In a carefully rehearsed event, President Barack Obama avoided any mention of Tibet, or human rights during a question-answer session with hand-picked students in Shanghai. Although speaking on internet freedom,
“I’m a big supporter of not restricting internet use,” he said. “The more open we are, the more we can communicate and it also draws the world together,”
he remained tight-lipped on the Tibetan issue. Instead the President skated around any direct controversy by claiming the United States would promote freedom of expression, political participation, respect for ethnic minorities and the need to empower women (does Obama even realize that communist China forcibly sterilizes women?)
“These freedoms of expression and worship, of access to information and political participation, we believe are universal rights, they should be available to all people including ethnic and religious minorities,” (emphasis added)
There had been some hopeful expectation that he would use his meeting with Shanghai students to directly address the Chinese public on sensitive issues, however (and there can be little surprise here) the meeting was a staged managed affair.
The session was of course not broadcast nationally, and communist China’s official propaganda agency, Xinhua revealed that Chinese Television will be releasing an edited version of the meeting later today.
More coverage here:
http://storyballoon.org/videos/president-obama-in-shanghai-c...