These articles have been surprisingly good at collating various news sources and providing links to them.
As far as basic news sites that would not be found there, I've found a few interesting news links on youtube to the TVB broadcasts in Hong Kong. While technically under the influence of the Chinese government, from indications on Wikipedia and my own personal reading on Xinhua, they are the one of the closest sources to what you can expect for a moderate view of events from within China.
link Here is a video of what happened when foreign/HK reporters were first let back into Lhasa after the riots. This link is captioned in both Chinese and English.
link A news report on March 17th shows some footage of riots, some words from the Dali Lama, some footage of what appears to be the HK reporters trying to get around the PAP forces restricting their reporting in Tibet (climbing on roofs?), and some footage of rioting in Paris. link A news report on April 10th. This shows coverage of the Olympic flame in San Fransisco, the warehouse incident that was parodied on the Daily Show, some coverage of both pro-China and pro-Tibet protests, some words from white people on both sides, and a confrontation between the two sides.
(these last two links are sound in Cantonese, captioned in Mandarin (I think))
Some other things I've been keeping a tab on is the provocative "Tibet WAS,IS,and ALWAYS WILL BE a part of China" (obviously a silly name based on, well, what I introduced on the first page) Facebook group link
This is a pretty virulent nationalistic group composed on what seems to be mostly FOB Chinese in North America, which is interesting because they are precisely one of the groups that pro-Tibet activists should be trying to reach and convince. I've actually seen a couple friends join this group to my disappointment.
Some highlights are accusations of Western media bias (some founded, some not), a rather ugly thread on harassing some pro-Tibet Chinese girl at Duke University (oy), and a whole lot of paternalistic condescending attitudes about Tibet which almost seem ripped from the attitudes surround Rudyard Kipling's "The White Man's Burden" except this time I guess its a "Yellow Man's Burden."
<vent, aimed at releasing emotion> Hey, mainlanders. You should know better. C'mon, has invading a place under the pretext of making it better ever worked? You know the Japanese invaded China under the same pretenses. We also have the quagmire that is the US in Iraq. C'mon. Be better than them! You know that invading Tibet was an application of Realpolitik. Tibet was s strategic place to take before India got there, it has resources, and space. Grow up and deal, you're doing the same thing we did to the Native Americans so start being mature and deal with the real issues </vent>
Back to the news. From the TVB broadcasts in Hong Kong, you saw one propaganda victory by the Chinese government, the interviews with ordinary Chinese hurt in the Tibetan riots as Tibetan rioters singled out Han Chinese or burned down their stores/homes with them inside. There is also one other propaganda victory which is getting coverage on Xinhua news. Thats the story on Jin Jang, a disabled athlete that was attacked by pro-Tibet protesters Here's some coverage of that story in Canada, I won't subject you to the Xinhua version link
<vent, aimed at releasing emotion> Yo so-called Pro-Tibetans. You're hurting the cause. Keep your mind on the end goal: Getting more freedom in Tibet and gaining sympathy for your cause So how does burning random Chinese people in Tibet, just trying to make a living running shops help your cause? How does trying to steal the (admittedly kitschy (but then again, I'm not fan of the Olympics)) Olympic Torch help? This is grade school stuff, "I'm going to take your ball and go home"? You have one real chance of making things better in Tibet. Thats gaining the support of the overseas Chinese community, the (surprisingly large) middle-class community in China with access to Western news, and people in China with the power to give you more autonomy and more freedom, ala Hong Kong. But thats never going to happen as long as the CCP can paint you as violent barbarians and radicals. Don't help them! </vent>
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As you can see, I have a lot of anger at most "sides" in this issue. I won't even subject you to some of the ugly xenophobia that I've seen on some forums or in comment areas of even Canadian news sites.
There is a profound disconnect between some foreigners and Chinese people inside and outside China working for a better China. There is also a polarizing action where all voices speaking with moderation are either painted as "brainwashed" by pro-Tibetan voices that will listen to nothing other than "Free Tibet." This can do nothing other than provoke Chinese FOBs and CBCs to take nothing other than a hardline stance in support of the Chinese government.
I've seen crowds in one of the protests, one side mindlessly shouting "Free Tibet" and "One China" at each other. *facepalm*
The sad part is that in all of the interviews with the Dali Lama, I've only seen him promote greater Chinese autonomy within China. He knows what is realistic and what can be achieved. He probably also knows that these calls for "Free Tibet" will do nothing but polarize potential allies against his cause. He also wants the Olympics to go forward.
I almost get a G'Kar from Babylon 5 vibe from the situation. He's a leader, wiser than his younger followers, that has lost control of their violent impulses. He's become a figurehead almost, with his followers following his "image" rather than his words.
But there are some signs of humor and rationality. Here are two: Here's a CBS interview, an amusing interview with some pro-Tibet protesters that gently mocks their lack of knowledge about the situation link
Here's a very interesting interview with Xinran Xue, a British-Chinese human rights activist/writer in Britain who makes a few points that have been percolating through my mind. link
1) The CCP didn't really anticipate the number of young Chinese that are supporting them, especially overseas. This has been unprecedented for twenty years since Tienanmen Square 2) This has been in part provoked by the biased media coverage in the West, which makes it very easy for the CCP to paint them as just a biased counterpart to their biased Xinhua rather than an objective news source 3) China has an appalling human rights record, but the Western media is being monitored by Chinese in China, even if they have to get around censorship and if they see that bias as linked to Westernized-democracy, it will be that much harder for human rights activists like herself to effect change, and can be used as a tool by the CCP to slowdown change as they link pro-democracy sentiment with pro-Tibet,anti-China sentiment.
