OK. Michael English has his definition of self-awareness. I sort of agree that China does not have a big tradition of have a free press. But that is a long way from saying that China does not have a tradition of human rights. Everything else you said is just...wrong. Really, the short answer to your letter should be that America and Americans need to concentrate on making our own nation more righteous. More just. Here is the long answer.

...And when a significant number of the people under that government decided that they wished for a different type of government and asked for one to be created, that same government murdered them en mass. I am of course referring to the Tianamen Square Massacre- which many Chinese are not even aware of- so effectively was the Massacre silenced.

Everyone who cares about politics (which is not everyone for sure) knows about 6/4 (Tiananmen Square Massacre). Everyone who is older than about 26 knows about 6/4. Lets just say, everyone in China except those who live in the middle of nowhere know about 6/4. The numbers "Six-Four" is engraved into the Chinese collective consciousness as much as "Nine - Eleven" is to Americans. AND... the original student protestors and most of the people who joined into the protest as it grew were not in any way looking for a different type of government. The original protestors were elite Beijing University students who wanted more position openings in the CCP for better government jobs for themselves. They voted to ban workers from joining their protest before it started. Beijing people started joining the protests en-mass, but it was much more a protest about raising inflation and corruption than a call for democracy or change in government. And later, rival student protestor groups charged into the protest with different objectives, but all followed the protest models used during the Cultural Revolution. Your comment here displays ignorance about China and this event in particular.

Chinese imperialism is very much alive and well in Tibet- the country that China invaded and conquered a couple of decades ago. China was ruthless enough to succeed where we failed.

Agreed. And the US conquered its land from indigenous people and from the Spanish. It has today, in the eyes of many, conquered Iraq and is ruling it poorly. How can we criticize this conquest, which took place 60 year ago? Also, will people start calling for effective solutions such as "Protect Tibet's culture! Protect the forests of Tibet!" instead of calling for the separation of the region of Tibet from China's control?

The people of Taiwan receive regular threats of impending conquest by the Chinese government.

This is so complicated I'm not going to go into what this statement overlooks. Short-story...it is the prime purpose of nation-states to protect their sovereignty. It tends to be important for governments to be thought of as credible as well.

And the people of Darfur are being murdered by Sudanese Arabs funded by Chinese oil interests.

Um... And our oil money goes to a bunch of saints? Not to Enron and Texas oligarchs? Not to Saudi Arabia, where woman are more or less forced to conceal themselves in public, and where the state promotes a sect of Islam that hates Jewish people? (I’m Jewish BTW, and I particularly hate the our dependence on this nation for our energy needs)

It is true that if you judge China on the basis of all of its 3000+ years of recorded history as a cohesive nation, it seems to be a largely static and on the whole relatively benign nation experiencing recent upheavals. ... But if you judge China on the basis of its history after the Cultural Revolution- when it broke with the past and remade itself into a modern nation-state- what you get is a very violent, bullying oligarchy whose worst impulses were once held in check by its location next to Soviet Russia and North Korea; and by the damage it caused to itself in the purges of the Great Leap Forward. That bad geographic luck and self-inflicted weakness is now coming to an end. What is emerging now is dangerous to its neighbors, and has the potential to be far worse at its best than the United States is at its worst..

Jesus. First of all, throughout the 5000 years of Chinese history, it has often been a very turbulent, fragmented place. While Europeans were mostly living in small villages and Alexander was leading his army to conquer Asia Minor, "Chinese" kingdoms were fielding massive armies and fighting mighty conflicts with each other. The country was first unified by a blood-thirsty totalitarian dictator (in a pre-industrial sense). After the founding of China, the CCP very violently unified a country that was previously controlled in part by Japan and in part by various warlords. Again, not making excuses. This is just history. Second of all, only after the Cultural Revolution was over (lets say...after the death of Mao and the Trial of the Gang of Four), China entered a period of growth and stability. Did got into a war with Vietnam though, but they lost that war badly and have not had any military conflict since. Third, the Great Leap Forward caused the biggest man-mad famine in the history of the human race. It was not a time of purges though. I think you are confusing the GLF and the Great Cultural Revolution.