From Beijing’s propaganda fantasyland…

This just in from China’s Xinhua News Agency:

A Tibetan expert told reporters here on Wednesday that China’s policy of giving patriotic education to monks and nuns living on the Plateau has been “successful”. [...]

    ”The patriotic education in monasteries has been very successful in increasing patriotism and citizen awareness among the clergy,” Dramdul said in response to a foreign journalist’s question.

Ummm, what planet is he living on?  How can even the truth-challenged Xinhua publish this drivel?  We don’t even know what to say about this…

Oh wait!!!  Maybe he means Tibetan monks being patriotic towards Tibet!  That would explain photos like this one, which is pretty typical of the protests occurring all over Tibet:

Chinese blogger: allow free reporting in Tibet

From China Digital Times, a Chinese writer/blogger wrote this damning critique of his government’s censorship over Tibet. 

He suggests that information control is being used by Beijing to stoke Chinese ultra-nationalism, and says the only solution is to allow free reporting from Tibet.  Sounds sensible to us:

Tibet Information Theory 连岳：西藏信息论

While the Chinese government clearly issued strict censorship orders about Tibet coverage to all Chinese websites, Xiamen-based writer/blogger Lian Yue (连岳), who is known for his advocacy for environmental protection in Xiaman, writes on his Eighth Continent blog, translated by CDT:

1、If there is a power that wants to block information, then we should assume this power is bad.

2、If this power actually blocked the information, then this power should be assumed to be worse.

3、If the power which blocked information now publishes only one-sided information, then we should assume this information is false.

4、For all untrue information, the power which blocks information should be held most responsible.

5、The power which blocks information has no credibility to judge related information that flows around.

6、Information blocking is the only reason for making the divide deeper and the situation worse, since people in different positions are all talking from their own perspectives, and cannot be verified.

7、Ultra-nationalism is an emotion, not reason; therefore censorship is a bed for such emotion, fostering extreme-Tibetan, extreme-Han, Japan hatred, Taiwan hatred and other extreme emotions.

8、Mainland China is a place full of such extreme emotions. This extreme emotion supports the power, and likely prevents reform of the power.

9、Only sufficient information and sufficient expression can dissolve such extreme emotion. Trying to control so-called “dangerous speech” is the biggest danger.

10、Therefore, allowing the media to freely enter Tibet to report is a critical way to solve this problem.

March 21, 2008.

More Chinese speaking out for Tibet

More Chinese are speaking out against their government’s repressive policies in Tibet. Considering the censorship, disinformation, and nationalism that the Chinese government is purposely fomenting, this is an especially important development.

Tang Danhong (唐丹鸿) is a poet and documentary filmmaker from Chengdu, Sichuan. Here are some excerpts from her blog post (in Chinese here 这里是中文版):

Other than those voices that the rulers want to hear, have we ever heard the Tibetans’ full, real voices? Those Han Chinese who have been in Tibet, now matter if one is a high official, government cadre, tourist or businessman, have we all heard their real voices, which are silenced, but are still echoing everywhere? [...]

Why can’t we sit down with the Dalai Lama who has abandoned calls for “independence” and now advocates a “middle way,” and negotiate with him with sincerity, to achieve “stability” and “unity” through him?

Because the power difference of the two sides is too big. We are too many people, too powerful: Other than guns and money, and cultural destruction and spiritual rape, we do not know other ways to achieve “harmony.”[...]

Why can’t you understand that people have different values? While you believe in brainwashing, the power of a gun and of money, there is a spiritual belief that has been in their minds for thousands of years and cannot be washed away. When you claim yourselves as “saviors of Tibetans from slavery society,” I am ashamed for your arrogance and your delusions. When military police with their guns pass by me in the streets of Lhasa, and each time I am there I can see row upon row of military bases… yes, I, a Han Chinese, feel ashamed. [...]

Yes, I love Tibet. I am a Han Chinese who loves Tibet, regardless of whether she is a nation or a province, as long as she is so voluntarily. Personally, I would like to have them (Tibetans) belong to the same big family with me. I embrace relationships which come self-selected and on equal footing, not controlled or forced, both between peoples and nations. I have no interest in feeling “powerful,” to make others fear you and be forced to obey you, both between people and between nations, because what’s behind such a “feeling” is truly disgusting.

We previously posted a letter from a group of Chinese intellectuals (text here). (My own letter to the Chinese people 我的通信对中国人民 is here.)

The Chinese government is trying to control what its people think. But I hope and believe the Chinese people are too smart to be manipulated by their government. 中国政府试图控制了中国人的想法。我认为中国人是非常聪明的，与中国政府不能操控他们。

The criminal masterminds of China’s policy in Tibet

There are three shadowy Chinese officials tasked with their government’s merciless policy toward Tibet and the restive region of Xinjiang. One day, these three men will be high on the list of indicted criminals when there’s a trial under universal jurisdiction or perhaps (one can dream) in a future democratic China.

