normal, until an elderly man eventually put the tiny body into a box and carried it away.

The woman said she called the police, who took more than three hours to arrive. When they did, they questioned her for an hour, checked her identification papers, and took all her film, except for one she managed to hide.

China’s population is expected to increase from 1.26 billion at the end of 1999 to 1.6 billion in 2050.

Abortion Used Against Women

Under a ”one-child policy,” introduced in 1979 to help slow down the galloping population growth rate, parents are routinely sterilized and face large fines if they have more than one child.

The government claims it has successfully prevented 250 million births since it was introduced.

But it has also been estimated that the policy has resulted in there being 60 million more males in China than females. Many parents, aware they will only have one child to look after them in their old age, want that child to be a son, say human rights campaigners.

As a result, parents who can afford it have their child screened in the womb, then abort girls. Those who give birth to girls may abandon them or leave them to die.

Determination of gender during ultrasound scans has been officially banned for years, but the practice continues. One 1999 report on the International Planned Parenthood Federation Web site says that between 500,000 and 750,000 unborn Chinese girls are aborted every year after sex screening.

Last August, Western newspapers reported a case in which ”family planning” officials had killed an unauthorized baby in front of its parents.

The Huang family already had three children when the mother fell pregnant again, according to the reports. Having botched an attempt to induce an abortion, ”family planning” officials then ordered the father to kill the newborn baby, whom he instead tried to hide. Eventually they found the baby boy and drowned him in a rice paddy, in front of the parents.

”China’s population-control policies allow petty bureaucrats across the country a free hand to ruin people’s lives as they extort bribes and gifts and dispense life-or-death decisions,” one London newspaper reported at the time.

After a public outcry, authorities reportedly arrested three ”family planning” officials.

According to information provided by the Chinese Embassy in Britain, the government views the policy as benefiting the whole of society. It claims that ”forced abortion and sterilization are strictly prohibited by the Chinese laws and offenders will be punished according to law.”

A Taiwan newspaper in December quoted the director of China’s state ”family planning” commission as admitting that the policy has led to forced abortions, sex-selective abortions, as well as infanticide and the abandonment of newborn girls.

But China would go on implementing the policy, he said, while continuing to oppose ”coercion” and ”induced abortion.”

The policy has been relaxed in some areas, and some parents are allowed to have a second child, in return for paying a fee, often more than a year’s wages.

Desensitized

Britain’s largest pro-life organization, Life, said that while the pictures were deeply upsetting, it was grateful to the photographer for getting out images depicting so vividly ”the depths that China’s so-called family-planning policy has sunk to.”

Life spokesperson Nuala Scarisbrick commented on the obvious indifference of passers-by to the abandoned baby.

”Evidently in China they have become as desensitized to the horror of culling newborn children as we in the Western world have become to destroying preborn children.”

Scarisbrick berated the British government for funding international ”family planning” agencies that promote abortion. She called on the government to follow President Bush’s example and stop using taxpayers’ money to support these agencies.

The human rights organization Amnesty International said while it did not have a position of the ”one-child policy” itself, it was opposed to the resulting human rights violations.

”We believe the Chinese government should take action to ensure that its family planning officials do not commit human rights violations by making women have abortions, even physically detaining them to have abortions,” said Amnesty’s Isabel Kelly.

Gary Streeter, international development spokesman for the opposition Conservative Party, said Wednesday it was essential that Britain contributed in no way to ”this appalling practice” and lobbied Beijing to ensure that it ends.

In a letter to International Development Secretary Clare Short, Streeter called for an extensive review of all British-funded Chinese government and nongovernmental bodies ”to ensure that no British taxpayers’ money is directly or indirectly supporting the one-child policy.”

A spokesman for Short said in response to queries that the department ”does not fund population control in China or anywhere else.”

Ian, I find it hillarious that you compare a country like India which is far from perfect but still the world’s largest multiethnic, pluralistic democracy to the communist, dogmatic, repressed nation of China.

