Enter the Dragon: Mixed Feelings Greet China at G20 Summit

Thousands gathered to welcome or protest the arrival of Chinese President Hu Jintao at the G20 global economic summit held at the National Building Museum last weekend.

“I am very excited," said Kelan Ren, a government-funded, visiting student at the University of Pennsylvania. "I hope our country can stand for developing countries, speak out their voices and help with the recovery of global economy.” She was dressed in a red coat symbolizing not only the main color of the Chinese national flag, but also a cultural sense of joy and happiness.

Although Ren traveled to the District with hundreds of Chinese people from Philadelphia, many locals from the Chinese community also attended. They gathered for hours beating drums and performing traditional dances on the roadside before Hu’s plane landed at a District military airbase.

“I feel proud to see our president coming,” said Zhou Chen, a Chinese student studying in the United States. “I see China’s power is rising.”

Though the crowd waved Chinese and American flags, even in the rain, their joy was not universally apparent to Americans passing by. Liang Du from American University complained that some Americans approached and asked whether they were protesting.

“With no offense, I thought these Chinese were protesting their government,” said Mabby Mcfarling, who came from Pennsylvania for a business leadership program and stayed in the same hotel as Hu Jintao.

The protesters actually showed the following day. Unlike the unifying message of the pro-China supporters standing nearby, the protesters had various causes. Some of the protesters supported the independence of Tibet, others were Falun Gong practitioners, and others represented a group that called themselves the China Democracy Party.

The largest group of people were advocates of Tibetan independence, who used loudspeakers to accuse Hu of being “a liar” and “a killer.”

The protesters standing under the Falun Gong and China Democracy Party banners occasionally railed against the Chinese Communist Party, the governing party in China. That government labeled Falun Gong an "evil cult" in 1999 and caused activists from the Tianamen Square protests to organize the China Democracy Party in 1998, according to the party's Web site.

As the 20 leaders left the meeting in their motorcades, Hu's supporters waited for his departure. The Chinese president's motorcade took another exit, however, to avoid a possible confrontation with the protesters.