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September 19, 1995

Women's Conference in China

I originally had mixed feeling about holding a world conference in China:

• Holding a UN conference in China might have given the Chinese government an undeserved bit of respectability; on the other hand, it might provide contact and exposure to groups insulated in China.

• While I support representative government, freedom of expression and equal rights, I also strongly repect the right of other people to maintain their own cutlural values. As much as I might despise some cultures' practices, I am loath to press my own values onto them. My values are appropriate for my culture; I do not presume that they are valid for others.

• While I have no doubts that Harry Wu's detension by the Chinese government was used as a pretense by certain conservatives to manipulate certain planned speakers at the conference, this fact does not invalidate the real geo-political issue of maintaining an intercourse with a government that is detaining legally visiting citizens of other countries.

The outcome of the conference has shown to me that my concerns have been outweighed by the benefits created by the conference.

• Due to its bumbling attempts to control the content of the conference, the Chinese government failed to garner any prestige from hosting this international conference.

• The Chinese government could not prevent the discourse of ideas between international attendees and Chinese citizens. The meetings were restricted to fairly remote areas and the Chinese media failed to cover events that might infect the Chine culture; those that were exposed to outside cultural values were there because they chose to be - exotic values weren't being forced onto Chinese citizens.

• Harry Wu's trial, conviction and release provided another example to the world of the Chinese goverment's petty view of global relations and its farcical legal system. Despite the political manuevering of some Western conservatives, certain conference speakers gave (in my opinion) excellent expressions of women's rights, and a blunt condemnation of human rights violations.

The conference provided yet another example that women leaders are also world leaders. Under adverse conditions, the conference remained well-organized and to the point. The conference leaders believed that holding the conference in China was the right thing to do - and despite objections from some government leaders, they stuck to their figurative guns and proved their decision right.

Towards the end of the conference, issues raised regarding sexual preference became a hotly debated topic that threated to delayed the summation of the conference. While many of the conference leaders were sympathethic towards these issues, in the end the attenddes agreed to stick with the point of the conference - women's rights - and to save the this topic for a conference on sexual rights.

If only our government heads could put partisan issues aside and show as much leadership.