Protester Screams At Chinese President
Washington Post Staff Writers


President Bush pressed China's visiting President Hu Jintao yesterday to open up markets, expand freedom and do more to curb nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea but came away with no specific agreements in a summit emphasizing symbolism over breakthroughs.
Hosting the first White House visit of a Chinese president in nine years, Bush welcomed Hu with pageantry, marching bands and a 21-gun salute in a sun-splashed South Lawn ceremony, then escorted him inside for polite talks on a range of long-standing issues. In return, Hu offered vague assurances that he will address U.S. economic concerns while resisting tougher action on Iran and North Korea.
The one off-script moment in an otherwise meticulously choreographed day came when a member of the Falun Gong religious sect that is suppressed in China screamed at Hu for several long minutes as he addressed hundreds of Bush aides and ticketed guests on the lawn. "President Hu! Your days are numbered," she shouted. "President Bush! Stop him from killing!" A startled Hu paused until Bush leaned over and encouraged him to continue. "You're okay," Bush assured Hu.
Such a jarring disruption inside the White House gates is extremely rare and seen as deeply offensive to the protocol-sensitive Chinese leadership. Bush, described as angry by aides who saw him afterward, apologized to Hu when they sat down in the Oval Office. "This was unfortunate, and I'm sorry this happened," Bush said, according to a White House official.
The visit held deep meaning for the Chinese delegation, which broadcast the pomp -- but not the protest -- to its people back home as a sign of the nation's standing in the international community. Bush obliged to a point, serving an Alaska halibut luncheon in the East Room for Hu but not offering the black-tie state dinner Beijing wanted.
Bush had hoped to use the summit to soften Chinese opposition to his strategy of increasing pressure on Iran to halt its nuclear program. In the Oval Office meeting, Bush pushed Hu to consider a Security Council resolution invoking Chapter 7 of the United Nations charter, which could lead to punitive action, including sanctions or force, if Tehran persists in enriching uranium.
But Hu, by his own account, spent much of his time talking about Taiwan and publicly insisted on sticking to "diplomatic negotiation" in dealing with Iran. As for North Korea, which already has nuclear weapons and refuses to give them up, Hu acknowledged that six-party talks "have run into some difficulties" but offered no ideas on how to break the logjam, other than urging negotiators "to further display flexibility."
"Both sides agreed to continue their efforts to facilitate the six-party talks to seek a proper solution to the Korean nuclear issue," Hu told reporters through an interpreter in a rare question-and-answer session after the Oval Office meeting. "And both sides agree to continue their efforts to seek a peaceful resolution of the Iranian nuclear issue."
Although security and economic issues dominated the talks, Bush made his standard suggestion to reform China's autocratic system. "China can grow even more successful by allowing the Chinese people the freedom to assemble, to speak freely and to worship," Bush said in welcoming remarks.
In private, aides said, Bush raised the case of a North Korean asylum seeker, Kim Chun Hee, who was deported back to her homeland despite Chinese obligations under U.N. refugee conventions. He asked again about a list of Chinese political prisoners that he first gave Hu during a meeting at the United Nations in September and gave a new list of six detainees he hopes will be released. But Bush did not mention the persecution of Falun Gong, even with hundreds of its followers outside the White House banging drums, holding up banners and chanting, "Stop the killing, stop the torture."
Hu insisted China is committed to democracy. "What I can tell you is that we've always believed in China that if there is no democracy, there will be no modernization," he told reporters during the brief question session. ". . . We have always been expanding the democracy and freedoms for the Chinese citizens."
Last night, Hu was feted at a dinner sponsored by the U.S.-China Business Council at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel as hundreds of pro- and anti-Chinese protesters faced off across Calvert Street with dueling banners wishing him a "happy journey" and denouncing "torture and death under communism." Former secretary of state Henry A. Kissinger introduced Hu before the crowd of 900 people, saying the United States has "no more important relationship" than with China.
In the 25-minute speech, Hu broke little new ground but stressed his familiar themes that what China "needs most is a peaceful international environment" to thrive and deal with the growing inequalities between rural and urban areas of his country. He said China's relationship with the United States is a top priority for China, stressing it would strengthen protection of intellectual property copyrights and seek to increase imports to relieve the trade imbalance. He insisted that China will continue to "expand citizens' orderly participation in political affairs" and that his country "takes human rights seriously."
Hu, who was flanked by security personnel as he spoke, said: "Due to different national conditions, it is normal for China and the United States to disagree on some issues. We should seek common ground while shelving differences."


