The Olympic torch passes through San Francisco, and Chinese-Americans turn out en masse in support of Chinese brutality and the cultural genocide being committed methodically against the Tibetan people.

When I was teaching in Shanxi, Taiyuan, I had dinner at the house of a headmaster at a local school for Tibetan kids. Tibetan kids? Why are Tibetan kids being schooled so far away from Tibet?

I was told the kids are taken from their parents at about age six, brought up as Han Chinese, required to speak only Mandarin, completely cleansed of their Tibetan cultural identity, and then returned to their parents at age eighteen.

Americans condemn this as cultural genocide. Oh, except for Chinese-Americans. They condemn citicism of China’s cultural genocide against the Tibetan people as “anti-Chinese.”

Anyone recall the American surveillance plane that was attacked in international waters by Chinese fighter jets? It was forced down on Hainan Island, an uproar ensued. Against international law, and the law of human decency, the American crew was paraded on Chinese television for propaganda purposes (the captain, I am proud to report, who graduated from the same high school I did, acquitted himself honorably).

One of the San Francisco papers did a poll asking some blunt question along the lines of, “Do you think Beijing should release the American crew?” Something like 99% of all respondents answered “yes.” Except Chinese-Americans. Including American-born Chinese, they lined up behind Beijiing.

Chinese-Americans need to grow up and decide whether they are, indeed, American. If they can’t, if they are incapable of participating in the American story, if they are incapable of relinquishing allegiance to the old country, then Americans need to grow up and institute an immigration time-out until a more sober-minded and responsible generation comes to power.

Tags:   China · Chinese-Americans · Olympics · TibetNo Comments