A California city has decided that for at least one day, the flag of communist China will get equal time with the “Star-Spangled Banner” flying “o’er the land of the free.”

Despite the objections of residents and human rights groups, the city council of San Leandro, Calif., decided in a 4-3 vote to fly the flag over its city hall Oct. 1 to honor “the formation of the sovereign state in 1949 by communist leader Mao Zedong,”the San Jose Mercury News reported.

Lee was joined in the vote by council members Ursula Reed, Diana Souza and Jim Prola.

“Raising the flag gives us the opportunity to show the openness to the people of China, the business people of China, to show that we welcome that investment and we welcome the prosperity,” Lee said, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

A number of Tibetan organizations opposed the vote, according to the San Jose paper, including Tashi Kungo of the Tibetan Association of Northern California, who charged the flag is “stained with the blood of Tibetans, Uyghurs and Chinese.”

Arlene Lum of the Asian Community Cultural Association, however, supported the council’s decision. She insisted it reflects a welcome to the Chinese population in San Leandro and an open door to Chinese money.

The San Leandro Patch reported that a petition is being promoted that condemns the plan.

The San Leandro school board showed its opposition to the council’s decision by voting to move its meeting away from city hall on the day the Chinese flag will fly there, according to KGO-TV in San Francisco.

The station reported flags from China already fly in San Francisco but said the decision to raise it over city hall in San Leandro for one day has riled human rights activists.

Blogger Greg Autry – a senior economist with the American Jobs Alliance and co-author of “Death by China?” – charged the city council has been “corrupted by the lure of Chinese money.”

He noted Oct. 1 “celebrates the conquest of China by Mao’s brutal communist forces in 1949 and the establishment of a regime that has killed more people than any other on Earth.”

“Apparently ‘partnering’ with these sort of criminals is what San Leandro wants to be known for,” Autry said.

He called for boycott of San Leandro and a demonstration there Oct. 1.

“Bring your own food and fill up your gas tank before you enter town. Never do any business in or with a San Leandro firm,” he said.

The Chinese flag, Autry argued, symbolizes the “inferior position” of the Chinese people, represented by the small stars, to the Communist Party and the “overall dominance of communism,” symbolized by the red background.

He said the decision insults Korean veterans who fought Chinese forces and Tibetans “who are watching their country be systematically dismantled and their people abused under Beijing’s colonial ambitions.”

Vietnamese Americans, he added, “had their country overrun and stolen by communist forces.

He also called it an insult to the members of the Falun Gong sect have been “executed so their organs and bodies could be sold for profit,” Christians “whose churches have been demolished and the millions of unemployed Americans whose jobs have been sucked up by the Chinese behemoth.”