White House officials took note of Hu's linkage of democracy to economic progress, the line of argument Bush often uses with him. "He has heard enough from the president on this subject that he's starting to think about it," said Dennis Wilder, a top Asia specialist on the National Security Council.
That was not enough to satisfy Baihua Zhou, 49, a software engineer from Ohio, who was among hundreds of protesters on Pennsylvania Avenue. On her chest she wore a picture of a mutilated corpse whose organs had been sold off, representing what Falun Gong says is a campaign of abuse and murder of believers in China.
"We want to expose these crimes to the world," she said, comparing Hu to a murderer. "If he wants to invite him to his house, President Bush has to say what is right to say, not just to please him. He has to tell him the people's concerns."
Bush and Hu may not have heard her, but they heard the woman who interrupted the festivities on the White House lawn. Identified by authorities as Wenyi Wang, 47, of New York, she had gained admission with a press pass issued by a Falun Gong newspaper, Epoch Times, copies of which were passed out by protesters outside the gates.
When she screamed from a press riser where cameras were recording the event, it took several minutes before uniformed Secret Service officers could get through the throng of photographers to remove her. Channing Phillips, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office, said she would likely be charged with attempting to intimidate, coerce, threaten or harass a foreign official in the performance of his duties, punishable by as much as six months in prison.
Congressional Democrats also used the Hu visit to criticize Bush's China policy. In a letter to Bush this week, Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) complained that the administration "still has no coherent strategy for managing this nation's relationship with China."
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) derided Bush's approach as wishful thinking. "We have pursued trickle-down liberty -- promoting economic freedom first, assuming that political freedom will follow," she wrote in the Los Angeles Times. "Reality exposes this policy as the illusion it is."
Economics permeated the discussions at the White House yesterday. Bush aides trumpeted Hu's comments about transforming China into a more consumer-driven economy, which would presumably benefit U.S. businesses at a time when the United States is running a $202 billion annual trade deficit. And they pronounced themselves encouraged that Hu said he would continue to loosen controls over the Chinese currency, which U.S. corporate leaders blame for hurting their business opportunities.
Bush made sure to surround Hu at the East Room luncheon with corporate titans, including top executives from General Motors, Home Depot, Motorola, Caterpillar, Daimler Chrysler, Avon Products and Goldman Sachs. Other guests included Kissinger, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley (D), actor Ron Silver and skater Michelle Kwan.
White House officials acknowledged no breakthroughs were made, seeing the value of the summit as the next step in incremental change. Many of the statements and promises made by Bush and Hu mirrored the language from their other meetings. At a briefing afterward, Bush aides used words such as "reiteration," "rearticulation" and "renewed commitment" to describe yesterday's discussion.
In the end, the main purpose seemed to be to work on the relationship between Bush and Hu. The summit, scheduled for September but postponed after Hurricane Katrina, gave Hu the world's most prominent platform, even if not a formal state visit as his predecessor, Jiang Zemin, had with President Bill Clinton in 1997. Throughout the day, Hu kept using the term "win-win."

plz pray,
Sardarzada

WASHINGTON, April 20, 2006 – The U.S. and Chinese presidents agreed here today to step up cooperation and provide a more unified front against terrorism, North Korea's and Iran's nuclear programs, and other global security threats.
President Bush welcomed Chinese President Hu Jintao to the White House today, noting the two countries' shared strategic interests and expressing hope the United States and China can work together to address their common challenges.
"Prosperity depends on security, so the United States and China share a strategic common interest in enhancing security for both our peoples," the president said during a welcoming ceremony on the White House's South Lawn. "We intend to deepen our cooperation in addressing threats to global security," including Iran's nuclear ambitions; genocide in Darfur, Sudan; violence unleashed by terrorists and extremists; and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, he said.
Bush thanked China for hosting the Six-Party Talks aimed at getting North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons and nuclear programs. "I'll continue to seek President Hu's advice and cooperation and urge his nation to use its considerable influence with North Korea to make meaningful progress toward a Korean peninsula that is free of nuclear weapons," he said.
Speaking through an interpreter, Hu told Bush the Chinese people still remember the "heroic sacrifice" of thousands of U.S. troops killed in China more than 60 years ago in the two countries' common struggle against fascism.
He noted the strengths of the both the U.S. and Chinese people and said the best way for them to face the future is by working together. "Enhanced interactions and cooperation between China and the United States serve the interests of our two peoples and are conducive to world peace and development," he said.
Hu committed to continue working with the United States and others to peacefully resolve the nuclear issues involving North Korea and Iran, uphold the international nonproliferation regime, and safeguard global peace and stability.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld spent three days in Beijing in October meeting with Chinese defense and military leaders to help improve the two countries' defense relationship.
Rumsfeld called the visit, which included a session with his Chinese counterpart, Gen. Cao Gangchuan, an opportunity to promote cooperation and dispel misconceptions.
The secretary left Beijing optimistic that the United States and China will learn from each other and find ways to work better together. "We certainly share the hope and goal that our countries can move forward in a relationship that is candid and straightforward and ...
steadily advances the peace and opportunity of the people of Asia and the people of the United States," Rumsfeld said.
In March, Peter Rodman, assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, told the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission that Rumsfeld's visit laid important groundwork.
"We think both sides would gain by having more interaction," Rodman said. "We would learn more about them, and perhaps they would learn more about us."


