Tibet Train Carries Chinese Troops

Chinese media are reporting that the Qinghai-Tibet Railway has been carrying more Chinese troops into Tibet. This confirms that a key consequence of the railway is that the Chinese government can now more easily sustain its military occupation of Tibet.

According to the BBC:

The Xinhua news agency cited unnamed sources in the People’s Liberation Army as saying the railway would become “a main option” for transporting soldiers.

Analysts say the move is likely to fuel concerns that China is using the rail link to tighten its hold on Tibet.

This is not good news for the people of Chinese-occupied Tibet. Nor is it good news for democratic India, which China has been threatening again lately.

The Chinese government praised the railway as bringing benefits to the people of Tibet (not that the people were consulted…). It turns out, surprise surprise, that it actually helps the Chinese government consolidate its grip over Tibet. Similarly, China’s much-touted investments in Tibet generally benefit Chinese settlers and Chinese companies, and most of the money just flows right back to China.

The lesson here: when the Chinese government claims it is magnanimously helping Tibetans, we should look under the surface at how such munificence supports the Chinese occupation of Tibet.

Olympics Approach, Repression Increases

For anyone (paging the International Olympic Committee) who bought China’s weak promise that the Olympics would bring greater human rights to China, this is a sobering wake-up.

As the Olympics approach, the Chinese government is acting more and more like a scared dictatorship afraid of its own people (to say nothing of people like Tibetans, chafing under Chinese occupation). A Washington Post article reports at length, and it is worth reading:

The number of people arrested in China for “endangering state security” more than doubled last year, showing that the government is cracking down on the political crime of dissent despite pressure to improve its human rights record before the 2008 Beijing Olympics, a human rights watchdog group based in the United States said Wednesday.

National statistics released in the annual China Law Yearbook show that prosecutors approved the arrest and detention of 604 people on the state security charge in 2006, compared with 296 the year before. The numbers were the highest since 2002, according to the group, the San Francisco-based Dui Hua Foundation, which lobbies for the release of political prisoners.

“This is the absolute, red-hot core of political crime,” involving alleged subversion, trafficking in state secrets and separatism, said John Kamm, executive director of the foundation.

The sharp increase reflects the government’s growing insecurity with traditional critics as well as a new generation of dissenters who are increasingly well informed about their scant legal rights and more inclined to spread their views using the Internet, experts said.

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China Throws a Tantrum (Again)

When the Chinese government overreacts in Chinese-occupied Tibet, the Tibetan people suffer (like in the ongoing crackdown against Tibetans celebrating the Dalai Lama’s Congressional Gold Medal). When the Chinese government overreacts internationally, it’s easier to appreciate how childish and ridiculous it is being.

When the Dalai Lama received the Gold Medal, the communist party secretary in occupied Tibet, Zhang Qingli, was livid. “We are furious,” Comrade Zhang said, according to Reuters. “If the Dalai Lama can receive such an award, there must be no justice or good people in the world.”

In the latest event, the Chinese foreign affairs ministry spokesman, Liu Jianchao, threw a tantrum over Canadian Prime Minister Steven Harper’s warm official welcome to the Dalai Lama. “This disgusting conduct has seriously hurt the feelings of the Chinese people and undermined Sino-Canadian relations,” Comrade Liu complained.

This childish conduct is likely part of a “crazy like a fox” strategy, where if the Chinese government throws a temper tantrum, the more “responsible” countries in the world will (it is hoped) give China what it demands. Like the child in the candy aisle being pacified by its parent.

Setting aside how embarrassing such conduct is for an aspiring world power (and impending Olympic host), it simply makes the Chinese government’s position look ridiculous. Especially compared with the dignified, reasonable persona of the Dalai Lama.

Also unfortunately for China, this plan doesn’t seem to be working, judging by the Dalai Lama’s recent unprecedented high-profile meetings in Austria, Germany, the US, and Canada, and his upcoming meeting with the Pope.

Comrades Zhang and Liu better get ready to blow their top again; we hope they remember to take their blood pressure medicine.

Speaking of Bloody Hands…

Just after we posted our previous blog post, “China’s Bloody Hands,” we learned that today China blocked an emergency Security Council resolution on Burma. The New York Times reports,

In response to the violence, the United Nations Security Council called an emergency meeting on Wednesday to discuss the crisis, but China blocked a Council resolution, backed by the United States and European nations, to condemn the government crackdown.

China, of course, wants to protect its fellow dictatorship and ally. It also wants to avoid, under the guise of “noninterference,” a similar resolution in the event of future demonstrations in Tibet similar to what happened in 1987, 1988, 1989 and in the 1990s (not such an impossible thought).

Shame on China. This is the country that will host the world at the Olympics in ten months???

China’s Bloody Hands

With the Beijing Olympics now about ten months away, it seems more and more that the Chinese government simply can’t wash the blood off its hands.

Tibet. Tiananmen. Darfur. Burma. The Chinese government’s hands are bloody. We imagine China’s leaders like the scheming Lady Macbeth, furiously scrubbing her hands to no avail, muttering “Out, damned spot! out, I say!” (Macbeth (V, i, 38)) Like Beijing’s impossibly smoggy skies, however, the Chinese government won’t be able to clean its hands in time for the Olympics.

