A Capitol Hill elementary school parent who happens to be an expert on Chinese foreign policy is helping neighborhood school kids connect with their peers across the sea in a new effort that will bring pen-pals and a Year of the Rabbit celebration to Stevens Elementary:
Through a virtual exchange using Microsoft’s Flip educational video-sharing platform, students will have a contemporary version of pen-pals to learn about each other’s lives in these two important countries, and start building a foundation together for addressing the challenges they will face throughout the rest of this century.
Tabitha Mallory, Ph.D., the CEO of the China Ocean Institute, a Capitol Hill-based consulting firm that conducts research on Chinese ocean and fisheries policy, and a Stevens parent, reached out to tell CHS about the new project.
“I understand the concerns about the optics of having a partnership with a school in China because of China’s human rights abuses and other tensions. At the same time, it is not Chinese children who are locking up Uyghurs or planning to invade Taiwan,” Mallory said in the announcement. “The reason to launch a project like this is precisely because we want future generations to know that they have different options, and for kids in both countries to see the potential for friendship with each other. This is an opportunity to provide a vision of what the future could look like instead.”
Mallory says students will use Flip to introduce themselves and talk about things like favorite foods and activities. Flip reportedly has the transcription and translation ability to handle the language barrier.
In conjunction with Kids Club after school program, Stevens will hold a Lunar New Year of the Rabbit celebration on Friday to celebrate the launch the initiative. The event will feature a lion dance from Seattle’s Mak Fai Kung Fu Dragon and Lion Dance Association. The Seattle students will then be able to send initial greetings to the students in China to wish them a happy new year.
The project is being helped by the Seattle–Chongqing Sister City Association and supported by the National Committee on U.S.–China Relations Public Intellectuals Program, which is funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
$5 A MONTH TO HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE THIS SPRING
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Tabitha Mallory’s propagandistic views won’t help the friendship project she’s purporting to build: China is not “locking up Uyghurs or planning to invade Taiwan.” The whole Uyghur bit is almost entirely derived from a overzealous religious fanatic named Adrian Zenz, pushed by US war hawks who have been looking for excuses to break up China since they “lost” it in 1949. Recently the UN visited Xinjiang, as did a delegation of Muslim scholars and clerics. Both found no evidence to support the US’s claims of genocide. It’s the Chinese school that should be concerned about the US human rights record–it’s the US that has 4.4% of the world’s population yet 21% of its prisoners, and it’s the US that has launched hundreds of military interventions in the last 30 years alone. And the whole Taiwan bit is nonsense, like saying the US is going to invade itself. The US has repeatedly acknowledged that there is one China and Taiwan is part of it–the US “does not challenge that position” in its words (Shanghai Communique of 1972). Reunification is ongoing, and the US needs to mind its own business. Here’s hoping Dr. Mallory minds hers as well.
So… we know what side of the CCP you land on. Xi, is that you?
Are you the same person that fills the pro-CCP newspaper box on 15th outside of Wallgreens? ( …and other boxes throughout the city )
The Uyghur issue in Xinjiang is much more complicated than you think you have known. I believe that Tabitha is telling a truth about abuse of human rights in a broad sense rather than simply declaring that Uighur is 100% innocent and CCP is 100% evil; it is not that simple. There definitely is a certain degree of “locking up”, whatever the purpose is–either to force the Uighur to learn professional/occupational skills so that they can work after release, or just to simply serve as a penalty for their rebellion against the CCP and/or hatred and violence towards the Han Chinese. Abuse of human rights occurs during the locking-up.
As for the Taiwan issue, the term “invade” used by Tabitha is a neutral term without a derogatory tone, so you do not have to overreact and be so sensitive. More importantly, the current Taiwanese government and the current mainland China’s government have a relationship like that between two sons of the same family, i.e., they must be politically and sovereignly equal, whether you like it or not. Do you think it is legitimate for the “big-sized” son to enter the “small-sized” son’s home and beat him just because the latter one does not obey the former one? The Taiwanese people have their rights to choose their path.
The world is everyone’s business! 天下为公