Sir, - John F. Fallon (March 15th), writing about human rights in China, claimed: "Over the past 20 years under the late President [sic] Deng, economic and social progress has been remarkable, but . . . has not brought any corresponding demand for Western-style democracy." Just 10 years ago, unarmed students and workers demanded democracy, as well as an end to corruption and abuse of power. The Chinese Communist Party deployed tanks to suppress them on June 4th, 1989. Mr Fallon dishonours their memory.
The current Chinese leadership's continuing contempt for basic human rights is well documented. Muslims, Protestants and Catholics who seek to follow their consciences are imprisoned. Trade union leaders are arrested and sent to jail for opposing sweated labour in dangerous working conditions. Citizens who seek to comply with the law by registering a new political party also face jail sentences. The nation's most prominent dissidents are compelled to buy their freedom either by agreeing to abandon their campaigns or by going into exile abroad.
Mr Fallon asserts that Chinese citizens do not object to such gross violations of their human rights provided that the Chinese Communist Party can point to economic growth. He seems to think that prison labour and police beatings inflict less pain on the Chinese race than on his own. He is patronising and colonialist in arguing that democracy is a higher level of political development to which only the wealthiest and best-educated societies should aspire. It hard to accept his claim to have spent two years as a teacher in China when he failed to discover that China's citizens cherish freedom and dignity at least as much as those of any other nation. By the way, the late Deng Xiaoping was never President of China. Yours etc., Yeung Kwokkeung,
Mercer Street, Dublin 2.