Last month, scores of Vietnamese-Americans stormed the Irvine City Council meeting after there was a proposal to add new friendship cities in Vietnam, China and Pakistan. Republicans on the Irvine City Council and Supervisor Janet Nguyen chided Larry Agran for even considering the idea given the massive human right violations and lack of freedom in Vietnam.
The Orange County Business Journal reports that Republican Congressman Ed Royce will be hosting the Chinese Ambassador at a lunchon at the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda on May 27. From the story, which is short and sweet:
Cui Tiankai will visit Orange County from his post in Washington, D.C., for the first time.
Tiankai, along with U.S. Representative Ed Royce, are scheduled to speak at a luncheon May 27 on U.S.-China relations in honor of President Nixon’s 1972 visit to China.
Will Nguyen and other Republicans chide Royce for honoring China at the Nixon Library of all places? To save Jon Fleischman the trouble, we’ll use the same Amnesty International web page used to hammer home that Pakistan and Vietnam were undeserving of friendship city status. From that page, this:
“Amnesty International has documented widespread human rights violations in China. An estimated 500,000 people are currently enduring punitive detention without charge or trial, and millions are unable to access the legal system to seek redress for their grievances. Harassment, surveillance, house arrest, and imprisonment of human rights defenders are on the rise, and censorship of the Internet and other media has grown. Repression of minority groups, including Tibetans, Uighurs and Mongolians, and of Falun Gong practitioners and Christians who practice their religion outside state-sanctioned churches continues. While the recent reinstatement of Supreme People’s Court review of death penalty cases may result in lower numbers of executions, China remains the leading executioner in the world.”
Jon can read this report too on Human Rights violations from 2013.
If Royce supports having the “ChiComms,” as OC Republicans have referred to them before, does Royce endorse this sort of repression? He must after all. Will Allan Bartlett tweet about Royce earning his Communist Party card? Wonder if Young Kim will show up and express outrage that Royce is promoting a Communist regime? She should, given what the Chinese army and North Korean army inflicting on South Korea for years. Perhaps she supports it herself. I’m just asking.
Now, we have no problem with hosting the Chinese Ambassador anywhere in Orange County. Break bread, share a meal, discuss how we can improve relations between our nations, how concessions on human rights by China can aid greater economic relationships with the West. You cannot create change with a foreign government if you don’t communicate with them in a meaningful conversation. But we’re being consistent on this. OC’s Republicans, not so much.
There’s no story here, – no controversy.
Congressman Ed Royce is the Chairman for the House Foreign Relations Committee, and is meeting with China’s Ambassador to the United States.
Dan, somewhere in spinning the issues you lost track of the key issue in the local China controversy. Despite the shortcomings of China as a nation, none of us had a problem establishing a Sister City relationship with them. In fact, I was a member of the original delegation to go to Bejing to discuss the possibilities and found the Chinese to be very hospitable. There were a few existing conditions which were not resolved which led to the Sister City arrrangement going by the wayside. The second visit years later resulted in the famous Beth Krom under the table deal with the Chinese who insisted on the “One China Policy” and our dumping long time Sister City in Taiwan. Bottom line and I am only guessing is, if the City Manager comes back with a report that the new Friendship City proposal has no “One China Policy,” I believe the Council will approve it.