To the editor:

About Chinese human rights, Scott Borre gave out some different opinions in his April 24 letter:

Since the U.S. government has been consistently pushing China to stop violating human rights, China must have been violating human rights.

And the simple reason that the United States has not been pushing China is the money, because the U.S. economy benefits greatly from trading with China.

Chinese people don’t have the authentic right to vote since usually we only have one candidate for a position.

China is violating human rights by practicing infanticide on female babies, and China inhibits freedom of religion.

Now let’s examine those opinions one by one. For the first one, I am not quite understanding the verb tense there.

Does it means the U.S. government has been pushing China or has not been pushing China?

What I understand is the United States had been pushing consistently, but has not been pushing because of money.

If my understanding is right, I think most Americans will disagree with this opinion.

I strongly agree that the U.S. economy benefits greatly from China, just the same as the Chinese economy benefits greatly from trade with the United States. But we all know that the United States is the guard of human rights, and most American people have integrity.

Will the U.S. government change its opinion because of money? For instance, if you try to stop someone doing something wrong, will you give up only because he gave some money to you?

As for voting rights, yes, usually we only have one candidate for president, but it does not mean we can only vote for that person.

Actually, we don’t vote directly for president. We select some representatives from us by selective franchise. Those representatives then play very important roles, including voting for the president and making and changing laws. Before voting, representatives nominate candidates and decide the final one. The guy who has most supporters becomes the final one.

During the voting, representatives can either support or object to the final candidate. If candidates can’t get two-thirds votes, they will not be elected. Although we have only one candidate to vote for, the result is almost the same. I don’t think anyone else other than George W. Bush and Al Gore will be the American president. Is there much difference between them?

When Scott Borre mentioned the infanticide on female babies, I was surprised at that. Actually, I don’t know much about it. But I am quite sure it’s against Chinese law. Maybe such crime does happen in some rural places, but most Chinese people will never do that.

Do you see much more Chinese men than Chinese women here? Can we say the United States is violating human rights because to that one kid just shot his classmate?

As for the religion, I should say Chinese now have much freedom.

Many people become Christians, and more people are Buddhists. Of course, every government has to fight the supernatural and evil religions.

China did deny freedom of religion decades ago, but now, religious freedom is protected by the Chapter.

As I said, China has made great progress in protecting human rights. We warmly welcome people interested to continue discussing.

Wang Bing-Bing

Graduate student

Interdepartmental genetics

program