Standard-Times (New Bedford, Ma): Bush's meeting with Chinese should focus on human rights

By James DeArruda

President Bush is to meet Friday at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, with Chinese Communist Party Chairman Jiang Zemin.

Absent from the reporting by The Associated Press and CNN on presumed topics of discussion is the issue of human rights.

President Bush must raise this issue. For the good of the people of both the United States and the People's Republic of China, he must not overlook the Chinese government's treatment of its citizens, in particular the persecution, imprisonment, torture and murder of practitioners of Falun Gong, the group of Chinese citizens with which I am most familiar. I have been a practitioner of Falun Gong since May 2001.

Falun Gong has been under official persecution in China since 1999, when the government counted 70 million practitioners, more than the membership of the Chinese Communist Party.

Since Chairman Jiang outlawed the practice, Falun Gong has documented 503 deaths and the imprisonment of thousands, according to Falun Gong's ClearWisdom.net Web site.

Also called Falun Dafa, it is a system of exercise and meditation aimed at improving practitioners' physical, mental and spiritual state. It is centered on the principle of truthfulness-compassion-forbearance, which is taught as being the fundamental characteristic of the universe. The practice emphasizes not only physical cultivation, but also cultivation of one's moral character in daily life according to higher principles taught by Li Hongzhi, Falun Dafa's founder. Mr. Li, a Chinese native, lives in New York.

Why would the Chinese government target this group of people who have no political aspirations, who seek only to be better and healthier members of society? The perception of a threat is seen partly in the numbers, and partly in the pervasiveness. According to a Chinese practitioner who lives in Rhode Island, Falun Gong practitioners in government posts, by their striving to live upright lives, [...] expose the unscrupulously gained wealth and power that are the status quo there.

I wish President Bush would recognize that profit from an association with the leader of any such regime can bring nothing good. "Wealth without virtue will harm all sentient beings," to quote Mr. Li.

I want my country's business dealings to be honest, just and benign. I want my country to refuse to be a party to deals that oppose those qualities because our association with them makes us guilty.

I say that we as individuals can make honest deals with honest people and let our elected representatives know that that is what we expect of them. That will bring propriety back to our country, and influence others to move in the same direction.

http://www.s-t.com/daily/10-02/10-23-02/a12op090.htm

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