Editor:
The author of the letter "'Governmentman' didn't suggest anarchy" on Oct. 6 used hearsay 'facts' and made too-free and misleading remarks on other governments to make his point, although I can not comment on his other logic arguments.
It's stated in the letter that "Under such governments as the former Soviet Union, the current China, the former Eastern Bloc and so forth, there is no freedom. With the lack of freedom comes no religion, no free association, no free speech or press, no right to defend one's own life and property . " I am from China, now studying in the USA. I am not too shy to say I have more personal experience and information about the China government than the author. The author depicted current China government as such a bad government and China as such a terrible place. If the author was not misinformed or had too little information, then the author was not responsible enough and enjoyed too much freedom of speech to exaggerate publicly the facts using the comments on China.
As an ordinary Chinese, I can speak freely and responsibly, I can choose any religion to believe in; I just spent one month obtaining my passport to study abroad, and many Chinese students have passports but are waiting endlessly for their visas to pursue advanced education in the USA. Currently it's much easier to get passports in China than to get foreign visas. It's the author's imagination that there is no freedom and even no right to defend one's life and property in China.
Some ordinary American people are misinformed by some governmentmen and press and the image of China has been sadly distorted. Some misinformation is provided by individuals such as Chinese-American Harry Wu, a "human rights activist" as he is called in the press. You may not be informed about Harry Wu's dark side Ÿ that he was once convicted and sentenced to labor camps for stealing a roommate's valuables; his name was denounced at Wuhan University for forging his supervisor's signature to illegally cash traveler's checks; at the same university he was put off for seducing one of his students. Recently he used falsified documents to enter his previous country, China, four times, undercover, to spy and dig up one-sided information and was caught and convicted of spying with evidence and a confession. He once provided distorted film and information to the world to wrongfully accuse China of illegally selling human organs. His motivation is out of personal vengeance and hatred for the China government but never for human rights. But this antigovernment opportunist is being used in name of something glorious, propagandized here in media and praised by some governmentmen as a decent human rights fighter for Chinese people, especially for the criminals in China. This kind of guy has been used to justify sanctions against China, good and honest Americans may never know that all the consequences have gone direct to ordinary Chinese people instead of Chinese governors. All this is just ridiculous and laughable to me. It's only an example.
To be frank with you, after I came to the USA I have found that many reports about the Chinese government are very biased and exaggerated for some reason. The sad thing is that some kindhearted American people are convinced and told by some governmentmen and media that they have got the whole picture and have been told the complete story.
I cherish some aspects of American freedom, but I have to say free speech and press does not mean irresponsible speech and press telling misleading and untrue stories at one's will.
I hope less-baseless remarks about other countries and governments will be published in the Daily Wildcat and other media to not mislead and to be fair to and responsible for their readers.
Wu Zhang
Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics Ph.D.