I have always wondered What is Casa Asia for? and what they spend the taxpayer's money on. So I've gone to your web page to find out. It says verbatim: “Casa Asia was created with the desire to strengthen knowledge and dialogue about Asia in Spain, through analysis and discussion of civic issues, politicians, social, cultural, economic and environmental, giving support to activities and projects that contribute to better knowledge between Asian and Spanish societies, as well as promoting the development of relationships between them”.

And it continues: “It is about, well, to build between all interested agents in Asia and the Pacific, a project based on collaboration, with a vocation for service and the aspiration to be a reference for knowledge about this part of the world. With this objective, Casa Asia was founded in 2001 (…)”. It is logical to think, therefore, that for being the second economic power and the most populated country of the world, China is one of the regional countries that arouses the greatest interest among those who believe that Casa Asia is an intellectual reference..

Based on this, I deduced that he would have some conference or activity planned around the 25 Tiananmen anniversary, which is now fulfilled.

Beijing, June 1989.

wrong deduction. Casa Asia does not have any activities planned –chance– the most important historical event that occurred in China since Mao's death. Which is not bad at all for those who aspire to be “a reference of knowledge about this part of the world”, (including China, it is understood).

How they justify it is even worse: “We can't take sides”, they point out from Casa Asia. ¡Take sides, nothing less! Precisely, By ignoring the anniversary and contributing to collective amnesia, they are taking sides with the same regime that, on the eve of the anniversary, has intensified repression with a wave of arrests and interrogations: from relatives of the deceased and activists to academics, journalists and intellectuals.

“The response of the Chinese authorities to the 25 anniversary has been harder than in previous years, because they insist on trying to erase from memory what happened on 4 June”, Amnesty International said yesterday. Even the usually timorous European Union yesterday made a official conviction. But while half the world remembers the tragic anniversary every year, in Spain we contributed to the blackout, with Casa Asia at the helm.

Commemoration in Hong Kong.

This may be a public consortium “formed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation through its Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation.” (AECID), the Generalitat of Catalonia and the City Councils of Barcelona and Madrid”, as read on the aforementioned website. And maybe collaborate closely with different embassies, among them the Chinese. ¿But to whom is Casa Asia owed?? ¿It is among its objectives to omit everything that irritates the Chinese government?

The omission of any reference to the Tiananmen anniversary is not a clumsy oversight. A word search on your website gives a good idea of ​​how you have approached politically sensitive Chinese affairs in the past. With four keywords –“China”, “human rights”, “Tiananmen” and “Tibet”– I look for what activities linked to those topics have been organized or promoted.. Of the 154 results obtained, only one conference addressed human rights, but it was at the Autonomous University of Madrid and the speaker was a Chinese academic.

Of the three that addressed the political issue in Tibet, Only one was held at Casa Asia and its speakers gave the event a veneer of prodigious plurality and objectivity: They were all Chinese officials from Tibet or from the Chinese embassy in Madrid. The most recent of the conferences is 2008. And regarding the 150 remaining activities, the usual: the magic of mandarin, chinese poetry, contemporary art, the concubines, traditional Chinese music and endless talks about the Chinese economy and its fabulous opportunities. Confucius Institute in its purest form.

Upon seeing the bravery and almost suicidal courage of Casa Asia to disseminate –since 2001– the authentic reality of China, I remembered Ding Zilin, the promoter and spokesperson of the 'Mothers of Tiananmen’ what, to their 77 years, has been confined once again to house arrest. The interview I did with him in the spring of 2004 marked my arrival in China. At your home, in front of a cup of tea and next to the ashes of his dead son, He had every detail what happened that 4 tragic June in which his teenage son died in an alley near Tiananmen due to the bullets of the Chinese Army. While I was telling it, tears rolled down her cheeks.

Ding Zilin next to a portrait of his son.

For House Asia, Tiananmen did not exist. Nor for our diplomacy, for our rulers, for many academics and journalists. They are the same ones who advocate for the end of the arms embargo and those who are pleased that China considers us its best friend within the EU.. Those who stand in profile regarding human rights in China or repression in Tibet. Those who give in to the pressures of the Chinese government and liquidate the universal justice to thereby deactivate the two complaints against the Chinese leaders in the National Court.

We are not the only country that acts like this with China, especially now that it is perceived as an economic power. But that's no consolation. We have a lot to be ashamed of.