Vancouver – The end of Chinese President Hu Jintao’s landmark North American tour was marked by protests in Vancouver on Canada’s west coast, much like it started nine days earlier.
Hu and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin toasted each other at a farewell luncheon for Hu inside a luxury hotel, while outside about 300 demonstrators against Chinas human rights record screamed: “Shame, shame, shame.”
Scores held up banners supporting Falungong, the religious movement banned in China, and “Free Tibet” signs, as pro-Chinese demonstrators waved large red Chinese flags and one supporter beat on a drum.
Trucks drove past plastered with signs that read: “80 million died under China” followed by late-model vans covered in the Chinese flag, with passengers aiming video cameras at the protesters on the sides.
Numerous people wore giant signs bearing photographs of Tibetans imprisoned or killed in China over religious issues, including Sonan Dorje, Lobsang Yonten, Gyaltsen Dolkar and Phun Tsok Narjdu.
They protested China’s claims on Taiwan too, calling it a military threat, and said that Canada should focus less on trade and speak out against China’s human rights abuses.
“China is a bully,” said protester Charles Yang, who immigrated in 1964 from Taiwan. He said Canada had recently stood up to the United States in a battle over lumber tariffs, but “how about China… with China, Canada shows no backbone.”
He charged that Canada ignores China’s military buildup, threats against Taiwan and human rights abuses “in order to promote trade. It is too short-sighted.”
Indeed, trade between the two countries was the focus of Hu’s tour of Canada and Mexico. A week earlier, Martin and Hu signed a “strategic partnership” between the two countries in Ottawa.
“I am satisfied with the achievements of the robust Canada-Chinese collaboration,” Hu told 850 elite political, business and community leaders at the luncheon Saturday, insulated inside the large hotel ballroom from the din of the demonstrators and supporters outside.
Hu said he hoped the two countries would double bilateral trade by 2010 and work together on major international and regional issues toward “world peace and development.”
Martin called Hu’s visit “a great success” and recited a list of things the two countries have in common, including regional diversity and an enormous geographic size.
It was Hu’s first trip to North America since he assumed the president’s office in 2003 and only the third by a Chinese president since diplomatic relations were established in 1970. China agreed to postpone a visit to Washington because of US President George W. Bush’s busy schedule handling the Hurricane Katrina disaster.
Martin also said the world has much work to do on development, security and human rights issues, noting both he and Hu recently appeared at the United Nations in New York.
Human rights earned only a brief mention, even though the issue has drawn hundreds of demonstrators throughout Hu’s tour.
Meanwhile, a group called Students for a Free Tibet alleged in a press release that they were assaulted by “a mob of Chinese Communist Party supporters” during a peaceful protest, and that the assailants verbally abused them before ripping their signs and breaking a banner.
Protestors also blasted Hu’s presence in Canada because he was governor of Tibet during a martial law crackdown by the Chinese government.
“They did horrible things,” said a demonstrator who gave his name only as Sonam.