As Slobodan Milosevic could have attested (before he died alone in a cell in The Hague), the world just isn’t safe like it used to be for people responsible for crimes against humanity. Justice has a way of catching up…

The Times reports:

The real mastermind of Chinese policy towards the restive ethnic minorities is a 67-year-old lifetime communist functionary named Wang Lequan (bio here).

[...]on March 10 he gave away the extent of his responsibility by telling China Central Broadcasting: “No matter what nationality, no matter who it is, wreckers, separatists and terrorists will be smashed by us. There’s no doubt about that.”

His henchman, now applying the master’s methods in Tibet, is Zhang Qingli (bio here), the region’s sharp-tongued party secretary. Zhang is the man who called the Dalai Lama “a wolf in monk’s clothes, a devil with a human face”. [...] Zhang is on record as saying that “those who do not love the motherland are not qualified to be human beings”.

The third most influential figure is Li Dezhu, the party’s racial theoretician. [...]he unfolded a radical change in Chinese policy, stating that its aim was no longer to preserve minority cultures such as the Tibetans but to refashion them.

Nicholas Bequelin of Human Rights Watch says Li is the first leader explicitly to state that the problem of minorities would be “definitively solved” by mass Chinese migration.

This is not to let Preident Hu Jintao (bio here) off the hook either. In addition to being responsible for the current crackdown due to his command-responsibility role, Comrade Hu brutally implemented martial law in Tibet in 1989 as party secretary there.

Interestingly, both Comrade Hu and Comrade Zhang covered their tracks in an attempt to avoid criminal liability and responsibility for the massacres in Tibet. Maybe they are afraid of being brought to justice (not a bad idea: Slobodan Milosevic never thought he’d die alone in a cell in The Hague):

Mr. Hu actually made himself unavailable during the 1989 [Tibet] riots when the paramilitary police needed guidance on whether to crack down. The police did so and Mr. Hu got credit for keeping order, but he also assured himself deniability if the crackdown had failed, the biographer wrote.

Mr. Zhang also has an excuse; he was at the National People’s Congress in Beijing. [...] It is unclear when Mr. Zhang was told of the violence, or if he made the final decision on how to respond.

Biggest Tibetan Demo Ever in Toronto – March 23, 2008

On the first Sunday of spring, in Toronto where the streets were relatively quiet because of the Easter long-weekend, thousands of Tibetans and Tibetan supporters rallied through the heart of downtown Toronto to protest China’s brutal crackdown on the uprisings inside Tibet, and to call on Canadians everywhere to be aware of and support the [...]

China: a 19th Century power in a 21st Century world

Robert Kagan had a good op-ed in the Washington Post about how China’s brutal crackdown in Tibet caused its “mask” to slip, exposing it for the anachronistic dictatorship that it is.

China can go for great stretches these days looking like the model of a postmodern, 21st-century power. [...] But occasionally the mask slips, and the other side of China is revealed. For China is also a 19th-century power, filled with nationalist pride, ambitions and resentments; consumed with questions of territorial sovereignty; hanging on repressively to old conquered lands in its interior; and threatening war against a small island country off its coast.

This is the aspect of China that does not seem to change, despite our liberal progressive conviction that it must. [...] Today this all looks like so much wishful thinking — self-interested wishful thinking, to be sure, since, according to the theory, China would get democratic while Western business executives got rich. Now it looks as if the richer a country gets, whether China or Russia, the easier it may be for autocrats to hold on to power. [...] More money pays for armed forces and internal security forces that can be pointed inward at Tibet and outward at Taiwan. And the lure of more money keeps a commerce-minded world from protesting too loudly when things get rough.

Kagan also rightly points out that China treats the pro-independence movement in Tibet in a decidedly retrograde manner. Other countries deal with independence movements, but they do not shoot unarmed protesters. China’s violent reaction in Tibet shows that China is a 19th century empire pretending to fit into a 21st century world, where self-determination and respect for all peoples are basic norms.

China, after all, is not the only country dealing with restless, independence-minded peoples. In Europe, all kinds of subnational movements aspire to greater autonomy or even independence from their national governments, and with less justification than Tibet or Taiwan: the Catalans in Spain, for instance, or the Flemish in Belgium, or even the Scots in the United Kingdom. Yet no war threatens in Barcelona, no troops are sent to Antwerp and no one clears the international press out of Edinburgh. But that is the difference between a 21st-century postmodern mentality and a nation still fighting battles for empire and prestige left over from a distant past.