This is particularly interesting since she has been working in the British media for quite some time and attacking the Chinese government for their human rights record on women, having to go to Britain to get her books published. If she considers the Western media as being counter-productive to her cause, than that could be a real problem.
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Mucus: Thanks for finding all those links, seeing a broadcast of Hong Kong's TVB Pearl was very nostalgic for me, and in a good way. I would definitely agree that Hong Kong is one of the better places for a more moderate view on Chinese news. I remember about 8 years ago seeing a special they did on how gymnasts in China are trained and the terrible abuse they endure at the hands of their teachers. It's interesting that throughout both pieces the reporters don't comment on anything, they simply film, describe what you are seeing, and take quotes from people.
It is indeed frustrating that some people in the name of a cause you and I might agree with do things that completely ruin the idea. Tibetans burning and killing Han Chinese is cruel and wrong, and if Tibet is built on that foundation I hope it burns to the ground.
On the flip side, that is so like the Chinese government to hire people to go into the monasteries and pretend to be worshipers for news crews and onlookers. Hearing those monks try to sputter out what is happening to them in mandarin which is almost ironic given what they are fighting against really moved me,(I'm preemptively saying that having a unifying language for the Chinese is a good thing.)
As for boycotting the opening ceremonies of the olympics, it's hard for me to come to a stance on the issue. On the one hand it's good for China to see what the first world expects of its' club members. The Olympics are a celebration of athletic prowess and the human spirit, so I suppose when the host country is crushing the spirit of it's people some action is required. But on the other, will such a protest really accomplish anything other then persuading the Chinese that the West has a separate set of rules for white people and yellow people.
In the United States we are close to cracking down and expelling those who immigrate here. We are holding political prisoners of whom some may be innocent, but of which none have been charged or given any sort of time frame for legal recourse.
How can President Bush then refuse to attend the opening ceremonies or even speak out against human rights offenses in China? It just makes us all hypocrites.
I'm not sure what should be done, I just worry that protesting might hurt enough that China gets angry and does something stupid, but not enough that it moves China to fix certain things at home.
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For the sake of wondering, how is expelling illegal immigrants the same thing as violently cracking down on demonstrators and shooting unarmed monks? And for that matter, who are our politican prisoners? Those held at Guantanamo? Now don't get me wrong, I think they should be charged or released as much as the next liberal but, last I checked most of them were captured in fights with the Taliban or in Iraq right? None of them are even US citizens. How are they political prisoners?
Let's not pretend that the US and China are on the same footing. Two things can be bad and wrong and still be nowhere near each other on a value scale of how bad they are.
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Blayne Bradley
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I think they've done plenty of the former in Vietnam. And oh snap, the other dozen or so nations that have had their democracies overthrown and replaced by pro US Right wing dictatorships and junta.
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I thought we were talking domestic versus foreign policy. Either way China doesn't have any moral superiority there.
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Blayne Bradley
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actually it does. Last I checked China didnt care who you were or what your party or government was as long as your government officially abides by the One China policy and would then do business with you as such on those grounds.
As the unofficial member of the non aligned movement I think they have behaved in geopolitical terms in a completely mild manner international since the 50's.
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quote:Last I checked China didnt care who you were or what your party or government was as long as your government officially abides by the One China policy and would then do business with you as such on those grounds.
You don't see any problems with that policy?
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: For the sake of wondering, how is expelling illegal immigrants the same thing as violently cracking down on demonstrators and shooting unarmed monks?
I might point out that this is a pretty unfair characterization of the situation. Despite my initial alarm, which has been recorded for posterity on the first page, the paramilitary forces that have been sent to Tibet seem to have learned the lessons of Tianenmen Square.
Consider that the highest estimates of casualties from the most biased organization against the Chinese, the Tibetan government in exile are roughly around 100. This is small potatoes. Consider estimates from Tienanmen Square where the consensus low estimate is roughly 1000 and to a high of about 3000. Now consider that this is occurring in a region with millions of Tibetans.
So you don't actually know that the crackdown is particularly violent and you don't actually know that they're shooting monks in particular, armed or not.
Here is one of the foreign sources with the most detailed account of the crackdown so far, its actually a CNN interview of James Miles, the Economist correspondent that wrote (probably) those dispatches from the Economist on the first page:
quote: ... What I saw was calculated targeted violence against an ethnic group, or I should say two ethnic groups, primarily ethnic Han Chinese living in Lhasa, but also members of the Muslim Hui minority in Lhasa. And the Huis in Lhasa control much of the meat industry in the city. Those two groups were singled out by ethnic Tibetans. They marked those businesses that they knew to be Tibetan owned with white traditional scarves. Those businesses were left intact. Almost every single other across a wide swathe of the city, not only in the old Tibetan quarter, but also beyond it in areas dominated by the ethnic Han Chinese. Almost every other business was either burned, looted, destroyed, smashed into, the property therein hauled out into the streets, piled up, burned. It was an extraordinary outpouring of ethnic violence of a most unpleasant nature to watch, which surprised some Tibetans watching it. So they themselves were taken aback at the extent of what they saw. And it was not just targeted against property either. Of course many ethnic Han Chinese and Huis fled as soon as this broke out. But those who were caught in the early stages of it were themselves targeted. Stones thrown at them. At one point, I saw them throwing stones at a boy of maybe around 10 years old perhaps cycling along the street. I in fact walked out in front of them and said stop. It was a remarkable explosion of simmering ethnic grievances in the city.
Q. Did you see other weapons?
A. I saw them carrying traditional Tibetan swords, I didn't actually see them getting them out and intimidating people with them. But clearly the purpose of carrying them was to scare people. And speaking later to ethnic Han Chinese, that was one point that they frequently drew attention to. That these people were armed and very intimidating.