plz pray,
Sardarzada

__________________
God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him! How shall we console ourselves, the most murderous of all murderers? The holiest and the mightiest that the world has hitherto possessed, has bled to death under our knife....

By Paula Wolfson
Washington

President Bush is urging Americans to embrace the challenge posed by China's booming economy. In the days leading up to his first Washington summit with visiting Chinese leader Hu Jintao, Mr. Bush is focusing on the need to boost investment in science and technology.
As Hu Jintao's plane was touching down on America's west coast, President Bush was touring a special public school in a Washington D.C. suburb where scientists from the national space agency, NASA, are teachers.
He looked on as a group of 12- and 13-year-olds demonstrated skills necessary to design a basic robot.
The president went to Parkland Middle School in Rockville, Maryland to make a point: that America needs to act now if it wants to remain the leader in the world economy.
"We've got a good economy right now," said Mr. Bush. "It's growing at rapid paces and there's a lot of new jobs being added, and productivity is high, and people are owning homes, and that's all positive. The fundamental question is: How do we make sure that is the case next year, five years and 10 years from now?"
Mr. Bush talked about an important choice facing the United States. He said Americans can look at the economic growth of countries like China and turn isolationist, or they can embrace the challenge and become more competitive.
"I tell people we shouldn't fear the future," he added. "What we ought to do is shape the future. We ought to be in charge of our future and the way to do so is to make sure we are the most innovative country in the world."
The president acknowledged that the realities of the global economy have created a sense of uncertainty for some Americans. But he stressed the United States can remain the world's economic leader if it invests in research, and improves educational opportunities for its young people in science and technology.
"If you're living in Midland, Texas, or living in Montgomery County, Maryland, it's important to understand if children don't have those skills needed to compete with a child from India, or a child from China, the new jobs will be going there," he noted.
Earlier this year, Mr. Bush proposed a significant increase in federal funding for basic research and for programs to spur learning in math and science.
He is expected to talk about the so-called competitiveness initiative again on Wednesday during a visit to an historically black college in the state of Alabama. Once again, the president is likely to point to the visit of Hu Jintao and cite China's role as both a strategic friend and an economic competitor.
Aides say economic issues are likely to top the broad agenda for Thursday's meeting at the White House, with an emphasis on trade matters. However White House officials indicate no major announcements are expected.

plz pray,
Sardarzada

__________________
God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him! How shall we console ourselves, the most murderous of all murderers? The holiest and the mightiest that the world has hitherto possessed, has bled to death under our knife....

Chinese President Hu Jintao has arrived in the United States for talks with President Bush and key business leaders.

Mr. Hu's first stop on his four-day American visit was to the northwestern state of Washington, where he held talks with Bill Gates, the chairman of computer software giant Microsoft. Later Tuesday he is to attend a dinner with 100 business, government and community leaders to be hosted by Washington State Governor Christine Gregoire.

On Wednesday, he is scheduled to tour a Boeing commercial aircraft plant before heading to Washington, D.C., for a meeting with President Bush.

Many storefronts in Seattle's Chinatown hung Chinese and U.S. flags to greet Mr. Hu, but there were also demonstrations by dozens of Taiwanese, Tibetan and Falun Gong advocates.

The Chinese president is to meet with Mr. Bush at the White House Thursday. Officials say the two leaders will discuss a variety of issues, including U.S. demands that China reform its currency and the Asian country's $200 billion trade surplus with the United States.

Mr. Hu is likely to call on the United States to reaffirm its stance that Taiwan is part of mainland China, while President Bush is expected to bring up China's human rights record. The two sides are also slated to discuss nuclear negotiations with North Korea and Iran.

The Chinese president's visit with Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates comes after years of battling widespread software piracy in the lucrative Chinese market. The software developer and representatives of one of the world's largest computer companies, Chinese-based Lenovo, agreed on Monday to pre-install Microsoft's Windows operating system on its computers.

