Email to The Globe and Mail re: 'YeuYeu's Death is China's shame, but we have our own'.

In his article, journalist Gary Mason is for some reason attempting to equivocate. He's either trying to avoid the ugly, ugly truth of the matter or he's got an agenda. Or maybe he owns' shares in an import / export company. Either way, he needs correcting.

Dear Mr. Mason,

You have made two inaccurate assumptions in your article today. This is understandable since facing squarely up to what the death of YeuYeu truly implies is extremely difficult and takes a great deal of courage.

However, I feel obligated to point out the following.

The much touted "bystander effect" is only useful in explaining the inaction of groups of people simultaneously witnessing a traumatic event. 

The adults who failed YeuYeu were not in a group, they were walking by as individuals. 

18 individual adults were each faced with a private choice of whether or not to render aid and comfort to a gravely injured child, and they all chose to do nothing.

No help. No comfort. Not even a cell phone call to emergency services.

If they were squeamish or worried about lawsuits there were ways to assist without touching the child: ask around, block the street to avoid the second hit and run, or, again, just call EMS.

But they did nothing. A quote from one of the passers-by gives us an insight. The man, after being questioned by reporters said: "It's not my child. Why should I bother to help?"

Your second assumption, that somehow an injured child can be directly compared to an injured adult, is also off the mark.

You repeatedly use phrases like "someone" and "another person".

A child is very much more than just "another person" and our treatment of them as a society is a litmus test of our moral well-being.

A litmus test, I should point out, that China has failed. Miserably.

Ghandi said that a nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members. Never was this truth more evident than in the horrifying cruelty and indifference that resulted in YeuYeu's death.

The government of China, after 30 years of Communism mixed with a prosperity fueled in large part by trade with Canada and the U.S., has succeeded in creating a depraved, morally bankrupt society incapable of valuing human life.

The horrifying lack of empathy evident in the death of YeuYeu is an indictment upon Chinese society first of all, but not only upon them.

Through our trade agreements with that country we are, in effect, giving them our tacit approval for their actions and further fueling the fire of an economic growth which has far, far outstripped their morals.

It is our duty as Canadian citizens to stop immediately all trade with China until they have made real steps toward getting their society back on a course in keeping with accepted standards of moral and ethical behavior among modern, industrialized nations.