Q. There was an official response to this. In some reporting, info coming from Tibetan exiles, there was keenness to report it as Tiananmen.
A. Well the Chinese response to this was very interesting. Because you would expect at the first sings of any unrest in Lhasa, which is a city on a knife-edge at the best of times. That the response would be immediate and decisive. That they would cordon off whatever section of the city involved, that they would grab the people involved in the unrest. In fact what we saw, and I was watching it at the earliest stages, was complete inaction on the part of the authorities. It seemed as if they were paralyzed by indecision over how to handle this. The rioting rapidly spread from Beijing Road, this main central thoroughfare of Lhasa, into the narrow alleyways of the old Tibetan quarter. But I didn't see any attempt in those early hours by the authorities to intervene. And I suspect again the Olympics were a factor there. That they were very worried that if they did move in decisively at that early stage of the unrest that bloodshed would ensue in their efforts to control it. And what they did instead was let the rioting run its course and it didn't really finish as far as I saw until the middle of the day on the following day on the Saturday, March the 15th. So in effect what they did was sacrifice the livelihoods of many, many ethnic Han Chinese in the city for the sake of letting the rioters vent their anger. And then being able to move in gradually with troops with rifles that they occasionally let off with single shots, apparently warning shots, in order to scare everybody back into their homes and put an end to this.
... Q. Did you actually see clashes between security forces and Tibetan protesters?
A. Well what I saw and at this stage, the situation around my hotel which was right in the middle of the old Tibetan quarter, was very tense indeed and quite dangerous so it was difficult for me to freely walk around the streets. But what I saw was small groups of Tibetans, and this was on the second day of the protests, throwing stones towards what I assumed to be, and they were slightly out of vision, members of the security forces. I would hear and indeed smell occasional volleys of Tear gas fired back. There clearly was a small scale clash going on between Tibetans and the security forces. But on the second day things had calmed down generally compared with the huge rioting that was going on...on the Friday. And the authorities were responding to these occasional clashes with Tibetans not by moving forward rapidly with either riot police and truncheons and shields, or indeed troops with rifles. But for a long time, just with occasional, with the very occasional round of tear gas, which would send and I could see this, people scattering back into these very, very, narrow and winding alleyways. What I did not hear was repeated bursts of machine gun fire, I didn't have that same sense of an all out onslaught of massive firepower that I sensed here in Beijing when I was covering the crushing of the Tiananmen Square protests in June, 1989. This was a very different kind of operation, a more calculated one, and I think the effort of the authorities this time was to let people let off steam before establishing a very strong presence with troops, with guns, every few yards, all across the Tibetan quarter. It was only when they felt safe I think that there would not be massive bloodshed, that they actually moved in with that decisive force. ...
Admittedly, this is only one person, but he makes it pretty clear that this is a very different kind of operation than that at Tienanmen Square and that it is unlikely that official policy is to "shoot unarmed monks" and "violently crackdown."
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I wasn't referring to Tienanmen, I was referring to Tibet. I've read at least one news report that said Chinese security forces opened fire on protesting monks and there were several casualties.
And even if he casualties do only amount to 100, which is probably a fair number, when was the last time the US government ordered a crackdown on political dissidents that resulted in the death of a 100 protestors? When was the last time it was from an ethnic minority under subjugation by the US government with their leader in exile and under threat of death from the US government?
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Blayne Bradley
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Kent Ohio shootings come to mind as a form of violent crackdown, as for a particular ethnic group I think their is ample of US blood on their hands in numerous other countries, though domestically I could point out the genocidal policies towards Native Americans as particularly striking example. I will find you the article in question. Should be a copy on my laptop if not I will ask my friend who has the pdf on his server.
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Lyrhawn: Well, I'm going to have to ask you to source that because I certainly do not see that on any of the gathering of news sources here, and certainly not as anythign approaching official policy link
Secondly, rioters != political dissidents. The political activist that was interviewed on BBC, or the pro-democracy activists that are jailed in China, those are political dissidents. Attacking random citizens and burning random shops is not a normally recognized expression of political disagreement *anywhere.*
Thirdly, gee, if we're classifying rioting citizens as "political dissidents", the Iraqi war? How many Iraqi citizens have been killed during the last few years in the Iraq War?. Consider the independent Iraq Body Count project link Do the math, 45,000 *citizens* (not military, not insurgents) killed over 4+ years, roughly doing the math thats 215 deaths a week. (i.e. two whole Tibetan riot protest of 2008 in *one week* of the Iraq War) Granted, thats adding up citizens killed by both sides, but sure you can add Chinese deaths to the total to get, well, pretty much 200 deaths in Tibet.
And remember, the US has modern equipment and first-world training. These paramilitary police probably have had very little training and very cheap equipment. Thats precisely what I was worried about and pointed out on the first page. I'm actually pretty impressed if James Milles is correct.
Thats why I'm bringing up Tianenmen Square, he's been to both, he can compare, and he can see how much of an improvement there has been in Chinese crowd-control techniques.
And it's been a hundred years and more since the US has had those policies towards indian affairs. And I agree they were reprehensible. But after awhile things do fade. That'll never stop someone else from pointing at you and saying "A hundred years ago you did this! So don't tell me I can't do it now!" but that argument is pretty ridiculous after awhile for two reasons. 1. It's classic, but two wrongs don't make a right. 2. Black marks can be overwritten but not forgotten, in that we can rectify and make restitution for our mistakes, though we never forget them.
Kent State wasn't the domain of the US government, it was a state matter. Though I don't at all condone what went on there, on either side.
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Blayne Bradley
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If Kent State is a State matter then whats going on now is a TAR Matter.
Also US genocidal policies towards native americans is an ongoing affair that has yet to fully cease.