Mr. Hu's tour of the aircraft factory comes following this month's agreement for Beijing to purchase 80 Boeing aircraft, a deal worth $4.6 billion.

plz pray,
Sardarzada

__________________
God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him! How shall we console ourselves, the most murderous of all murderers? The holiest and the mightiest that the world has hitherto possessed, has bled to death under our knife....

WASHINGTON, April 19 — President Bush faces a delicate political balancing act Thursday when he welcomes Chinese President Hu Jintao to the White House: seeking China's help to end nuclear standoffs in Iran and North Korea, while urging changes to economic, military and political policies that critics say hurt U.S. interests.
For Bush, the success of Hu's visit will be judged largely by whatever concessions Washington wins on a long list of complaints. Those include allegations that China mistreats its citizens, that an undervalued currency hampers U.S. competition, that China's growing military strength could lead to conflict in the Taiwan Strait, and that Beijing has pursued energy deals with countries the United States considers tyrannical.
For Hu, the visit provides a chance to burnish China's image at a time when Americans are wrestling with what China's new economic and political clout means here.
''Part of President Hu's challenge is also to speak to the U.S. public,'' Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, a leading administration voice on China, said in a speech this week. ''China does not want to be seen as a threat; it's seeking respect.''
The strain in relations between the countries is perhaps most evident in the furor in Congress over China's economic policies, which, critics say, contributed to the United States' record $202 billion trade deficit with China last year.
On Wednesday, Hu planned to tour a Boeing jet plant in Washington state. Meanwhile, a congressional hearing here raised misgivings on China's human rights abuse, which some observers feel could be overshadowed by economic and political issues during the summit.
Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., who chairs the House global human rights subcommittee, said in an interview that if China is not pressed hard enough this week on what he sees as Beijing's systematic mistreatment of its citizens, Hu ''could walk away from here without any sense of our serious human rights concerns, which only gives a greener light to further abuse.''
''You don't coddle a dictator,'' Smith said. ''We have to speak truth to power.''
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., reflected a growing sentiment among lawmakers last month when he blasted Beijing as a ''government without a conscience,'' intent on manipulating its currency to the detriment of American producers and allowing widespread piracy of copyrighted U.S. goods.
Zoellick said both U.S. and Chinese officials must ''demonstrate to the United States public that the economic relationship with China offers a fair, two-way street — that there are mutual opportunities and benefits.''
The meeting will be the two leaders' fifth encounter in nearly a year and Hu's first trip to the White House since he became China's leader in 2003.
Hu began his four-day U.S. tour Tuesday in Washington state. He had dinner with Bill Gates, head of software giant Microsoft, Tuesday evening. After meeting with Bush, Hu will visit Yale University.
During the summit between Bush and Hu, many here will expect answers to hard questions.
Michael Green, Bush's senior adviser on Asia until December and now an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Bush will want ''to show the American public that there's some result, that there's some productive output from this increasingly candid and strategic discussion.''
Chinese officials will be watching how Hu's diplomatic performance plays on TV sets in Beijing. But if China should appear to be focusing solely on style over substance this week, mounting anger in Washington could get worse.
''There's a lot of frustration at all levels,'' said CSIS analyst Derek Mitchell, a former Asia adviser at the Pentagon. ''There's a sense that the Chinese are not giving on anything.''

plz pray,
Sardarzada

__________________
God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him! How shall we console ourselves, the most murderous of all murderers? The holiest and the mightiest that the world has hitherto possessed, has bled to death under our knife....

