LETTERS TO THE EDITOR : Criticism of China

Among Beijing's "serious mistakes" about Tibet alluded to, but not enumerated, by Mr. Clark are invasion and occupation of a culturally and regionally separate people, the near destruction of its religious infrastructure, and a deliberate policy of repopulation by ethnic (Han) Chinese. But more astounding than Mr. Clark's glossing over of this is his logic: that Beijing's ruthlessness is legitimated by the oppression of other minority peoples (Kurds by Iraq and Turkey, Chechens by Russia), and the indifference of foreign governments.

Mr. Clark's China is as unrecognizable as his explanation of the massacre around Tiananmen Square — not enough cattle prods — is ludicrous. China does not tolerate dissent, and has, by any measure, become one of the most corrupt societies in the world, especially when it comes to the exercise of arbitrary authority. I defy Mr. Clark to find any witnesses of the blitzkrieg against unarmed students in 1989 who shares his assessment of Beijing's reaction as "tolerant."

Mr. Clark is right that the West has a human-rights double standard for much of East Asia, but seems to forget that only a few years ago—as long as the Soviet Union was around— the bias was tilted in China's favor. But whether the West's feelings toward Beijing are running hot or cold bears little relation to actual changes in China, and certainly does not obviate that a government's brutal and self-serving use of force against its own or a neighboring people is just plain wrong.