TORONTO - Chinese leader Hu Jintao arrived at Pearson International Airport in Toronto at 10:30 a.m. on September 10. Though he was welcomed by a crowd organized by the Chinese consulate, he must have seen clearly that the (CCP)’s diplomacy had already failed at a press conference held the day before in Ottawa.
Roger Smith, a seasoned reporter with Canadian Television (CTV) asked for Hu’s reaction to the appeals of Falun Gong practitioners calling for an end to the persecution in China. World media, packed into the press gallery, watched and listened.
Falun Gong practitioners were staging a display of the torture methods used in China against Falun Gong practitioners, democracy advocates and ”dissidents” that day outside Parliament Hill where Hu's joint press conference with Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin was taking place.
In recent times, the international media has largely refrained from directly mentioning the CCP’s abominable human rights record, in line with a policy of silence set by many Western governments trying to appease the CCP for economic purposes.
Though Hu avoided Smith’s question, China’s human rights issues, especially the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, are now being internationalized and publicized. The CCP’s attempt to use Hu's visit to prop up its regime in the face of mass resignations from the CCP failed badly.
After the CCP pulverized Chinese students’ peaceful appeals for democracy and reform with the tanks and machine guns on June 4th, 1989, it faced economic and political sanctions imposed by Western nations. The CCP used the myth of the potential purchasing power of 1.3 billion Chinese consumers as bait, and reached a tacit agreement with many Western governments that there would be no public discussion of China’s human rights problems.
Thus, the CCP muted the international criticism against its human rights abuses with high-priced trade orders for commodities such as airplanes and petroleum, while the Western public lost the opportunity to learn about the horrible human rights conditions suffered by Chinese in CCP-controlled China.
On September 3, the White House announced that, due to the disaster caused by Hurricane Katrina, the meeting between Hu and President Bush on September 7 was postponed indefinitely. Both leaders agreed to meet informally when they attend the United Nations Summit, held from September 14 to 16.
This was the first defeat of the CCP’s diplomatic policy wanting to maintain its political power in China through Hu’s state visit on the US. The focus Canadian media placed on the CCP's horrendous human rights record was the second.
Hu's agenda in Toronto included a meeting with the Premier of Ontario Province, a visit to Niagara Falls, and an evening banquet hosted by the Canada China Business Council. He then flew on to Mexico.
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