Beijing stalls return of 39,000 of its nationals, frustrated DHS officials say
SEATTLE - Even as the debate over illegal immigration raged this month on Capitol Hill, 22 Chinese were among the many migrants making their way to these shores, using a scheme that is among the most dangerous and expensive ways to illegally enter the United States.
In early hours on April 5, 18 men and 4 women pried their way out of a 40-foot-long shipping container that had arrived in the port of Seattle from Shanghai the previous day after a two-week journey. They didn't get far before security guards spotted them as they tried to find a way out of the fenced shipyard, and they were soon taken into custody by U.S. border security.
Had these stowaways been Mexican, they likely would have been subject to relatively rapid deportation, with no immigration hearing, through a procedure called "expedited removal."
But dealing with illegal immigrants from China is rarely so simple. Though they are vastly outnumbered by illegal immigrants from Latin America — perhaps 500,000 among the estimated 13 million "unauthorized migrants" — they are tougher to remove, for reasons as complex as the U.S.-China relationship itself.
The problem is the subject of heated behind-the-scenes talks as Chinese President Hu Jintao visits the United States to meet with President Bush and discuss other irritants in the relationship, including piracy and currency manipulation.
It's all but certain, say immigration enforcers and experts, that the stowaways detained in Seattle will make their way into the byzantine immigration or asylum system. In the process, some will gain legal residency — but many will disappear and slip quietly into the workforce and eventually gain a solid toehold in America.
Homeland Security takes its gripe public
Indeed, the Department of Homeland Security says that more than 39,000 Chinese remain in the United States even though they have been issued final deportation orders — meaning they have exhausted all immigration and asylum appeals.
According to the agency, Beijing is not making their return possible by issuing required travel documents at a glacial pace. Homeland Security officials complain that the slow processing strains limited detention facilities — at a cost of $95 a day per detainee — and increases the chances that they will abscond after their detention period expires.
Of the more than 39,000 Chinese who have been ordered deported, only 300 are now in detention. Under U.S. law, they must be released after 180 days unless they are a threat to the community. If Beijing hasn't submitted the paperwork allowing them to return before then, they are released on bond or placed in other types of monitoring programs.
Homeland Security, shunning the diplomatic approach taken by the U.S. State Department on the subject, has decided to make its complaint public.
"We don’t mind naming the countries that are not cooperating, and we’re starting with the biggest offender," said DHS spokesman Russ Knocke, echoing recent statements by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. "This is a part of an overall effort to restore integrity to our immigration system."
For several weeks, U.S. and Chinese security officials have been in back-room negotiations over the repatriation issue and Chertoff recently stated that the two sides have an agreement "in principle" that will lead to much faster returns. DHS officials declined to discuss details of the agreement in advance of Hu's visit.
Does Beijing lack incentive?
The United States has previously encountered problems deporting illegal immigrants — though normally on a smaller scale — from countries that have no formal ties with the United States (as was the case with Vietnam for many years) or that effectively have no government (such as the Sudan).
With China, it's different. Even though Beijing officially prohibits illegal emigration and has full diplomatic relations with the United States, just 800 Chinese nationals were successfully repatriated to China from the United States last year.
Why? The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for interviews on the subject, but in the past China has cited uncertainty about their identities.
Many Chinese destroy their passports as soon as they arrive, according to Zang Guohua, a Chinese reporter in Washington, D.C., making it hard to verify their origins, especially if they entered through a third country.
"The (Chinese) government has a point. You can’t just send them back by how they look or speak," he said. "(Beijing) demand(s) some kind of documentation that associates these people with their Chinese identity."
And it's easy to see how repatriating these illegal migrants — mostly blue-collar workers from a nation of more than 1 billion — might not be viewed as a high priority in Beijing.
"They probably don’t want to take them back because there are so many, and then what do they do with them?" said Elizabeth Peng, a American immigration lawyer in Seattle who was born in China. In the past, Peng said, China would jail those who were returned after illegal migration. "But in such large numbers, it would constitute such a loss of face. It doesn’t put them in a good light," she said.
Political tango
But U.S. and Chinese political postures also play a role. U.S. asylum policy grants residency to Chinese citizens who can show they are likely to be persecuted if they return to China on the grounds of their politics, religious beliefs or affiliations, or under China's restrictive birth control policy. It is a persistent irritant to Beijing, which views U.S. policy as interference.
"We think it is not favorable to cracking down on illegal immigrants," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Liu Jianchao said of the asylum cases at a recent news conference.
He may have been making a political point, but he expressed a practical reality. To avoid expedited removal, all a migrant has to do is cite a fear of persecution to the detaining officer, or express an intention to apply for asylum. Then the process kicks in — the migrant is sent to an asylum officer for a "credible fear" interview.
In many cases of organized smuggling we have found (the immigrants) have been carefully coached by the snakeheads," said Homeland Security spokeswoman Virginia Kice, referring to organizers of human smuggling operations.
In 2004, the most recent year for which data is available, Chinese were second to Haitians among nationalities seeking U.S. asylum, with 2,839 asylum cases filed. About 25 percent of Chinese cases ultimately end in the granting of asylum — compared to 35 percent for Haitians, and 45 percent for applicants from Venezuela and Colombia — but the process of sifting through legitimate and fraudulent claims can take several years.
"We may get the final removal order in some cases," said Kice, "But unless we can implement the final order, at some point we’re going to have to release them … some of them may abscond. There’s no question about it."
Tough measures, tough opposition
In the debate over immigration, some of the most conservative voices are proposing tough — critics say Draconian — legislation to prevent migrants from lingering in the United States. One such provision would give Homeland Security the authority to turn back any visitors arriving from countries that, like China, are deemed uncooperative in taking back their nationals.
That would certainly get Beijing's attention, but critics are appalled that the measure survived legislative debate. If legitimate Chinese travelers were suddenly turned back at U.S. ports of entry, they say, China would almost certainly retaliate in kind, putting in peril the legitimate and extensive business, educational and cultural relationships cultivated over the last few decades.
"It would create huge diplomatic problems," predicts a congressional staffer who works on the immigration issue.
"It's really stupid," agreed Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., adding that the provision likely won't be used and wouldn't solve the problem even if it was.
"I think the highest level of government — the president if necessary — should tell the government of China that if they want to have a business relationship with the United States, they have to solve the problem," she said. "It may be embarrassing to (China) to deal with it in a statement, so it’s not required. I just want them to change their behavior."
The White House declined to say whether the issue of repatriation is on the agenda in talks between Presidents Hu and Bush.
Another provision contained in both House and Senate immigration bills would add 10,000 detention beds for illegal immigrants, and seek to extend the length of time they can be detained. But that provision runs counter to a 2001 Supreme Court decision, Zadvydas vs. Davis, that bars indefinite detention of individuals who have been ordered removed but cannot be repatriated.
Meantime, one thing U.S. lawmakers and Chinese officials seem to agree on is the need for beefed up enforcement of port security and measures to prevent the human smuggling operations at the heart of the problem. Many illegal immigrants, who typically pay anywhere from $10,000 to $70,000 for false documentation or illegal transportation out of China, end up as indentured workers in their new homelands, trying to pay off their debt to snakeheads for years. Some have paid with their lives in schemes that went horrifically awry.
So, while the Chinese migrants arrested in Seattle are held at a detention facility in Tacoma, U.S. officials are for now focused less on their immigration cases than on launching a criminal investigation in which these 22 people could become material witnesses

