April 21, 2006
When a protester heckled Chinese President Hu Jintao yesterday, the
television feed back to China was immediately blacked out - and Chinese exiles
weren't surprised.
CNN International said its signal to China was interrupted twice: when Falun
Gong activist Wenyi Wang was shouting, and later when the network briefly
reported on the incident.
Ironically, Wang's outburst - and the censorship of the TV feed - came
shortly after President Bush urged Hu to allow "the Chinese people the
freedom to assemble, to speak freely and to worship."
Chinese people here weren't surprised.
"Controlling the news is nothing new" to the Chinese, said Peter
Kwong, professor of Asian-American studies at Hunter College. "China has
been doing this kind of thing before."
"It's not surprising," said Li-Zhi Fang, a professor of physics at
the University of Arizona who was granted asylum during the 1989 Tiananmen
Square protests. "Chinese TV is controlled by the party. . . . All the TV
and newspaper is their tool."
Even the Internet isn't free, they say. Search engine Google has agreed to
edit its content on its Chinese Web sites in order to continue to do business
with Beijing.
Chinese New Yorkers said Wang was courageous to confront Hu about China's
heavy-handed tactics with Falun Gong members.
"They [the Chinese government] are lying to the people," said Anna
Tam, 28, a nurse at NYU Medical Center. "To me it breaks my heart. Being a
Chinese-American, I would love to go there."
Not all were in agreement with Wang because the Falun Gong movement has
received a mixed reception among Chinese here.
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