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Blayne Bradley
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Also i take issue with the idea that the People's Armed Police are little no more then a in General Edmund Dukes words a "peasant militia".
They are in effect China's frontline forces for counter terrorism, riot control, hostage crises etc that SWAT teams in North America are called in for.
Google it, you'll find 50 more news organizations with similar stories.
In my most recent post to you I said dissidents instead of protestors, which was a slip. But differing reports that I've read say that protestors marched on the government offices because two monks were arrested after a monastary was ransacked and the police tore up photos of the Dalai Lama, and ended it by attempting to force the monks to denounce the Dalai Lama. From what I've read, this was a separate group from the small bands that have been torching Han Chinese owned businesses.
I think you can make a lot of comparisons between that and the Iraq War, but it's shakey ground. One is quite literally a war zone, the other is not. And the factors involved are dramatically different, from IEDs, to sniper fire, to a heavily armed citizenry. And despite the fact that US military training is arguably the best in the world, every soldier is not trained to be a mediator, to be multilingual (especially in Arabic), and in riot control. I fail to see how better equipment and military training deal matter with regards to what you're talking about, especially given since I can think of maybe one My Lai type incident that has happened in Iraq, and those responsible were punished for it if memory serves. Whereas I can't think of a time when soldiers opened fire on a group of protestors. You're comparing apples and oranges. They both might be fruit, but the differences mean everything.
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Blayne Bradley
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Really? Odd, I remember how despite my very little time with the Canadian Primary Reserves considerable effort was put into avoiding My Lai type massacres.
Also, Kent State, marines opened fire on protestors. Calling it a State matter lacks a certain je ne sais qois.
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Look for the article "Crimes Against Humanity" I am pretty sure.
*shrug* so I misspoke, still US troops shooting protestors, the distinction of whether their state troops or federal troops is completely irrelevent and a straw man.
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If you want to find the real distinction, it's between the reaction of the federal government and the people of the US, and the reaction of the Chinese government and the people of China.
There was a presidential commission into finding out what happened, which came back with a finding that the shooting was not sanctioned, justified, and was reprehensible. There were investigations, and as a result, an eight million student strike the following days in protest, to say nothing of millions of others that protested in other ways. In China those protestors all would have been put down.
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quote:Let's not pretend that the US and China are on the same footing. Two things can be bad and wrong and still be nowhere near each other on a value scale of how bad they are.
Apparently, while you would like for people not to pretend this, defenders of China's actions are required to engage in this gross hypocrisy.
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Blayne Bradley
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You said clearly that "The United States has never fired upon protesters" in fact they have, also the post Kent situation is nowhere near as simple as you say it is the Nixon Administration had acted very callously towards the event for quite some time.
Next, you failed to address my other point, the United States in contrast to China has supported numerous right wing coup d'etates in foreign states which had with the US blessing shot protestors, and oppressed various ethnic minorities.
Your making excuses, the fact of the matter is China on the political stage largely did not interfere in the internal affairs of other nations prefering to deal business in a mutually benefitial way and not on a ideological basis, the actions and policies of the United States on the world stage however are self evident as being far far more dasterdly then anything China has ever done.
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This kind of thing is *precisely* what I've been rather skeptical about and precisely what Xinran was referring to in her interview.
I've seen you in plenty of threads, debating Republican versus Democrat issues and other political issues. Even if the Clinton campaign 'so much' as quotes the Obama campaign, you find out the original circumstances of the quote.
I rarely see you whole-heartedly accept a news source with so little facts and sourcing. If US troops were involved, you'd be asking questions like, who is the source, what is the sources bias, what circumstances surrounding the incident occurred, do we have independent verification of the facts. These are good questions to ask.
Yet here, you have no such questions. With a source like this you immediately jump to "as violently cracking down on demonstrators and shooting unarmed monks" as if it was a verifiable fact.
No "apparently" or "accused of". Not even a "probably." Just total acceptance of rumour. And in the end, that is what this is precisely what this is.
Look at the article itself:
quote: About 9 p.m., witnesses said, as many as 1,000 paramilitary police, trying to end the protest, opened fire on the crowd. It was not known if the demonstrators had been throwing stones at the police.
Eight people died in the gunfire, a local resident in direct contact with the monastery said.
An unnamed, unverifiable, source, which may very well have an axe to grind. No named witnesses. No verifiable details including even the *location* aside from a whole province! In short, unsourced rumour and speculation. You even assumed that the solders were not punished or are not going to be.
This is *precisely* why it is so easy for Xinhua to demonstrate that the Western media is biased, to paint the Western media as simply opposed to them rather than objective. Reporters have been pouncing on every scrap of information, automatically accepting it with no real critical analysis.
No, its *not* fair. The Chinese military has cut off most reporters from the region, making normal reporting impossible. The Chinese government has an appalling record when it comes to the press. But that is no reason to suddenly treat rumor as unshakable fact.
I've been aboveboard with all of my sources. I've gone out of my way to pick specific credible sources like James Miles, the BBC, and human rights activists outside China. In the case of TVB, when I suspect even a possibility of bias, I noted here for posterity, even when I detected none myself.
The Chinese media may present propaganda and conspiracy theories, but that is no reason for me to accept rumors and speculation in return. No, its not fair. Life would be easier if I could just pick a side but I intend on staying to the verifiable truth and using critical analysis on all my sources.
I would appreciate it if you did the same. Obviously, I cannot force you to, but I would certainly appreciate a critical eye on your sources.
Edit to add: I'm sorry if this sounds unduly personal, but this has been percolating in my mind for a while and yours is just the latest example I saw
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: Apparently, while you would like for people not to pretend this, defenders of China's actions are required to engage in this gross hypocrisy.
