A thorn for Rose Parade

When the Tournament of Roses announced earlier this year that the Rose Parade would include a float celebrating the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, many hailed it as a historic moment for the 119-year-old parade and a sign of China’s rise on the world stage.

But with the parade less than three months away, the float has become an increasingly heated political issue in Pasadena and beyond. Some Chinese activists and human rights groups are decrying it, and some city officials are calling on Pasadena to speak out on the Chinese government’s human rights record.

The issue offers a preview of what is expected to be a loud debate as the world’s attention focuses next summer on Beijing for the country’s first Olympic Games.

After several emotional public hearings, the Pasadena City Council will decide in the coming weeks whether to address the concerns of China’s critics, including whether to pass a resolution dealing with the country’s human rights issues.

“For an elected official that worries about potholes and planning, this international diplomacy is a little heady,” said Mayor Bill Bogaard, who finds himself at the center of the storm. “Maybe it’s an indication of the international standing this . . . city has that we find ourselves on the threshold of this debate.”

The fight over the float also underscores the divide in Southern California’s Chinese American community. The float is sanctioned by the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee but is financed by wealthy Chinese Americans as well as Pasadena-based label maker Avery Dennison Corp., which has major business ties with China.

Many Chinese Americans are proud of the Rose Parade float and the Olympic Games it celebrates. Business, cultural and family ties are deeply intertwined between China and the U.S., and for several years China has been the top trading partner with the Los Angeles area, accounting last year for $126 billion dollars in trade (counting commerce to and from local airports and seaports).

But Southern California is also home to thousands of Chinese who fled their homeland to escape repression, and many of them have problems with the float.

“We cannot avoid human rights issues,” John Li, president of the Caltech Falun Gong Club. “We are going to ask people to join us to protest during the Rose Parade.”

The Falun Gong, a spiritual movement that has been banned in China, was the first to speak out. The cause has since been joined by the Pasadena chapter of Amnesty International, Reporters Without Borders and Los Angeles Friends of Tibet, as well as artists, Burmese activists and some advocates of religious freedom, Pasadena officials said.

Scores showed up for two heated meetings of the city’s Human Relations Commission. One Falun Gong practitioner said she was imprisoned at a detention center in Beijing’s Xicheng District, one of Pasadena’s sister cities.

Others described torture, arrests and deaths at the hands of Chinese authorities.

“There were about 140 people who showed up, which is 125 more than usual,” said Kenneth Hardy, chairman of the commission. “The environment was charged.”

To the surprise of some, the commission recommended that the City Council pass a resolution expressing the need to improve human rights in China and that the city hold more meetings with the dissident groups.

Some Pasadena officials and boosters don’t like that idea and are urging the City Council to drop the matter.

“It’s foolish,” said Jane Hallinger, president of the Pasadena Sister Cities Committee. “If [America] were lily-clean, we might have the right to take a stand. All it does is stir up a tempest in a teapot.”

Councilman Chris Holden said he has no issue with the float because he believes it represents the Games, not the Beijing government. However, he said he would approve issuing a resolution.

“We heard about how people were being treated in China in a way that robs them of their dignity,” he said. “But . . . our hands aren’t clean either. We don’t want to sound hypocritical. Having said that, I don’t think we should ever lose our ability to address injustice anywhere.”

Caught in the middle is the venerable Tournament of Roses. Tournament President CL Keedy said he and other officials considered the issue of human rights before accepting the float. But they ultimately decided that the float was apolitical and evoked the spirit of the Olympic Games in unison with the 2008 parade’s theme, “Passport to the World’s Celebrations.”

“When I selected this float, my thought was to bring as many celebrations from around the world to the streets of Pasadena on New Year’s Day,” Keedy said. “We were aware there were issues with China, but we felt the float was an Olympic float and not a Chinese float.”

Chinese American float boosters agree, saying the protesters represent small dissent groups and not the majority of the community.

“This is a very small, small group,” said Sue Zhang, a fundraiser for Beijing’s Tsinghua University who rounded up the Chinese American donors for the float. “All over, Chinese people in America and other countries are very happy for China,” she said.

Final details of the float are still being worked up. An early drawing shows a group of colorful cartoon characters, the Games’ official mascots.

Zhang said Avery Dennison, which has thousands of employees in China, paid half of the float’s $400,000 cost.

The firm released a statement saying that it empathized with victims of human rights abuses in China and that the float represented the Olympics and not the Chinese government.

The other half was paid in $20,000 donations from 10 wealthy Chinese American donors, including bankers, a healthcare equipment manufacturer and a casino chairman, Zhang said.

Zhang said the donors were greatly appreciated by Chinese government officials and suggested that they could one day be welcomed to Beijing as VIPs.

Though some of the donors have business interests in China, she said that did not motivate the donations.

The float, which is to bear the Beijing Games logo, will not include any corporate signs or Chinese flags.

“They’re representing themselves, not their businesses,” Zhang said of the donors. “Their business is very good and they don’t need anything from the Chinese government.”

Some float critics questioned that, saying local businesses gain a financial edge by supporting China.

More debate is expected as the August 2008 opening of the Games nears.

“The area of interchange between the U.S. and China is expanding so dramatically that the potential areas where friction can develop is also expanding,” said Clay Dube, associate director of the USC U.S.-China Institute.

“Does Beijing now regret having this float? I’m sure there’s people who wish this wasn’t an issue,” he said.

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david.pierson@latimes.com