China tries to appeal to Obama by equating Tibet with U.S. slavery

[Newsjock]

Source: The Globe and Mail

Was Mao Zedong the Abraham Lincoln of China?

In an attempt to convince U.S. President Barack Obama of its claim to Tibet, the Chinese government has likened the 1959 Communist takeover of the area to the American Civil War, inferring that Mao freed Tibetans from slavery much as Lincoln ended slavery in the United States.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang suggested that Mr. Obama – who arrives in China this weekend on his first presidential visit – should understand China's controversial Tibet policy better than other world leaders because “he is a black president and he understands the slavery abolition movement.” Mr. Obama claims Mr. Lincoln as a hero who, he says, helped make it possible for someone of part African descent to win the White House.

... Tibetan groups ridiculed the comparison. “It is an insult for the unelected and authoritarian Chinese government to suggest that an instinctive democrat such as Abraham Lincoln would have sided with China in seeking to deny the Tibetan people their fundamental right to determine their own future,” said Matt Whitticase, a spokesman for the Free Tibet campaign.

Read more: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/china-tries-to-appeal-to-obama-by-equating-tibet-with-us-slavery/article1361525/