When Wang Wenyi from the Epoch Times newspaper rose to scream “President Hu, your days are numbered. President Bush, make him stop persecuting Falun Gong”, it should have given pause to President Bush, who has had his own recent heckler problems. While China has liberalized economically over the last twenty-five years, it retains more than a remnant of it’s Maoist social policy. In addition to its repression of the Falun Gong sect there is its ongoing occupation of Tibet, its enormous prisoner population (the size of which is unknown, but said to be considerable), and memories of Tianmen Square massacre still loom. There is the same social inequity as in America, but with different rationalizations for it. If a critic of America’s socio-political system says that it is nothing more than state-sponsored Capitalism- what with bailouts, subsidies, and so on- China’s system is moreso Capitalist statism. The rhetoric may preach equality and the glory of revolutionary labor, but the result is the same; a few fatcats protecting themselves with a centralized state apparatus. China’s recent economic prosperity is lessening this, and a middle class is growing. China holds considerable economic sway over America. We do over them as well, but our nation has over the years sold them billions of dollars in bonds which China could, in a fit of pique (or pragmatism) cash in. This would cause considerable- though probably short-term- harm to our economy. We rely on their cheap manufactured goods. Bush does a wise thing in urging them to the bargaining table. Better than the battlefield- militarily and scientifically they are advancing at an impressive pace There is a logic in meeting them at the tale, but it can also be said that America errs by ever dealing with, and thus encouraging, repressive regimes. It’s not that China is a Communist regime- we deal with the Scandinavian countries amicably, and they mostly adhere to varying degrees of socialism- it’s that they are a repressive one, and trading with dictatorships, though it always sullies us, in this case is necessary realpolitik. Sadly the post-World War II era seems to be the history of “politics making strange bedfellows”. We dealt with Pinochet. We backed Saddam during Iran-Iraq. Hell, we hired Nazi scientists, plucked them out of the South American jungles and put them to work in the private sector. When does it stop making strange bedfellows and become…something else? At the massage? China could be softening. Their current human rights record, while not glistening, is better now than compared to during the Cultural Revolution. If this is the case and their society re-opens to allow voices outside the Chinese Communist Party, and allows a reasonable quality of life for its citizens, they could be a stable and persuasive world power. The heckler was only the low note (if there can be a low note that screeches) in a less-than-notable visit for the Chinese President. Reuters reports that Bush, at one point, tugged on Hu’s sleeve. No doubt Bush was being his “folksy” self; “hey Hu, let’s go get us a couple O’Doul’s”, but he only ended up startling the Chinese premier and upsetting him. Bush can’t catch a break for love or money these days. The Falun Gong newspaper, “The Epoch Times”, is available in Boston, mostly around the Financial District and Chinatown. Their article about the encounter between Hu and the heckler should be an interesting read. Hopefully our relationship with China will evolve into one that is friendly and fruitful, and they will give freedom to Falun Gong. Hecklers happen, even to good leaders. But they can also be attacks of conscience on a nation’s political psyche. We, as China’s trading partner and a fellow world power, have to ask; did the heckler have a point?