We, the entire membership of the Chinese Students and Scholars Association of BYU, were shocked and enraged on Sept. 19 by The Daily Universe's editorial 'China as guilty as Iraq.' We express our disappointment with its prejudicial views and protest its absurdities in the strongest possible terms.
As a permanent member of the Security Council of the United Nations, China has always been a responsible member of the international community, and has always supported international peace, law and order. After the tragedy of 9-11, the Chinese people and government strongly condemned terrorist activity of any kind, and expressed our support and cooperation to the United States' effort to fight terrorism. This action by the Chinese people and government was gratefully acknowledged by U.S. government officials. But your editorial ignored the most basic of facts, intentionally twisted President Bush's words, and totally overlooked the active role played by China in the international fight against terrorism. Most egregiously of all, it irresponsibly equated China with Iraq. This is not only a great insult to the Chinese people and government, it also heaped needless shame on all of the Chinese students and scholars who are studying and working at BYU.
The editorial's exposition of the problem of Tibet was entirely baseless. Ever since antiquity Tibet has been part of the sovereign territory of China. As early as the Tang Dynasty (618-907) Tibet established good political and economic relations with the Central Government of china. During the first half of the 13th century, Tibet appeared on the official map of the Yuan Dynasty. Ever since then, Tibet has been under the jurisdiction of the Central Government. Each level of officials is appointed by the Central Government. In May of 1951, the Central Government of the People's Republic of China and Tibet reached an accord, and peacefully liberated Tibet. In order to protect the rights and interest of the Tibetan people and religion, the Central Government setup a minority self-autonomous region in Tibet. It fully respects and preserves the religious beliefs and traditional culture of the people of Tibet and gives them a huge amount of financial aid, helping the development of Tibet. The conditions of human rights in Tibet and the economic level have fundamentally improved. Now more and more foreign reporters go to Tibet just to look around, seeking to understand at first hand the development of Tibet and to objectively file reports. If the editorial board had gone to Tibet in person, they would not have been so prejudiced or ignorant.
As Chinese students and scholars who have come to BYU to study, we are bridges and links between BYU and China. We hope that, through our individual efforts, we can help the greatest number of American students as well as BYU students from every country to objectively and justly learn about China and Chinese people, and eventually to help promote friendship and cooperation between United States and China. But your editorial, 'China as guilty as Iraq,' seriously distorted President Bush's speech at the United Nation, and harmed the image of China with premeditated malice. It also seriously hurts the feelings and dignity of the entire body of Chinese students and scholars at BYU, and leaves us feeling that our future study and life at BYU will be beset with problems, making us worry about being treated unfairly. This editorial would damage the good image of BYU among all the Chinese people and government as well, if they learn about it. Therefore, we strongly request that your newspaper make an official and public apology to the entire student body of Chinese students and scholars at BYU, and eliminate the evil effect of this editorial; this should be done by printing an official statement in your newspaper. We demand that actions be taken to prevent this type of thing from ever happening again.