I was intrigued about their claims because it seems to me that Dalai Lama has few powers in “repressing” or causing others to face “inhuman situations”. This group is clearly very biased and emotional, so I sought a more neutral source.
I had been meaning to cut down on the Tibet stuff but I read today that the PLA may have incited the riots using “agent provocateurs”. This conclusion was according to images from British satellites.
What caught my attention was this image (unfortunately, I don’t know where/when it’s from):
I guess you could say it’s photoshopped, but I can also say pictures of violence in Chinese media are too, and we won’t get anywhere on that line of argument.
I fully agree with the author — it would be silly to say Tibet was perfect/wonderful before China invaded. The problem really is, are they better off?
Personally, I feel that intellectual restrictions and emotional stresses are far worse than physical imprisonment, especially because it’s not readily obvious.
Just because you can’t see the gun pointed at the back of a hostage doesn’t mean it’s not there, or that the hostage is going willingly.
Take someone in prison but allowed to say what he wants, read what he wants, and write to anyone he wants without censure.
Is he really less free than someone who is allowed to wander the streets but watched constantly and is in constant fear of being dragged to jail/torture on some small charge?
When looking at the situation from the last post (of Melbourne press not reporting an anti-media demonstration), some questions immediately come to mind.
First Question: “Did Western press receive a timely press release?” If they weren’t sent one or were given the notice too late, the blame is on the organizers, not the press.
Second Question: “If they had covered it, wouldn’t you criticize it as biased anyway?” Western media would surely have tried to defend themselves against an attack on their integrity.
Biased reporting is a serious allegation (at least in the US), so I imagine anyone covering it would address the claims somehow. It’s personal so it will most definitely be biased.
Third Question: “Would you rather have ‘biased’ defensive reporting of the event or no reporting?” If I were organizing this event, I’d say no reporting.
EDIT: My bad – that’s what I get for posting in the middle of the night and not reading well enough. So the blogger was referring to an anti-media demonstration. In which case, after a brief internet search, yes, the Melbourne paper did not cover it.
What I wrote before was because I was under the impression it was a torch rally. My comments still stand in that regard because I -have- heard complaints of media not showing pro-China supporters at the relay.
I’m planning to add another entry to address the actual Melbourne situation, so stay tuned!
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I read this blog post by someone who lives(? Au news sources linked were labeled as “where I live”) in Australia and expressed outrage at their media. The previous entry that was alluded to was quite logical and sensible.. which is why I don’t understand this entry.
S/he may be complaining about Au reporting, but I think the complaint is universal enough to also apply to Chinese Americans.
I couldn’t read all the text in that link, but I don’t understand the outrage. I’ve seen plenty of pictures of Chinese supporters, as well as pictures where Chinese and anti-Tibet supporters are intermixed. In fact, the first pictures I saw of the SF relay was a sea of red flags lined up.
I’ve been browsing various blogs and found this video:
There are YouTube versions as well, split into 5 sections. It’s a show called Dispatches where a British crew and a Tibetan refugee go undercover in Tibet to try to find out what life is like for the Tibetans there.
Notice I said Tibetans and not Chinese. I have no doubt the Chinese who relocated with government help/money/support have it good. If they didn’t, it would have been pretty stupid of the CCP to move them there and have double the trouble.
What I found interesting about the video is when this one guy said: if a Chinese came up to them and asked them questions, they would always be very positive. Why? Because you never know if you’re talking to a spy.
So counter-intuitively, a Chinese in Tibet would actually get the opposite impression, even if you mean well and really want to decide for yourself.
EDIT: it seems I may have been wrong about Bush saying he’d go and that he only said he intended to go. So I guess he still has an out if he ends up having “scheduling issues” as well. But let’s be realistic, we all know what “scheduling issues” mean in the world of diplomacy.
I’ve seen news of different heads of state declining to go because of “scheduling issues”, but I was not aware it might be fueled by a reporters without borders declaration until I saw this article.
It’s an interesting turn of events, and I wonder if it will be effective.
I doubt it will influence views in China. Considering the “everyone’s picking on us” mentality, it will just be one more thing to anger the Chinese when the CCP propaganda machine hits them.
I’ve noticed something else that intrigued me: in looking at pro-China comments, I’ve noticed they target their attacks at the US, even though officially, other countries have been more vocal.
Just found this article from the NY Times. My previous entry was based on an article during the cold war, after Mao invaded and took control of Tibet. This article goes back further to investigate the claims on both sides.
It’s an interesting analysis but for those who don’t feel like reading, here’s the author’s conclusion:
There is something less to the arguments of both sides, but the argument on the Chinese side is weaker. Tibet was not “Chinese” until Mao Zedong’s armies marched in and made it so.
Hu Jintao (China’s president) has finally made a public comment about Tibet.
“Our conflict with the Dalai clique is not an ethnic problem, not a religious problem, nor a human rights problem,” Mr Hu was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua news agency. “It is a problem either to safeguard national unification or to split the motherland,”
The Dalai Lama has repeatedly said he does not wish for a boycott of the Olympics, and that he is not seeking separation.
I for one, believe him.
Not saying that I don’t think he’d like to separate at some point, but at this point it is more a question of being able to return and rule. I’m sure he’s not kidding himself even on that respect, which is why he asks only for human rights and freedom.
So is it really a question of unity? I think first we need to know what happened to make the protests turn violent.
I read a pro-China socialism declaration the other day (because of the Olympic torch relay in SF) which mentioned CIA funding the free Tibet movement. I admit I don’t know too much about the history of Tibet, so I looked into it a little.
I found this article from the Chicago Tribune, which describes CIA involvement in Tibet during the cold war. It’s an interesting contrast to today’s perception of Tibet.
According to the article, CIA trained Tibetans in warfare to make it costly for China and delay their progress during the cold war, and then cut funding once US renewed relations with China.
With that as background, that accusation makes more sense. Still, openly giving money to a pro-democracy group which then uses it to help Tibet is not the same thing as secretly training Tibetans.
Side note: It seems that backlash from the Chinese community regarding the free Tibet movement tends to be rooted in an mentality that everyone is against China. Read the rest of this entry »