Thats a gross misrepresentation of both BlackBlade and my position when comparing US and PRC actions.
quote: Originally posted by Lyrhawn: I think you can make a lot of comparisons between that and the Iraq War, but it's shakey ground. One is quite literally a war zone, the other is not.
Uh, no its not. The US government has repeatedly said that the Iraq "War" is over. The news briefs from the US that I've seen either refer to the violence as "sectarian conflict" or "ethno-sectarian competition." This is not a war anymore, civil or not. Straight from General Petraeus's mouth Washington Post link
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: ... I fail to see how better equipment and military training deal matter with regards to what you're talking about, especially given since I can think of maybe one My Lai type incident that has happened in Iraq, and those responsible were punished for it if memory serves.
Of course they make a difference. Training makes the difference between a nervous trigger-happy recruit and a seasoned recruit thats calm under pressure. Equipment makes the difference between rubber bullets hitting rioters and real bullets.
Everyone credible, the Dali Lama, foreign leaders, BlackBlade and I , so far as admitted that China is never going to realistically leave Tibet in the near future. That means using riot police or paramilitary forces to stop the rioting. And I will note, that according to that report, rioting occurred for *days* before intervention.
The only question now remains, what is an an expected number of deaths when restraining thousands of rioters and what is an unexpected number? What kind of magnitude of difference makes the difference between an official policy of violence and a few bad apples?
100 deaths, unconfirmed, and postulated by the source that is expected to be the most biased is not an unexpectedly high number to me.
Make no mistake, I'm not happy about it. I think the situation is tragic, that is why I specifically brought out those non-biased videos that BlackBlade commented on that show the PRC in a bad light. But there is a difference between a sustained campaign of violence and what is shown in James Miles' reports. There is a difference between a Tiananmen Square level incident for which your current response would be appropriate and something like what is seemingly occurring in Tibet.
quote:For the sake of wondering, how is expelling illegal immigrants the same thing as violently cracking down on demonstrators and shooting unarmed monks?
Many people here seem to think all illegals need to be escorted by National Guard troops back to Mexico. I will change majors if that happens and not a single person is physically molested.
quote: And for that matter, who are our politican prisoners? Those held at Guantanamo? Now don't get me wrong, I think they should be charged or released as much as the next liberal but, last I checked most of them were captured in fights with the Taliban or in Iraq right?
Check again, quite a few of them have been released without any formal charges being brought against them. Seems reasonable to believe that if we had captured them all in the act of engaging our troops that we would be hesitant to just let them go.
quote:Let's not pretend that the US and China are on the same footing. Two things can be bad and wrong and still be nowhere near each other on a value scale of how bad they are.
Would you be comfortable with a man formerly convicted of grand larceny telling off a man caught in the same act today?
The situation between the US and China is very delicate. On the one hand we demand that they give their people more rights, but on the other China feels like they have come so far and done so much and they get no credit for it.
Again I don't know if protesting at the Olympics is a good thing or a bad thing.
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Well those are some thick posts to dive into.
Blayne -
quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: You said clearly that "The United States has never fired upon protesters" in fact they have, also the post Kent situation is nowhere near as simple as you say it is the Nixon Administration had acted very callously towards the event for quite some time.
Next, you failed to address my other point, the United States in contrast to China has supported numerous right wing coup d'etates in foreign states which had with the US blessing shot protestors, and oppressed various ethnic minorities.
Your making excuses, the fact of the matter is China on the political stage largely did not interfere in the internal affairs of other nations prefering to deal business in a mutually benefitial way and not on a ideological basis, the actions and policies of the United States on the world stage however are self evident as being far far more dasterdly then anything China has ever done.
Lately I've largely laid off you making grammatical mistakes here and there, but I'm going to have to take issue with your use of quotation marks. At no point in this converastion did I say "The United States has never fired upon protestors." Using quotations like that with an incorrect quote is dishonest, and the few people left willing to debate you aren't going to be around very long if you misquote them. And ironically, that IS a straw man. When you create an argument, pin it on someone, then attack it, that's a straw man. If you had even paraphrased me I might not have been as annoyed, but you'd still have take out some key words there. I think the line of mine that you are referring to us this: "Whereas I can't think of a time when soldiers opened fire on a group of protestors." And this by the way, in specific reference to the Iraq War. Which brings me to:
Mucus -
On your first post...alright, that's a valid thing to debate. But here's where my problem is between sourcing American politics and sourcing internal Chinese affairs: In America, I can find almost anything I need if I'm willing to look hard enough to find it. I can find a YouTube video, or a policy briefing, or a transcript of a speech or whatever I need if I'm willing to spend the time to find it and read it or watch it. And generally I'm highly skeptical of the US media, ESPECIALLY when it comes to politics. I think you have to read articles on the same subject from six different news agencies to come close to discerning what really happened, and I'm almost sometimes to the point where I want to give up and just start my own news agency so I don't have to deal with all the filters and mouthpieces that get added on.
But when it comes to China, where do I do my fact checking? If you check sixteen different news agencies on a story in China, chances are they'll all be the same for a couple reasons: 1. The major media outlets by and large have drastically cut back their spending on foreign bureaus in recent years to maximize profits. 2. The ones that are left, like Reuters and AP, sell their stories to everyone, which is why half the stories you see have a credit to Reuters and AP because they took that story off the wire and stamped their corporate logo on it, albeit for a large fee. American media is outsourcing their foreign coverage a lot of the time, except for the really big papers that can afford it like the New York Times or the Post, and sometimes the big news guys like TIME/CNN.
