China Hot, Governmet Not
By Leshai Lemish
Contributing Writer

Last Sunday, many of us enjoyed a celebration of Chinese food and culture. From the compass to pasta and paper, from martial arts to calligraphy and herbal medicine, the past several thousand years of Chinese culture have contributed greatly to our world's civilization. As one who plans on majoring in Chinese Studies and loves learning the Chinese language, I have to wonder: Why do the Chinese people keep getting stuck with these incompetent leaders?

Well, we know they don't choose them: these hooligans always take over by force.

Half a century ago, Chairman Mao led his people into a frenzy of melting any metal they could find while burning all their furniture in order to make useless clumps of steel. When you hear Communist Party officials say that China is getting better nowadays, they mean in comparison to the disaster the Party first brought upon the country.

While China is getting better in many ways, today's President Jiang Zemin can outdo all the ogres in China's past, as well as any of today's world leaders. Recent media reports have indicated that he will not step down as planned, but will, rather, clench his teeth around his decaying power.

Jiang is not, as he purports, interested in the good of the Chinese people. He just wants to be in control. In order to satisfy his over-zealous, envious character, he will kill or torture anyone. Put simply, his is not a Mandate of Heaven, it is a Mandate of Hell.

My heart goes out to the Chinese people. When I lived in Israel, I knew my government was corrupt and up to no good, but at least I could vent about it, go into the streets and protest about it, and, most fundamentally, know about it. But I have heard Chinese people say things like: "What do you mean? No one was killed in Tiananmen Square in 1989." Or: "What persecution? That's just something you guys made up." The difference is right there. And we are not talking about five million people, as in Israel, but 1.3 billion.

Facing the greatest spread of HIV in the world, Jiang imprisons those who try to raise awareness about it; facing an alarming unemployment rate, Jiang convinces investors that the time for investment is now, and that they will get their millions of dollars back as soon as he is done using them for building weapons of mass destruction, concocting new torture contraptions, and buying the rights to read our Yahoo e-mails. Jiang boasts that everything imported from China is so cheap. Is he not aware that we know that half of the products are made in forced labor camps and the other half by means of child labor?

For his persecution of Christians, Tibetans, Falun Gong practitioners, and advocates of democracy, Jiang has earned Amnesty International's rare title of "Human Rights Scoundrel." And he plans on coming to the United States this month. I plan to be a part of the welcoming committee. On October 18, the Claremont Colleges' Students for Free Tibet, Falun Gong Club, and Amnesty International will join hands with other groups from Southern California-such as women's rights groups, AIDS awareness groups, and Chinese Student Associations to send a message to Jiang at downtown L.A.'s Chinese Consulate. The message is this: "We love China. Do you?"

Chinese culture is often correct in identifying the different stages a dynasty goes through after it has lost the Mandate of Heaven. China's present floods, sandstorms, and earthquakes serve perfectly to complete the tale of how a vicious ruler will bring about his own fall.