Fireworks over China

Re “Human rights take field in China,” Aug. 6

In my travels in China as long as 13 years ago -- when the air was nowhere near as dirty as it is now -- I saw Chinese citizens all over Beijing wearing surgical masks to protect themselves from the polluted air.

Our cyclists were doing the same, and have nothing to apologize for. The Chinese should look in the mirror before claiming to have been deeply offended.

Mark W. Dixon

Newport Beach

Before we use the Olympics as a tool to brazenly criticize life in China, why don’t we first tend our own garden?

While China has pollution, America’s carbon emissions per capita is many times that of China’s. While China can’t play well with others, the United States fights an unpopular war and is ridiculed around the world. China clearly should not violate human rights -- oh wait, we wiretap civilians while we torture and detain suspected terrorists without a fair trial.

China today isn’t a rose garden, but why can’t we as Americans be half as fervent about improving America as we are about bettering China?

Eric Chow

Walnut

Any government that glorifies one of the greatest mass murderers of the 20th century, as China has with the prominent display of Chairman Mao Tse-tung at the Olympic Games, deserves not only to be shunned but to be branded for what it is: a partner in the crime.

A picture may be worth a thousand words. The deaths of murdered millions speak even louder.

Ernest Zimdars

Claremont