plz pray,
Sardarzada

__________________
God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him! How shall we console ourselves, the most murderous of all murderers? The holiest and the mightiest that the world has hitherto possessed, has bled to death under our knife....

Rally Planned at White House as President Bush meets Hu Jintao

New York – Tibetans and their supports will demand an end to China’s occupation of Tibet as Chinese President Hu Jintao meets President Bush at the White House on Thursday. The demonstrators will join Taiwanese, Uighur and Falun Gong practitioners for a colorful rally and protest outside the meeting in Lafayette Park from 10am-2pm, followed by a march through the city to the Chinese embassy. Protests are also planned in New Haven on Friday when Hu speaks at Yale University.

“Hu Jintao wants the international community to believe that the human rights situation in China and Tibet is satisfactory,” said Tenzin Kalden, President of the Tibetan Youth Congress of New York and New Jersey. “We need citizens and governments of free countries like the United States to steadfastly reject the myth of China as an open and democratic country and hold the Chinese government accountable for its systematic repression of the Tibetan people.”

Hu Jintao’s visit to the U.S. comes as international pressure is mounting on the Chinese Government to improve the situation inside Tibet. With the 2008 Olympic Games fast approaching, China’s human rights record is under increasing scrutiny. Just last month, the first demonstration by a Tibetan was staged in China’s Tiananmen Square.

“Tibetans continue to face arbitrary arrest, detention and torture for nothing more than peaceful expression of their religious and political beliefs,” said Lhadon Tethong, Executive Director of Students for a Free Tibet. “We will intensify our efforts in the lead up to the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and continue our struggle until Tibet is free.”

Tibetan rights groups point to last week’s World Buddhist Forum in Hangzhou as the latest example of efforts by the Chinese government to outwardly portray itself as tolerant of religious expression, while actually increasing their control over religion in Tibet and China. Both the Dalai Lama and Gendun Choekyi Nyima, the 11th Panchen Lama, were excluded from the gathering. China used the event to promote the status of Gyaltsen Norbu, a young boy they claim to be the Panchen Lama. The whereabouts of the real Panchen Lama, disappeared by the Chinese government at age 6, remain unknown.

“If the Chinese government wants to make a sincere gesture towards improving religious freedom in Tibet, it would release the Panchen Lama and other religious leaders, like revered Buddhist teacher, Tenzin Delek Rinpoche,” said Tenzin Wangyal, President of the Tibetan Youth Congress’ Seattle branch. “We urge President Bush to raise their cases during his discussions with Hu Jintao.”

Hu Jintao was Secretary of the Tibet Autonomous Regional Committee when he imposed martial law to crack down on demonstrations for Tibetan independence in October 1989. Hundreds of Tibetans were killed or injured as a result and many more were imprisoned.

The Regional Tibetan Youth Congress of New York and New Jersey, the US Tibet Committee and Students for a Free Tibet are organizing the protests in Washington, DC and New Haven, CT.






plz pray,
Sardarzada

__________________
God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him! How shall we console ourselves, the most murderous of all murderers? The holiest and the mightiest that the world has hitherto possessed, has bled to death under our knife....