But even then, who do I check the facts against? Xinhua? They're hardly impartial. There isn't anyone else there to corroborate the story, because China makes sure there isn't. Given that any story I read will never have "so and so of this village at this address said this and here's the live interview" I will never be able to double check. So when I do a search for something and see a dozen articles, from CNN to Reuters to the BBC, all saying generally the same thing from the snippets they've pieced together from locals, tourists and the few journalists that somehow make it there and report back, what do I have to tell me that they are wrong?
My bias against Chinese news isn't because I don't like China, it's because I AM highly skeptical of news agencies to begin with, and even more so from ones with the reputation Chinese domestic news agencies have. There's no free press, no legal unfiltered access to the internet, this stuff is smuggled out and highly protested and refuted by the Chinse government. That makes me three times as suspicious, and yeah, I give the other guys the benefit of the doubt against that.
I'm sorry that I can't give them the same critical eye and fact checking that I generally give for other news sources but, what else do you suggest I do, short of flying to Lhasa and checking it out for myself?
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Mucus: Uh, no its not. The US government has repeatedly said that the Iraq "War" is over. The news briefs from the US that I've seen either refer to the violence as "sectarian conflict" or "ethno-sectarian competition." This is not a war anymore, civil or not. Straight from General Petraeus's mouth
I guess this sort of feeds back into what I was saying before. You and I know better than that because we have a wealth of information at our hands to tell us that yeah, it IS a war zone. Pres. Bush and Gen. Petreaus can shine whatever they want on the situation for the public, but anyone with a careful eye, and despite their feelings about the rightness or wrongness of the conflict knows that this isn't a peacekeeping mission, there's no peace yet there to keep. It's a war. And they aren't out patrolling with rubber bullets and tasers (though I have seen some interesting non-lethal crowd dispersal technologies are being field tested over there right now).
If anything, what you're talking about, Bush's party line versus, you know, reality, is exactly what I'm talking about. We know China's official party line. So what's reality? Unlike the West, I can't go find out for myself.
quote:Make no mistake, I'm not happy about it. I think the situation is tragic, that is why I specifically brought out those non-biased videos that BlackBlade commented on that show the PRC in a bad light. But there is a difference between a sustained campaign of violence and what is shown in James Miles' reports. There is a difference between a Tiananmen Square level incident for which your current response would be appropriate and something like what is seemingly occurring in Tibet.
I agree there is a big difference. I didn't bring up Tiananmen. To begin with I wasn't even making a qualitative assessment in the differences, I only jumped in when our moral authority to be critical of the situation was questioned. And I DO think that our moral authority, the United States' anyway, has been seriously hampered in the last five years by Iraq. But I don't think that means we should be silent. It might ruin our credibility a bit, but there is always someone in America who knows right from wrong, even if the party that knows that moves around from time to time.
Blackblade -
quote:Many people here seem to think all illegals need to be escorted by National Guard troops back to Mexico. I will change majors if that happens and not a single person is physically molested.
Here? Here as in on Hatrack or in the United States? I guess the answer to that doesn't matter, I'm just curious which one you meant. I'd make the argument that they are here illegally, and if they resist efforts to move them they'd be violating the law again, but I know if I did that someone would say "precisely, which is what is happening in China." But I think you have to look at the genesis of it, not just the endgame. Are the laws and policies in place that lead to those actions fair to begin with? In the case of China we're talking about a population of people who've been clamoring for freedom for the better part of at least five decades. But even if that argument falls apart, I'll just say that that's never going to happen in the United States, barring some extreme changes or events in the country. People everywhere talk about doing a lot of reprehensible or destructive things. What counts is choosing not to do them.
quote:Check again, quite a few of them have been released without any formal charges being brought against them. Seems reasonable to believe that if we had captured them all in the act of engaging our troops that we would be hesitant to just let them go.
I know some have been released. And I'd agree that if they were caught in fighting then they should be held for some period of time. But in such a case wouldn't you bring some sort of charge against them, fighting against the US in an armed conflict is against our laws I'm pretty sure. Doesn't mean we let them go, but it's fair to charge them with something. My original point was that being arrested for fighting US forces in combat zone is totally different from being arrested for having a picture of the Dalai Lama (if that was in fact the case here), wouldn't you agree?
quote:Would you be comfortable with a man formerly convicted of grand larceny telling off a man caught in the same act today?
The situation between the US and China is very delicate. On the one hand we demand that they give their people more rights, but on the other China feels like they have come so far and done so much and they get no credit for it.
Again I don't know if protesting at the Olympics is a good thing or a bad thing.
That's not an easy question to answer. It's so easy to say "who are you to tell me not to do the same thing that you did?" But if anything, that's the BEST guy to tell you no. Alcoholics go to AA meetings with other alcoholics. People who make mistakes and learn from them are often the best people to advise those in danger of making the same mistakes. You think that because of Iraq we can't tell someone they are about to screw up? (that's an in general question). I mean look how well it turned out. We made a huge blunder, and saying "well you screwed up big time, so now it's our turn" is a pretty stupid argument if you ask me. But that goes for any mistake. So yeah, I guess I would be comfortable with that, though I'd add that every situation is different, and I can conceive of there being a case where I wouldn't be.
I guess when you come from that far behind it's easy to make a fair bit of progress and have the rest of the world still scold you for not having come far enough, especially when you're working with competing value systems.
I don't know if protesting is a good thing or a bad thing either. I think the run up to the Olympics is serving a valuable purpose to highlight problems in China. But I think once you get to the games, you let the atheletes compete.
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RE: The difficulty of establishing which media is correct
Short answer: In the immortal words of The X-Files: Trust No One
Long answer: What you bring up is a good point, it IS difficult to find good information that is verifiable from Tibet. The thing is, if you can't verify something, you don't have to immediately pounce on the first scrap of information you find and accept it as truth.