China wanted the Beijing Olympics to be its great “coming out party.” It wanted to show the world how advanced it is. Yet the Chinese government’s repression in Tibet has spoiled all of that. What is happening in Tibet is the fault of the Chinese government, not the Chinese people, but it reflects badly on the entire Chinese nation. If I were a Chinese citizen, I would not be happy with my government right now. 中国政府是咎由自取发生什么事，在西藏。中国人民是没有责任。但中国政府的行动带来了耻辱，给整个中华民族。中国人民必须对此不满，他们的政府的行动。

Thai Olympic torchbearer withdraws to protest China’s crackdown in Tibet

Thai Olympic torchbearer Narisa Chakrabongse showed true moral conviction by withdrawing in protest over the Chinese government’s brutal crackdown in Tibet.

To Ms. Narisa Chakrabongse: thank you from the bottom of my heart.  You are a hero to the Tibetan people.

From the IHT:

One of Thailand’s representatives in the Olympic torch relay has withdrawn in protest over China’s recent crackdown on protesters in Tibet, a statement said Sunday.

Narisa Chakrabongse — one of the country’s six torchbearers — said in an open letter that she decided against taking part in the relay to “send a strong message to China that the world community could not accept its actions.”[...]

“The slaying of the Tibetans … is an outright violation of human rights,” Narisa wrote. “It happened two weeks before the Olympic torch leaves Athens and five months before the Olympic Games. This reflects the Chinese government’s negligence of world sentiment.”

This is only the start of the global backlash against the Chinese government’s brutal crackdown in Tibet. There will absolutely be much more to come, among athletes, spectators, Tibetan activists protesting in Beijing, and at the possible boycott of the opening ceremonies.

The Chinese people should be outraged at their government. Their government’s actions in Tibet are bringing shame and condemnation on the Chinese nation. Until Tibet is free, this will continue. 中国人民应该表示愤慨，中国政府。中国政府的行动在西藏带来耻辱，并谴责对中华民族。直至西藏是独立的，这将继续下去。

我的通信对中国人民 A personal message to the Chinese people

这是一个个人的信息，从我来说，给中国人民。我是一个藏族国人。我不发言，他代表SFT，只为自己。我很抱歉这次的中文翻译是坏。This is a personal message from me, Lhasa Rising, to the Chinese people. I am Tibetan. I do not speak for SFT, only for myself. I am sorry this Chinese translation is so bad.

西藏运动并不反对中国人民。西藏运动支持西藏人渴望自由。也许你被教导说，藏族人是中国人，西藏是中国的一部分。我想请问，你要考虑一个不同的观点。西藏人都是藏族。我们是不是中国人。我们不认为自己是一个”少数人”的中国。我们有一个值得骄傲的二千年历史，因为一个民族。我们相信，西藏是独立的，并应独立。你可以阅读更多有关西藏的观点，在这里（英文，抱歉） ，即使你不同意这是个重要的是要了解。The Tibet movement is not against the Chinese people. It is against the Chinese government’s occupation of Tibet. Maybe you learned that Tibetans are Chinese, and Tibet is part of China. I ask you to consider a different viewpoint. Tibetans are Tibetans. We are not Chinese. We do not consider ourselves a “minority” of China. We have a proud 2,000 year history as a nation. We believe that Tibet was independent, and should be independent again. You can read more about the Tibetan viewpoint here (in English, sorry), even if you do not agree it is important to understand.

我知道你被教导西藏是中国的一部分帝国。情况复杂，但西藏是独立于1951年。西藏有自己的政府，军队，和金钱。蒙古和韩国人，不久前的一个组成部分，中国的帝国，但中国并不要求蒙古和韩国。这是因为，在现代世界里，人们都有权统治自己。帝国的人已经死亡。I know you were taught Tibet was part of the Chinese empire. The situation is complicated, but Tibet was independent in 1951. Tibet had its own government, army and currency. Also, Mongolia and Korea were once part of some Chinese empires, but China does not claim Mongolia and Korea. That is because in the modern world, people have a right to rule themselves. Empires are dead.

我并不试图说服你的藏族透视历史。你可以相信或不相信，你想要的历史。事实是这样的：西藏人想要独立。是否中国人民愿意接受还是不喜欢，这是事实的真相。人想要独立，不能永远被压迫。这是一个历史真理。压迫导致需求为自由，这是发生什么事，现在在西藏。I am not trying to convince you of the Tibetan perspective on history. You can believe whatever you want about history. The truth is this: Tibetans want to be free now. Whether the Chinese people want to accept this or not, it is the truth. And a people who want to be free cannot be oppressed forever. This is a historical truth. Oppression leads to resistance, which is what is happening right now in Tibet.

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