SEATTLE--The first lavish dinner of China President Hu Jintao's historic visit to the United States next week will be in a big, secure house in Washington where the host is one of the world's most powerful men.
The White House? No.
It won't be in Washington D.C., but Seattle, and the Tuesday dinner will be held at the $100 million lakeside mansion of Microsoft founder and the world's richest man, Bill Gates.
The approximately 100-person guest list is a who's who of the U.S. Pacific Northwest power elite, including Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz and Washington state Gov. Christine Gregoire, said event organizers.
The guests will undergo strict security checks before entering Gates' lodge-style, 66,000-square-foot home overlooking Lake Washington with a reported seven bedrooms, six kitchens, 24 bathrooms, a domed library, a reception hall and an artificial estuary stocked with salmon and trout.
Gates and Gregoire are expected to introduce and welcome Hu, who will then offer a toast in front of the gathering
The guests will be served a three-course dinner, starting with a smoked guinea fowl salad, a choice of either beef filet with Walla Walla onions or Alaskan halibut and spot prawns before a dessert of rhubarb brown butter almond cake, the event organizers said.
Like any good dinner guest, President Hu will not come empty handed. The Chinese government issued a decree two weeks ago that all PCs will need to have a licensed operating system software installed before leaving the factory gates in an effort to crack down on piracy.
As a result, three Chinese PC manufacturers announced plans to buy a total of over $400 million worth of Microsoft Windows operating system software over the next three years and Lenovo Group, China's largest PC maker, is expected to announce a similar deal on Monday, organizers said.

plz pray,
Sardarzada

__________________
God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him! How shall we console ourselves, the most murderous of all murderers? The holiest and the mightiest that the world has hitherto possessed, has bled to death under our knife....

President Meets Bill Gates First
China,Washington State Want to Maintain Mutually Beneficial Trade Relationship
China,

Washington State Want to Maintain Mutually Beneficial Trade Relationship

April 18, 2006 — Chinese President Hu Jintao's first official visit to the United States started in Seattle. It's not a mere pit stop on the way to Washington D.C. — it's business. China's relationship with the U.S. capital may be complicated, but the Chinese president has friends in the other Washington.
Hu said he didn't choose to visit Seattle simply because it's the closest major U.S. city to China. "It is also because your state enjoys very good cooperative relations with my country," he said through a translator.
Washington state depends on trade, and China is a big customer. Twenty-billion dollars worth of goods traveled through Washington ports heading to and from China last year. Boeing believes China will buy more than $183 billion worth of commercial airlines over the next 20 years. Microsoft looks to China as the fastest-growing market for personal computers.
President Hu will tour Boeing and Microsoft, both of which have invested heavily in China. But when Microsoft founder Bill Gates meets with the Chinese leader, there will be more than talk about money.
When the leader of the world's most powerful communist country meets with one of this country's leading capitalists, the talk will be about the future. Hu has told President Bush and others that his biggest challenge is to guide China through a cultural change. As billions of dollars are pumped into the economy, some get wealthy and others get left behind. The Chinese want "heping fashan," or peaceful development.
Partners, not Rivals
While many in the United States see cheap Chinese labor as a threat to American jobs, many in China see the West as a land of marauding capitalists. When poor peasants from the country see the newly minted Chinese middle class buying $4 Starbucks lattes, leaders worry that differences between the haves and the have nots could lead to trouble for both the Chinese government and U.S. businesses.
According to author Greg Huang, Microsoft stumbled in its early dealings with the Chinese but has more recently invested in the future of the country. Gates and Microsoft have created a development laboratory in Beijing that has become a mecca for China's best and brightest.
It has simultaneously become both a source of pride for the Chinese and a weapon in Microsoft's battle against its competitors. The Chinese have begun to see Microsoft as a contributor to "heping fashan," and Microsoft has found a way to harness the intellectual power of brilliant Chinese software engineers.
The strategy has already had an impact. Some experts estimate that more than 70 percent of all computers in China run illegal and pirated versions of Microsoft software. In the past week, the Chinese announced that three of the country's largest PC manufacturers would buy more than 1.6 billion legitimate copies of the Windows operating system.
"There's still an impression that software should be free, so that's important stuff," said Huang.
Hu will dine with Gates, the governor of Washington and others Tuesday evening at the Microsoft chairman's palatial home. The Chinese president leaves for the other Washington on Wednesday.
It seems Gates and Jintao want to overlook their differences and problems and work toward a partnership based on mutual gain. Is there a lesson to be learned from that thinking?
Greg Huang believes so. "Business leaders are more forward thinking about finding ways so both sides are able to win," he said.

plz pray,
Sardarzada

__________________
God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him! How shall we console ourselves, the most murderous of all murderers? The holiest and the mightiest that the world has hitherto possessed, has bled to death under our knife....