It is ok to admit that you *don't* know something. In fact, this is specifically why I've been marking most of my numbers on casualties as "estimates" from a particular source.
You know how the media works, you know that Xinhua is a propaganda machine, you also know that in the primaries, that the Western news media can make a mountain from a molehill. Every little misstep is suddenly a critical disaster, the Daily Show does a good job of satirizing it.
So why suddenly trust either when it comes to foreign reports, especially when you've noted the difficulty of Reuters and the major outlets essentially using photocopied news?
In short, instead of saying "violently cracking down on demonstrators and shooting unarmed monks?" when you don't actually know whether it happened or not, you say well, what I found when I actually tracked down a better article on the incident from the BBC.
quote: Xinhua did not provide further details of the incident, but Tibetan activists have said at least eight people were killed at a demonstration against Chinese rule near the Kirti monastery in Aba on Sunday.
Bang, you have a location, you have the source of the information. I'll note throughout the article that the BBC has denoted what IS known and what is suspected. e.g. "Police 'shot at Tibet protesters'" rather than "Police shot at Tibet protestors" or conversely "Citing police sources, Xinhua said police had opened fire 'in self-defence' during Sunday's unrest in Aba, close to Sichuan's border with Qinghai province."
They don't trust either side unreservedly, and neither should you Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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I may have to steal an idea and start a You're Not Helping" feature
Previously, I mentioned a Chinese-British writer/human rights activist:
quote:
quote:Originally posted by Mucus: Here's a very interesting interview with Xinran Xue, a British-Chinese human rights activist/writer in Britain who makes a few points that have been percolating through my mind. link
She clearly vocalised some of the thoughts that I have been throwing around in my brain, particularly that the current news response and protests are actually *not* helping the Tibet situation and may actually be making it harder for real activists to do their jobs and make a more democratic China.
I've now come across a blog by an American, Rebecca MacKinnon, whose background is particularly interesting:
quote: Now: I am currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Hong Kong's Journalism and Media Studies Centre, where I teach "new media" - which means a range of things related to the intersection between the Internet and journalism. I blog about my ideas and work at RConversation.com
Prior life as a TV journalist in Asia: I worked my way up from the very bottom of CNN's Beijing bureau, then somehow ended up CNN's Beijing correspondent and Bureau Chief from 1998-2001. After that I moved on to be Tokyo Bureau Chief from 2001-03.
She is an advocate for freedom of speech online and if you look at her featured posts, you can clearly see she is no friend of the CCP.
However, I find her latest column, Anti-CNN and the Tibet Information War ,very interesting. What many people do not know is that the Internet is a two-way door. While we look at China, they look back at us. And while we know they only have Xinhua, many Chinese also know that ,so they do read our news. This would normally be a good thing and it has been for quite a while. But consider this (I can only use a few choice quotes but the whole this is very interesting reading and I highly recommend it) original link :
quote: It's well known by now that Chinese cyberspace for the past several days has been seething with anger against CNN and most Western media for what many Chinese netizens feel is blatant anti-China bias. If you haven't seen the anti-CNN website check it out. (The Washington post interviewed the site's founder here.) ... The anger against CNN started after Chinese netizens discovered that CNN.com had cropped out a group of Tibetan rioters, who appear to be beating somebody up, from the original AFP/Getty Images photo. ... As Roland Soong points out, CNN.com has quietly gone and replaced the photo in the original story with a new version that includes the mob violence in the background. But of course the old version still lives in the Google cache. He writes: "This is a self-inflicted wound. If CNN believed that it was right in the first place, then it should have stuck to that position. Instead, it surrendered quietly. Not only did this not appease the Chinese netizens, it only made it worse." ... Many of the examples of Western media anti-China bias posted at anti-cnn.com hone in on a series of agency photos that ran in various Western news outlets which were mislabeled as Chinese police arresting Tibetan protesters, when they are actually Nepalese or Indian police arresting exiled Tibetan protesters. ... YouTube has been unblocked in China, though as the Shanghaiist points out access can be shaky at times. The BBC English-language website is also generally unblocked.
Perhaps the Chinese government is feeling a little less worried lately about losing public support? Perhaps they are less worried that people will turn against the Communist Party after reading something in the Western media, now that it is no longer fashionable in many circles to believe what the Western media reports?
This is dangerous stuff.
Once our media loses its credibility as an objective and balanced news source, Chinese people will just assume that there are two propaganda sources out there, one Western and one Chinese. This has unintended consequences when the CCP can link further democratic reforms and pro-Western propaganda, slowing down reforms.
I think her conclusion is particularly apropos for people on both sides of the Pacific
quote: Hopefully most of China's netizens will draw the obvious conclusion: that in the end you shouldn't trust any information source - Western or Chinese, professional or amateur, digital or analog - until and unless they have earned your trust.
quote: ... Lots of Chinese people now view the Western media, human rights groups, and Western leaders' criticisms of their country as part of the Racist Western Conspiracy to Stop China From Being Successful. Many Westerners continue to harbor a wishful missionary fantasy that the Chinese people must naturally welcome outsiders to help "save" them, and that all expressions of the opposite can only be the product of brainwashing and fear. In my experience, the most unsuccessful way to win a person over to one's point of view is to start out by telling him he's brainwashed - second only in effectiveness to telling someone that she is part of a grand conspiracy. But this is how the conversation is currently going. Is this inevitable?
Edit to add: I've changed the topic of the conversation for two reasons. A) The conversation has somewhat grown from a discussion of just the Tibet riots, to the torch rally, the Olympics as a whole, and China B) Reading the links from that last blog indicate to me that there will certainly be a plethora of material to discuss especially as the Olympics draws near
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Lyrhawn: There is a difference between saying, "Dude, trust me on this, don't make the same mistake I did," and, "Ignore the blood on my hands, we're talking about YOU right now!"
