What a fiasco. What kind of nincompoops are at the head of an Obama administration that invites a guest pianist to humiliate the United States on its own soil and in the presence of its President and other American dignataries? Of course it goes along with Obama bowing to heads of state in his travels around the world. Jay Nordlinger calls Lang Lang, the guest pianist, a kind of court pianist for President Obama and the Chinese leadership." (my emphases follow)
What did he play? Most notably and significantly, he played a famous anti-American propaganda song. Famous in China, that is. Wei Jingsheng, the great Chinese democracy leader, exiled in the United States since 1997, wrote a letter to Congress and Secretary of State Clinton. He said, “I listened to that music with a big shock.” Wei explained that the song, “My Country,” or “My Motherland,” comes from “the best-known Communist propaganda movie about the Korean War,” depicting the Chinese army’s fight with the Americans. The movie is called "The Battle of Triangle Hill." Wei said that the movie is as well-known in China as "Gone with the Wind "is here.
The song refers to the Americans as “wolves” or “jackals,” and says that the Chinese will use weapons to deal with them. Wei commented, “Is that not an insult to the USA to play such . . . music at a state dinner hosted by the US President? No wonder it made Hu Jintao really happy.” Yes, no wonder. As Wei pointed out, Hu is not ordinarily given to public emotion, but he emotionally embraced Lang Lang.
Do you find this shocking? I certainly do. What does Obama think of the America he is supposed to represent and defend? Does he not recognize a responsibility to defend America's honor? Nordlinger goes on:
(click below)
The Epoch Times quotes a Chinese psychiatrist living in Philadelphia, Yang Jingduan: “In the eyes of all Chinese, this will not be seen as anything other than a big insult to the U.S. It’s like insulting you in your face and you don’t know it, it’s humiliating.” In his letter, Wei said that so-called patriotic Chinese — supporters of the Communist party and the dictatorship — were ecstatic over “My Motherland” at the White House. . .
So just who is this Lang Lang? Nordlanger again:
In and around every dictatorship, there are official artists. The Nazis had them, the Soviets had them — all the worst have them. Lang Lang has chosen to be an official artist. Of course, the bad old USA has helped him a lot. He came here to complete his musical education. He studied at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia with Gary Graffman. He has had the countless benefits of living and working in a free society. What a contrast with Lang Lang’s fellow Chinese who languish in "laogai," that country’s gulag.
Further:
This is one pianist who stands with the persecutors, not with the persecuted. Wei Jingsheng, Gao Zhisheng — those are great Chinese, the pride of the nation. Lang Lang, and Hu Jintao, for that matter, are very different Chinese.
So what do we make of this state visit and the entertainment?
Obama’s hosting of Hu, and what amounts to a celebration of that dictatorship, has been a disaster, from nearly every point of view. George W. Bush did not grant Hu a state visit. Hu settled for a more modest visit — the kind the head of a police state should settle for, in a liberal democracy. Bush gave him a polite lunch and sent him on his way. Obama created the opportunity for a great CCP propaganda victory. The dictatorship is delighted, and the prisoners, dissidents, and democrats feel something else.
Anybody feeling sick right now? Maybe a bit angry as well? Can the President of the United States get anything right? (See also Matthew Robertson's important article on Lang Lang's performance as well). Jim Hoft itemizes other Obama actions (or non-actions), that sicken the heart of freedom-loving peoples everywhere:
Obama failed to support the people of Georgia when Russian tanks plowed across the border.
Obama failed to support the freedom protesters in Iran when the regime was shooting at them from rooftops.
Obama failed to support the Honduran people when a tyrant tried to take their freedom.
Obama also failed to support freedom activists in Egypt. When Barack Obama went to Cairo to talk about peace, freedom and brotherhood in 2009 he forgot to mention that he had cut funding for democracy and governance programming in Egypt by more than half his first year in office. [more ...]
It seems this president believes only half-heartedly in freedom and democracy, and doesn't wish to employ America's influence to any significant degree to advance those causes in the world.
Nordlinger followed up his original article with another, noting how Lang Lang has sought to defend himself and NPR has attempted to whitewash the event. But Nordlinger is undeterred.
Over the years, I have come to this conclusion: One of the Chinese government’s greatest assets in the West is that we are very, very reluctant to learn much about China. [Or Islam, or study seriously any religion for that matter] We don’t wish to probe beneath the surface. We basically want to get along, take our Yellow River tours, and, perhaps above all, make money. This means turning a blind eye — millions of blind eyes — to the rest.
A final word about Lang Lang (to whom I have probably devoted as many words, over the last ten years, as I have to any musician): He is a Vice President of the All China Youth Federation. This is an important and longstanding component of the CCP, which has ruled China, dictatorially, for more than 60 years now. (Ten years longer than Castro and his Communists have ruled Cuba!) Here is the federation’s “basic task”: to “uphold patriotism and the banner of socialism, rally and educate young people from every ethnic group, encourage youth to study Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, and Jiang Zemin’s Three Represents,” etc.
Next time I see Lang Lang, I might ask him about those three represents — sorry, Three Represents.
Me: Until convinced otherwise, I see Hu Jintao's visit, and Mr. Lang Lang's performance, as another regrettable example of the weakness President Obama continues to exhibit to the world.