Chinese President Hu Jintao got almost everything he wanted out of yesterday's visit to the White House.
He got the 21-gun salute, the review of the troops and the Colonial fife-and-drum corps. He got the exchange of toasts and a meal of wild-caught Alaskan halibut with mushroom essence, $50 chardonnay and live bluegrass music. And he got an Oval Office photo op with President Bush, who nodded and smiled as if he understood Chinese while Hu spoke.
If only the White House hadn't given press credentials to a Falun Gong activist who five years ago heckled Hu's predecessor, Jiang Zemin, in Malta. Sure enough, 90 seconds into Hu's speech on the South Lawn, the woman started shrieking, "President Hu, your days are numbered!" and "President Bush, stop him from killing!"
Bush and Hu looked up, stunned. It took so long to silence her -- a full three minutes -- that Bush aides began to wonder if the Secret Service's strategy was to let her scream herself hoarse. The rattled Chinese president haltingly attempted to continue his speech and television coverage went to split screen.
"You're okay," Bush gently reassured Hu.
But he wasn't okay, not really. The protocol-obsessed Chinese leader suffered a day full of indignities -- some intentional, others just careless. The visit began with a slight when the official announcer said the band would play the "national anthem of the Republic of China" -- the official name of Taiwan. It continued when Vice President Cheney donned sunglasses for the ceremony, and again when Hu, attempting to leave the stage via the wrong staircase, was yanked back by his jacket. Hu looked down at his sleeve to see the president of the United States tugging at it as if redirecting an errant child.
Then there were the intentional slights. China wanted a formal state visit such as Jiang got, but the administration refused, calling it instead an "official" visit. Bush acquiesced to the 21-gun salute but insisted on a luncheon instead of a formal dinner, in the East Room instead of the State Dining Room. Even the visiting country's flags were missing from the lampposts near the White House.
But as protocol breaches go, it's hard to top the heckling of a foreign leader at the White House. Explaining the incident -- the first disruption at the executive mansion in recent memory -- White House and Secret Service officials said she was "a legitimate journalist" and that there was nothing suspicious in her background. In other words: Who knew?
Hu did. The Chinese had warned the White House to be careful about who was admitted to the ceremony. To no avail: They granted a one-day pass to Wang Wenyi of the Falun Gong publication Epoch Times. A quick Nexis search shows that in 2001, she slipped through a security cordon in Malta protecting Jiang (she had been denied media credentials) and got into an argument with him. The 47-year-old pathologist is expected to be charged today with attempting to harass a foreign official.
Bush apologized to the angry Chinese leader in the Oval Office. "Frankly, we moved on," National Security Council official Dennis Wilder told reporters later. It was, he said, a "momentary blip."
Maybe, but Hu was in no mood to make concessions. In negotiations, he gave the U.S. side nothing tangible on delicate matters such as the nuclear problems in North Korea and Iran, the Chinese currency's value and the trade deficit with China.
Wilder pleaded for understanding. "Some people today want to see a quick fix to the trade imbalance," he explained. "But in the new global economy there is no quick fix."
In the arrival ceremony, Bush, after leading Hu on a review of the troops, welcomed him to the White House. Hu clapped for himself. He was less enthusiastic about the long list of demands Bush made in his welcome speech: expand Chinese consumption of U.S. goods, enforce intellectual property rights, and allow freedom to assemble, speak and worship.
Hu's reply was overshadowed by what the White House transcript politely called an "audience interruption," as if somebody had sneezed.
The meeting in the Oval Office brought more of the same. In front of the cameras, Bush thanked Hu for his "frankness" -- diplomatic code for disagreement -- and Hu stood expressionless. The two unexpectedly agreed to take questions from reporters, but Bush grew impatient as Hu gave a long answer about trade, made all the longer by the translation. Bush at one point tapped his foot on the ground. "It was a very comprehensive answer," he observed when Hu finished.
Last came the unofficial state luncheon. After the butter heirloom corn broth and the ginger-scented dumplings had been consumed, Hu rose with a toast that proclaimed he and Bush had "reached a broad and important agreement on China-U.S. relations."
The White House didn't see it that way. Instead of a statement about a new accord with China, it issued a press release titled "MEDICARE CHECK-UP: Prescription Drug Benefit Enrollment Hits 30 Million . . . ."

plz pray,
Sardarzada

__________________
God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him! How shall we console ourselves, the most murderous of all murderers? The holiest and the mightiest that the world has hitherto possessed, has bled to death under our knife....