Nobel Peace laureate Jody Williams wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, in which she explained China’s role in propping up the brutal Burmese regime. She ended with this plea:

All of us should make it clear that Beijing’s policy of “noninterference” with repressive economic clients cannot be tolerated. We should care about divesting from Chinese companies not only for the people of Darfur, but also for the Burmese, the Tibetans, the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo–to say nothing about the countless millions of Chinese denied their human rights as well.

To paraphrase “The Lady” Aung San Suu Kyi, we must use our liberty to promote theirs.

We could not have said it better ourselves.

The outspoken lawyer Gao Zisheng, who was just arrested by the Chinese government for sending an open letter to U.S. lawmakers, said that more and more Chinese citizens are calling the Beijing Olympics the “bloody Olympics” due to the increased repression from a stability-obsessed Chinese government. With the Chinese government playing the part of Lady Macbeth, we think that label is very appropriate.

Tibetan Students Used as Olympic Props

News flash: the Chinese government is using Tibetan school children as Olympic props. According to China’s official Xinhua News, 2,008 middle school students from Lhasa were made to act as “human dominos” in the shape of the Olympic rings to celebrate the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

We missed the article when it first came out, since it was overshadowed by worldwide media attention on SFT’s dramatic protests in Beijing and the Great Wall. But this is simply too outrageous to let go:

Tibet Welcomes Olympics With Domino Show (Xinhua, Aug. 9, 2007)

More than 4,000 people gathered on Wednesday at a ceremony marking the one-year countdown to the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

The celebration started with a creative performance in which 2,008 middle school students from Lhasa imitated the domino effect by gently falling to the ground one after another in front of the Potala Palace, forming the pattern of the Olympic rings and the number “2008″.

[...] More than 2,000 local residents and tourists watched the performance.

[...] Song Haiyan, sales assistant at the only souvenir shop in Tibet [really the only?], said trial sales since the shop was opened a month ago has been satisfactory, and she is optimistic about future business.

The Chinese authorities exploited Tibetan middle school students as human props in their Olympic propaganda. This is a perfect example of how the Chinese government is shamelessly using the Olympics to try to legitimate its occupation of Tibet.

Tellingly, there was apparently a one-to-one ratio of performers to spectators. We can conclude that this was a carefully stage-managed event, with Tibetans only grudgingly attending. Hardly an outpouring of support. This sort of silly, melodramatic spectacle is totally alien to Tibetan culture, and is clearly dreamed up by some communist bureaucrat.

The other ironic thing is that the “sales assistant” at the souvenir shop clearly has a Chinese name. What are the chances that this shop is Chinese-owned, employs Chinese, and sells goods imported from China? Given how the Chinese government is actively encouraging ethnic Chinese to settle in Tibet for political reasons, the chances are pretty good.

Sometimes Xinhua News reveals more than it intends to.

Bush to China: “I’ll Keep Quiet”

George Bush, the president who committed his administration to the promotion of freedom, has agreed to censor himself when he attends the Beijing Olympics next year.

After President Bush accepted an invitation from Chinese president Hu Jintao, a White House aide said that Bush would be attending “for the sports” and not to make any political statement.

Let’s recall the words of Bush’s second inaugural address:

it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world…  All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: the United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you.  

Which leaves us a little confused as to why the president would proactively agree to take all political statements off the table before even getting to Beijing.  Is this simply a sudden case of excessive politeness?  Does he think that the Chinese and Tibetan people don’t count when he promised that the United States would stand with the oppressed and not the oppressor?

Former White House official Michael Green suggests that Bush’s very presence in Beijing “in subtle ways raises pressure on the Chinese to perform.”  So subtle, in fact, that it sounds like a prefabricated excuse for lacking the conviction to act.

Mr. Bush should consider the case of Runggye Adak, the brave Tibetan political prisoner who personifies the president’s professed ideals of liberty.  Adak peacefully called for Tibetans’ religious and political freedom, and then the same government that will host President Bush at the Olympic Games imprisoned Adak for “subversion.” 

Moreover, after arresting Adak and his relatives, using tear gas and shock grenades against hundreds of protesters, and intimidating Tibetans with thousands of armed police, now the Chinese government is kicking out Tibetan officials in Adak’s home region and replacing them with loyal Chinese ones. 

When President Bush enjoys the hospitality of the Chinese government at the Beijing Olympics, will any of this matter to him?  Will he have the courage to stand by his professed convictions in a clear, black-and-white case?  Or will he allow himself to be censored, making all his words just hypocritical rhetoric?

China Admits it is Losing in Tibet

Does China feel it’s losing the battle for public perception over Tibet? 

China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported on a National People’s Congress (NPC) delegation to Tibet.  Most interesting is that the NPC delegates say that China needs to step up its propaganda efforts on Tibet.  This is an implicit admission that China, for all its money and guns, still hasn’t gained legitimacy for its presence in Tibet. 

What’s really striking is that these exhortations to step up “foreign-oriented propaganda on Tibet” sound exactly like a leaked Chinese government propaganda document from 2000.  In seven years, even as China has gotten more powerful internationally, it’s still fighting the same battles over Tibet. 

Tibetans and their supporters, though they have far less money and power, are strong because truth rests with the Tibetan people’s right to self-determination.  No amount of “foreign-oriented propaganda” can whitewash that.

The Xinhua article is below: 

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