On July 4 Americans proudly celebrated the 228th anniversary of independence from Britain. Chinese people everywhere understand how China in the 19th century was also struggling for independence from foreign domination.

Chinese people greatly respect President Abraham Lincoln who insisted that America live up to the principles of the Declaration of Independence: that all men are created equal with freedom of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Most Americans know that Lincoln freed the slaves during the US Civil War but they may not know how Lincoln's ambassador to China, Anson Burlingame, helped China in its struggle for freedom from foreign domination.

Ambassador Burlingame came to China in 1861, when foreign powers were eager to carve up China into their own colonies. Burlingame befriended a Qing prince and when he resigned as US ambassador in 1867, he was invited by Prince Kung to join the Qing government. As High Minister Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary from the Court of Peking, he was sent to America, where he negotiated the Burlingame Treaty, signed by the US in July 1868. The Burlingame Treaty fully recognized Chinese territorial sovereignty and encouraged Chinese immigration to the US. Burlingame was a true friend of China.

But not all Americans were like Burlingame. President Rutherford B. Hayes at first vetoed a Chinese immigration exclusion law in 1879, specifically because it violated the language of the Burlingame Treaty. During this time there were riots in the west of the US against Chinese workers and several were killed. Then in 1882 the Chinese Exclusion Act became law replacing the Burlingame Treaty. Many Chinese workers were killed by angry American mobs in these years.

This writer remembers his high school history teacher telling of one famous incident: several Chinese miners were killed by mobs in Pierce, Idaho, after they had been accused of --but not convicted of--a crime. Just as the Anna Mae He case and Tennessee Judge Robert Childers' mistreatment of her parents, Jack and Casey He, has brought protests from the Chinese Government, the mob-killings led the Chinese emperor to demand that the US State Department investigate the treatment of his loyal subjects at the hand of "foreign devils".

Our two children lived with us for five years in Qingdao and both are fluent in Chinese. This year they are in the US at high school and college. My daughter has followed the Anna Mae He custody fight between the American and Chinese couples. The case has twice been commented on in the Shanghai Star ("Chinese girl, American heart", May 20-26) and my reply "Anna Mae He is in the wrong place", July 1-7 and also www.parentalrightsandjustice.com)

My daughter Monica saw the Bakers (Anna Mae's foster parents) interviewed on CNN. She became upset when she heard the Bakers say, "We just feel like the culture is against little girls in China. The one-child rule in China forced abortions and IUD implants for 12 and 13-year-olds. Anna Mae doesn't deserve to have to go through that. Judge Childers echoed this sentiment in his ruling: "There is one-child-per-family policy in China.""

Monica's response: "Maybe it was like that 100 years ago, but it is not like that in China today!" In her US high school, Monica often corrects the ignorant comments of her classmates about China. She also says the Bakers need to open up their minds and understand the truth about modern China. If the Bakers want to complain about the way girls were treated in China 100 years ago, it would be fair to compare this to the sad time in America in the 1880s when angry mobs murdered innocent Chinese workers.

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