WASHINGTON - Chinese President Hu Jintao will give a speech at Yale University on September 8. The speech is part of Hu’s first visit of U.S. since he became the President of China in March 2003.
According to the University, Hu will speak somewhere on campus, possibly early in the morning. Seating might be very limited for security reasons.
Chinese Police Want a Smaller Hall
Since the beginning of last week, Yale administration was involved in serious negotiations with Chinese Security police officers, discussing the details of when and where Hu would speak. The Chinese security team wanted the speech to be held in Yale’s Sprague Memorial Hall, because this hall is smaller, seating only a few hundred.
Yale’s TV station will broadcast the speech live. The emcees will be Peter Salovey, Dean of Yale College and Jon Butler, Dean of Graduate School
Yale President Richard C. Levin said that because the number of ticket were limited, Yale would distribute the majority of the tickets among Yale’s staff and students doing research related to China.
Whether To Allow News Coverage By Media with Falun Gong Background?
Yale’s staff expects a large international media presence at Hu’s speech. One of the difficulties in the discussion between the Yale administration and the Chinese security team was how to handle media outlets that report favorably on Falun Gong.
When Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao spoke at Harvard during his 2003 U.S. trip, Chinese Security blocked journalists from RFA and NTDTV, which report Falun Gong news factually. Eventually, after the intervention of both U.S. congressmen and Harvard officials, an RFA journalist was allowed to enter the hall.
Yale Daily News quoted U.S.-headquartered Falun Dafa Information Center spokesman Mr. Joel Chipkar saying that to date, a total 2,781 Chinese Falun Gong practitioners have died due to torture and mistreatment by the Chinese police. In addition, hundreds of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners have been detained or arrested, many of them were sent to forced-labor camps without trial. After Hu was appointed President the persecution of Falun Gong has continued unabated. Mr. Chipkar hoped that Yale students could raise this issue at Hu’s speech, as it could have a very powerful effect.
Will There Be Live Broadcasts to China after the Wen Incident?
It s not known whether Hu’s speech will be broadcast live to China.
Currently, we still don’t know whether Chinese TV will broadcast Hu’s speech live. Two years ago, when Chinese Premier Wen was giving a similar speech at Harvard, a female student suddenly stood up and called out to Wen to grant Tibet independence. Chinese media workers were very shocked and quickly cut off the live broadcast signal.
Yale University and China have a long history of student exchange. China’s first overseas student, Rong Hong studied at Yale, and graduated in 1854. Yale’s ties with China have strengthened during the past few years. Yale President Richard C. Levin has visited China four times in the past four years, and is planning another trip this September. According to data published by the university, Yale plays host to more overseas students and visiting scholars from China than from any other country.
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