Massachusetts state government on Thursday decided to award a $566.6 million contract to China North Rail (CNR) in order to purchase 284 subway cars. This is a landmark success for the Chinese company, which has won over world-class competitors from South Korea, Japan and France.

The competitors are not happy with the result, nor do some of the Americans who always feel uncomfortable with China's rise.

Robert McGinn, the former chair of the state Republican Party, expressed his opposition to the deal, describing China as a repressive regime.

McGinn is married to Chai Ling, who fled to the US as a "political exile" after the 1989 Tiananmen incident and has since never stopped slamming the Chinese government.

Chai told the Associated Press the contract award would put a ''blood-stained record'' on the state of Massachusetts, citing the ''tyranny'' of China's government.

"The board and the governor made a terrible mistake," the Boston Herald quoted Chai as saying. "The profit goes directly into the Chinese government, and therefore strengthens a regime of continuing oppressing its own people."

It is no surprise for Chinese state-owned enterprises to be targeted by political accusations. Even privately-owned businesses, such as telecom giant Huawei, have long been blocked from entering the US market on security issues.

Chai was one of the "student leaders" in 1989. She has won a great deal of sympathy from many people. Now she is used by US conservatives in an attempt to sabotage China's trade deals. She is more hawkish than the hawkish US politicians, a typical stance seen among many other "democratic activists" on exile.

Decades have passed. The former student leaders should have grown up. But now they have grown into enemies of the Chinese people. From what Chai said, she would like to see Chinese companies lose to other countries' companies, even though CNR has already won the bid. How much hatred the lady must has been holding that could drive her so mad?

The "political exiles" have been living in Western countries for a long time. The development of China has nothing to do with them now. Or, if there is any, their interests will be contradictory - if China gets better than before, it will only prove that these activists have been wrong in the past; and if the West move closer to China, the activists will become marginalized.

The political exiles claim to be fighting for democracy and the Chinese people's interests. But it is clear how happy they will be to see a major setback for China.

Maybe only when incidents such as the CNR deal and Occupy Central in Hong Kong occur can we see those people's true faces.