Ahern takes mild view of Chinese dictatorship

IN your report headlined ‘Ireland may boycott Olympic ceremony’ (March 29), Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern says Ireland is “one of the strong supporters of the one-China policy and we do so on the basis that China deals with situations in a democratic and fair way on their own territory”.

How can Mr Ahern consider China a country that runs things in a democratic way when the base level of democracy has not been fulfilled?

President Hu Jintao was selected, not elected, and governance still belongs to the Chinese Communist Party in a single party system.

While as far as we know the current protesters over Tibet are in better conditions than those from Tiananmen Square in 1989, it is not to say they are treated fairly, as Mr Ahern feels assured.

As an international relations student, I am taught that democracy goes hand in hand with negotiation, cooperation and liberties in many walks of life.

There is huge censorship ongoing in China’s state-run media.

If China is democratic and fair, why then does it reserve “the right to control all organised religion”, according to Howard French of the New York Times.

As he also argues it was not entirely “fair” to kidnap the boy who has the power to select the next Dalai Lama (who was just six at the time), and who has “never been seen since”, although China has replaced him with a child on whom it can keep close watch and subsequently control his choice as the Dalai Lama’s successor when the time comes.

As regards the Dalai Lama himself, China has two policies towards him — to wait until he dies so they can influence the next leader and meanwhile to slander him in the hope of turning propaganda in their favour. Indeed, the Chinese Communist Party’s ruler in Tibet, Zhang Qingli, has called him a “jackal in monk’s robes, a monster with a human face” (Newsweek, March 31). While we may see similar mudslinging in Irish politics from time to time, it is not a hallmark of democracy and fairness.

On Taiwan, the EU has called it a sovereign state because it has free elections of the type unknown in China now, and the USA backs it to the point where it has a covert foreign policy that offers protection in the event of military invasion by China.

If such major players in world politics can see the situation as such, surely Ireland, with a similar colonial history, should re-examine its viewpoint on China being ‘one country’.

Fiona Ralph

Kennedy Gardens

St Andrews

Fife KY169DL

Scotland