How can you compare the fight in Kashmir against militant islamic extremeism to the Chinese that took T
IBET by FORCE!

Descriptions of cannibalism appear repeatedly in Chinese history, in numerous historical writings and literature, and most recently during the Cultural Revolution in the testimony of Cheng I, the Chinese film producer and writer who fled to Hong Kong in the spring of 1992 and sought asylum in the United States in 1993.

In his book Shokujin Enseki - Massatsu sareta Chugoku Gendaishi (Cannibal Banquet - Modern Chinese History Erased) (Tokyo: Kodansha Kappa Books, 1993), Cheng I describes in detail how, as a young Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution in south China, he witnessed hundreds of children, women and men classified as Counter-revolutionaries killed and eaten by the perpetrators, with such comments as ”human meat tastes better when broiled than boiled.”

In the recently published collection of studies Chugoku Igaishi, historian Okada Hidehiro quotes passages from the classic Ming dynasty (1368-1644) novel Water Margin, also known as All Men Are Created Equal, describing a group of villains who sell human meat as beef, as well as other characters who eat human flesh.

According to Okada, King Chu of the Ying dynasty (11th century BC) is alleged to have made salted meat and dried meat out of two feudal lords, as well as soup out of son of King Wen of Zhou, which he made King Wen eat.

During times of severe famine, a frequent occurence in China, cannibalism became marked.

The Great Historian Sima Qian records that in 594BC people ate each other’s children and the dead in the walled city of Song, when it was beseiged by the Chu army.

In the 9th century, towards the end of the Tang dynasty (618-906) a Persian trader reported that human flesh was being sold openly in markets.

During the 12th century, it was said that 15 jin (1 jin = 1.323lbs) of dried meat was obtained from one human being.

Towards the turbulent close of Yuan dynasty (1276-1368), it was said that children’s meat was best, then women’s, and the least were men’s.

Cannibalism was practiced not merely for sheer survival, but also as a means of revenge. Lu Xun (1881-1936) recounts such a case in his work ...., in which a revolutionary was killed in 1907 and his heart eaten by an enemy. This incident may have also inspired Lu Xun to write his celebrated novel Diary of a Madman (1918), in which cannibalism sevres as an analogy for the decrepit state of modern China.

The Chinese also believed medicinal benefits could be obtained from eating human flesh, and the benefits are described in their 16th century medicinal book Bencao Ganmu.

Readers know that I am no fan of the Congress, but let me give credit where credit is due — New Delhi handled the recent crisis in Myanmar perfectly.
Had the boos and hisses of the ’human rights’ lobby carried the day, where would we have been today? The military would still be ruling the roost in Yangon and the monks would still be silenced; the sole difference would be that India would no longer have access to Myanmar’s natural resources nor to its aid against secessionists in India’s own north-east.

To put it bluntly, a foreign policy run exclusively on ’morality’ is a castle made of cards. The sole ’morality’ I would recognise is to see how, if at all, it benefits India. So, kudos to External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee who held the fort for those few troubled weeks.

Sadly, that same sense of realism is missing today. I refer to the ongoing Tibetan crisis and the enforced exile of Taslima Nasreen [Images], events that are linked at some level. Both enshrine the principle of surrendering without a thought of how it might affect India in the long run.

Jawaharlal Nehru’s short-sightedness ensured that Communist China won control of the Tibetan plateau without India making any move to protect its interests. The stupidity of this was recognised even at that early date; Sardar Patel sent a letter warning Nehru that India would pay a price for welcoming a foreign power to its eastern border. (Sadly, the Sardar was already on his deathbed by then; he would pass away within weeks of that missive.)

There is no way at this late date to protect the freedom of Tibet [Images], the great Pandit Nehru certainly ensured that! But does that mean that we have to crush the Tibetans within India to save the Chinese a little embarrassment? Why should Delhi do Beijing’s [Images] dirty work?

