Walter Hutchens’ Blog

PRC President Hu Jintao went to Yale to give a speech during his American visit. I happened to be on campus that day (coincidentally for a conference on China).

Chinese leaders travelling abroad routinely encounter protests, which of course is quite different than their experience inside the PRC (despite ostensible guarantees to freedom of speech and assembly in the PRC constitution).

I took a few pictures of the motley assembly of New Haven protesters (and counter-protesters).

On the critical side, there were Falungong adherents, human rights activists, Tibetans and general anti-communists. The counter-protesters included, oddly, what appeared to be a uniformed PRC military band, plus lots of organized civilian flag wavers (and a few people who seemed to have randomly turned out to welcome Hu).

Pro-CCP forces were using huge speakers connected to a generator to blare patriotic songs, trying to drown out protesters who were screaming their complaints and chants into loud speakers.

I overheard people arguing in Chinese, accusing each other of being unpatriotic (to China), and there was some jostling for positions along the sidewalks that lined what was perceived to be Hu’s motorcade route. There were lots of leafletters, and scattered groups of FLG people sat meditating. Overall it was a relatively small and vigorous but certainly peaceful assemblage.

I understand Hu’s speech was nothing scintillating (predictably) but that he answered a couple of pre-determined questions with aplomb (perhaps surprising given that he doesn’t get a lot of Q&A practice).