Activist Who Tried to Get Mao Tossed From Nixon Library Now Takes on School 陈凯对抗学委和“孔课堂”

Kai Chen and his daughter Alex, then a Yale basketball player, at home in 2005.

Activist Who Tried to Get Mao Tossed From Nixon Library Now Takes on School

陈凯对抗学委和“孔课堂”

By Matt Coker, Wednesday, Mar. 24 2010 @ 8:13AM OC Weekly

Comments (4) Categories: Politics, School Daze

KaiChenForum.com www.kaichenblog.blogspot.com

​Los Angeles-based, Chinese-American activist Kai Chen, who last September organized demonstrations against the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda for including in its permanent Hall of World Leaders exhibit a life-size statue Mao Tse-Tung, is now directing his ire at the Hacienda La Puente Unified School District.

Chen with his parents in Nanjing, China, in 1977.
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Chen--an author and former member of the Red Army and the Chinese national basketball team--is upset that Cedarlane Middle School in Hacienda Heights is set to offer a "Confucius Classroom."

At no cost to the district, a nonprofit and nongovernmental organization will provide instructors and teaching materials to teach students Chinese and about China's culture under the program the district's school board approved in January with a 4-1 vote.

In the name of promoting Confucius' teachings and the Chinese language, the Office of Chinese Language Council International, or "HanBan," has established 272 Confucius Classrooms worldwide since 2005. The collegiate version, Confucius Institutes, have been implemented in 282 universities over that same period.

But critics like Chen, who vehemently opposes what he views as an oppressive Chinese regime, charge "HanBan," which is affiliated with China's Ministry of Education, is really a front for the communist government.

"This is, among other schemes, one of the most insidious and blatant acts of the Chinese communist regime to infiltrate, corrupt and pollute American political culture," Chen wrote in a letter dated Friday to district Superintendent Barbara Nakaoka (and also posted on his blog). www.kaichenblog.blogspot.com

"The untold intent of the Chinese government is to legitimize its own illegitimate and criminal regime, making despotism/tyranny acceptable as something only 'different' in the culture of freedom in America. By accepting such a philosophical premise, the poisonous effect of despotic narcotics will indeed penetrate the mindset of American youths, rendering it impotent and confused in the realm of morality and ethics."

Man, that sounds even worse than television.

Confuciusism numbs the mind enough to make it receptive to brutal regimes like China's, according to Chen, who also informs Nakaoka that news of the parent opposition to the Confucius Classroom reached mainland China, via a Chinese-language World Journal newspaper article titled, "Southern California Whites Protest Confucian Courses."

"It used racism/nationalism to confuse the real issue--the Chinese communist infiltration, encroachment and contamination upon the landscape of American political culture," Chen writes.

But as with the Mao statue in Yorba Linda, which the then-private Nixon Library installed back in 1990 alongside likenesses of other Nixon-era world leaders like Winston Churchill and Charles deGaulle, there's little Chen can do to stop the newest Confucius Classroom following the board approval.

That is, there is little he can do except organize protests, write letters and blog posts, and rile up the locals.

"I urge you and the members of Hacienda Heights School District authorities to reconsider the decision to allow the Chinese communist government to brainwash American Youths in such a blatant fashion," his letter concludes. "I urge all the parents of the students, teachers, and staff members of the school district to take action to resist and oppose such an anti-freedom course in our educational system. American Constitution is Not a suicide pact. Freedom does not mean 'freedom to abuse and destroy freedom.'"

Sounds like something Confucius would have said.

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Comments:

baxter says:

Wanna stop China's influence, and improve our own? Then stop buying their shit. Don't shop for cheap disposable junk at WalMart and box stores. Go without, or buy fewer better quality eco friendly and American made products from a local retailer. I suggest Kai Chen, if he is not already doing so, take up the consumer aspect. I assure you that us buying up their crap has a lot more influence than a wee pudgy statue at the Nixon library does.

Posted On: Wednesday, Mar. 24 2010 @ 10:07AM

dentrite says:

Confucius classroom is indeed an idealological weapon in the Party's toolbox.

But hundreds of them won't change much, You don't have to be so radical.

Posted On: Thursday, Mar. 25 2010 @ 5:54AM

Slick Willie = sells USa out .... says:
Free Tibet ....

.... & the USA, too ....

Good deal Mr Chen, keep fighting the good fight.

.... Don't the worlds most oppressive regimes just love to "legitimize" & "enrich" each other?

Our (then) President WJ Clinton - fought "tooth & nail" for the passage of "PNTR" - legitimizing & empowering the government of Communist China at the expense of USA families (jobs & tax base).

Thankful Special Interests - then made the formerly broke Clinton's (who left the White House millions in debt) ultra-rich (now worth in excess of $100 million).

If his actions against the interests of the country & people aren't traitorous .... then what indeed, does a "Traitor" do?

imo

Posted On: Thursday, Mar. 25 2010 @ 11:05AM

RobE says:

First, Mr. Chen paid some bigtime dues having to live under the repressive, corrupt and usually incompetent communist Chinese regime. I can understand how emotionally all this stuff would get under his skin in a vivid way and I think we should all respect that.

However, the Confucian thing puzzles me because as I understood it, the communists sought to undo confucianism in China. So that they are now using Confucius' name as a way to get into American schools seems curious at the very least.

However, Confucianism does run through a lot of societies in Asia, especially in South Korea. So exposing students here to that is probably a good thing and will enhances their understanding of how another part of the world thinks. And if the language material they use are non-ideological then there is likely no harm in it.

Let us not forget, too, that when Chang Kai-shek abandoned the mainland to save his and the rest of his surviving Kuomintang cronies in 1949, he went to Taiwan and set up a repressive fascist regime. His government also warmly welcomed petty Vietnamese dictator Nguyen Van Thieu and his millions of dollars worth of gold bars he had looted from his country's treasury when the communists took South Vietnam over. So maybe the larger question is what is up with the Chinese predilection for authoritarian governments? Taiwan, at least, has been liberalized over the last 15 years or so. But freedom in China was ephemeral to begin with, what, 15 years after Sun Yat-sen ascended to power?

Indeed, who does Mr. Chen want to take over the country if the Chinese leadership suddenly evaporated? It's one thing to hate on the Chinese education ministry sponsoring these classes and another to have a real vision for how China could become a functioning democracy that would benefit all of its citizens.