China is no friend of India’s, it never was and never shall be. We may not be enemies today, we are certainly competitors. China is still in illegal occupation of thousands of square miles of Indian territory, including a small slice of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir that was negotiated away by Islamabad.

Why then is the Indian foreign-policy establishment so reluctant to confront reality? Why should the authorities in Delhi send its police to batter Tibetans who want to protest outside the Chinese embassy? Why should Delhi be so uneasy when the issue of Taiwan comes up? Is there any reason why we should be so afraid to ’embarrass’ China? If so, can anyone think of a single occasion in living memory when China tried to aid India?

The enforced expulsion of Taslima Nasreen is yet another instance of utterly senseless policy making. What was the issue at stake here, that a bunch of hitherto unknown people should dictate to the Indian government? Has anybody thought of the long-term consequences of this stupidity?

There is a long history to both these instances of cravenness; they stem both from the United Progressive Alliance regime’s desire to placate the Left and, historically, the legacy of Nehru.

Please remember that Taslima Nasreen was living quietly in Kolkata for about a decade. But a General Election is in the air, the Left Front has been shaken by Nandigram [Images] and Singur, and Muslims make up roughly a quarter of the electorate in West Bengal. So should we really be surprised that some obscure elements raked up the issue of her sanctuary so successfully that ten years of peaceful existence were wiped out in mere days?

Let us also grant that this pandering to Muslim extremism is well in keeping with the Nehruvian tradition. It was after all India’s first prime minister who indignantly responded that he was more worried about ’Hindu communalism’ when asked to respond to the rising tide of Muslim separatism within ten years of Independence. (How anyone who had lived through Partition could come up with that response is something I still can’t comprehend!)

The Communist Party of India-Marxist has also, traditionally, had a hard time in criticising China. Its leaders wriggle miserably when asked outright if they condemn the Chinese invasion of 1962, so let us not be amazed that they can’t bring themselves to disown Beijing’s brutality in Tibet today.

It is utter bilge to spout away about ’non-interference’ in the affairs of neighbouring nations. Didn’t the CPI-M actively interfere just last year in Nepal, loudly shouting about ’atrocities’ by the Royal Nepal Army, then procuring a place for its Marxist comrades at the Cabinet table in Kathmandu?

Did India benefit from having a bunch of unreformed Maoists in power in Nepal? Didn’t it increase the danger of Naxalites finding sanctuary across the border?

All these Himalayan idiocies too find echoes in the Nehru era. Nehru swallowed Chinese claims to Tibet without a murmur. Anyone who actually bothers to study history knows that Chinese sovereignty over Tibet was a fiction.

The conceit of Chinese ’control’ over Tibetan affairs dates back to Francis Younghusband’s (external link) expedition to Lhasa, one of Lord Curzon’s little ideas. When the then Dalai Lama [Images] fled before Younghusband reached the capital, an agreement was reached under the imprimatur of the Chinese envoy in Tibet — a bit like the British High Commissioner making decisions concerning India in the Indian prime minister’s absence.

Angry Tibetans thought so little of the Chinese claims that they tore down the banners announcing the deal from the walls of Lhasa.

Nehru might have claimed that he was bringing a fresh view to Indian foreign policy, in reality he did little more than swallow a few lies concocted by Curzon’s men. (Lies so blatant that even the then British government in London [Images] was embarrassed by the whole tawdry affair!)

I have absolutely no problem with India’s conducting business with the generals in Myanmar because that is how India’s interests were best served. But how does India benefit from cracking Tibetan skulls outside the Chinese embassy, and how does it benefit from pandering to extremists by exiling Taslima Nasreen?

A legacy of Nehruvian folly has combined with the electoral needs of the Left Front to unnerve the UPA regime. When will the bill for these acts of cowardice come due? Or don’t the ministers in the Manmohan Singh [Images] government care any longer?