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I'll have to think about it, but, off the top of my head, I don't think those two things are mutually exclusive. And if they are, then who chooses? In order for one nation to have the moral authority to tell another what to do, what do they have to do? Write a 1000 page report on which country is worse and then whoever wins has the moral authority? I don't think it all breaks down to numbers like that.
I don't know, I'm not sure if I agree or not with that, I'll have to think on it.
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In my first entry, I showed an interesting link to a former CNN bureau chief which detailed some disturbing examples of either (optimistically) incompetence or (pessimistically) media hopes of another Tiananmen, giving easy fodder for accusations of media bias.
In my second entry, I'll detail a story which highlights some of the unintended consequences I've been bringing up. In the Western media, the dominant story is that the protests along the torch route are successfully embarrassing the CCP and lending help to Chinese reformers and Tibetans inside China.
It seems that this is may not be the case. These current protests are actually hurting the cause of reforms in China. This is from a blog by Richard Spencer, The Daily Telegraph's China Correspondent (a UK newspaper).
quote: It is now almost a universally accepted truth among well-meaning people, on both sides of the debate about Tibet, that the protests in London and Paris this week have backfired, at least in terms of winning round the Chinese people to their cause.
As Roland at ESWN argues, persuasively, the Chinese Communist Party couldn't have arranged a better act of propaganda to unite the nation around its cause than have a pro-Tibet demonstrator try to grapple the torch out of the hands of a one-legged woman athlete in a wheelchair.
(And he means that literally, and he is right: the Party is indeed incapable of organising anything so brilliantly symbolic of all it says about how the rest of the world bullies poor harmless China). ... From the more rarefied world of the Economist, their blogsite records these anonymous thoughts about how, if anyone thinks that these protests will help bring democracy to China or freedom to Tibet, they are much mistaken. Rather, they have entrenched nationalist feeling, possibly dangerously.
I couldn't have put it better myself, I thought, particularly as I had myself bridled at descriptions of China as totalitarian, including in my own newspaper. I think this is very wrong - China is an authoritarian self-confessed dictatorship, with very nasty dark corners, but to call it totalitarian is an insult to victims of and witnesses to Stalin's Soviet Union, Mao's China and the Kims' Korea, and I have interviewed a few of all of them in my time.
The story to which he is preferring to is the story of Jin Jang, which is very thoroughly covered in the post to which he links:
quote: Specifically, you can read the story here of the Chinese paralympian fencer Jin Jing carrying the Olympic torch in Paris. The following includes the photos, the report in <Liberation Daily>, forum posts by eyewitnesses (including the photographer of that famous photo of the assault on Jin Jing) and western media reports. Millions of Chinese readers probably cried their hearts out after reading the stuff. And this public relations show was not even scripted by the Chinese Communists, who are unlikely to ever accomplish this level of success no matter how hard they try. Faced with the beautiful heroine with one leg, how is any liberal dissidence on behalf of Tibet independence going to work inside China? This was a bonanza handed to the Chinese Communists by the pro-Tibet protestors.
I've come across a few pieces of interesting commentary from various people.
Liu Xiaobo, a human rights activist, focusing issues of freedom of expression and publication, who lived through the Tiananmen Square protests and spent more than four years in various types of jail gave an interview. Some quotes:
quote: PEIGEL: Does the government respond to pressure form the outside world?
Liu: Yes. If it didn't, the human rights situation would be much worse.
SPIEGEL: What would happen if the Games were boycotted?
Liu: That wouldn't be a good way to punish China. If the Games fail, human rights will suffer. The government would stop paying any attention to the rest of the world. I personally think: We want the Games and we want human rights to be respected.
Helen Zia, the author of "Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People" writes:
quote: ... Unfortunately, the calls to boycott the Olympics and to label everything about China as evil can only serve to isolate China and the United States from each other. China is not a monolith, and blanket condemnations of China and its people are as simplistic as blaming all Americans for the U.S. human-rights violations at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. Such rhetoric, however, is driving many Chinese bloggers into a nationalistic response.
Attitudes such as these hark back to the Cold War days, when the United States and China were completely shut off from each other. A recent survey conducted by the Committee of 100 on American and Chinese attitudes found that both countries have significant fears about the other and believe that news coverage about their country is distorted by the other. It is worth remembering that during the Cold War, fear and ignorance of the "evil enemy other" was used to suppress internal political dissent, in the United States with the McCarthy Red scares and in China, through several of Mao's "anti" campaigns. ...
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Interesting interviews, both of them. I'm starting to lean towards not boycotting even the opening ceremonies, but I am still undecided. What should be done about all this is maddening.
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To be honest I don't know what to do either. While reading various links, blogs, and the like I constantly swing from being depressed about human nature to being mildly optimistic and back.
I do find it very interesting because I have never seen this type of Internet activity in, out, and about China. I also see some of the issues and reactions as somewhat of a harbinger for how North Americans will treat their citizens of Chinese dissent as China goes forward, a litmus test if you will.
I also find it interesting to trace various discussions between Chinese netizens and people in the West. A few examples, that anti-cnn site is mostly in English to pursuade English speaking readers, this is a cartoon representing the ferocity of debates between conservative Chinese at china.com and liberal Chinese at the Southern Metropolis Daily, there are also discussions about clashes between free-tibet and pro-china groups in the US.
In a way, its almost heartening, despite disagreeing with many of the things that are being said, a lot of Chinese are getting experience learning how to debate, to examine media biases, and communicate with Westerners (note: it is very possible that more Chinese are engaging Westerners in English, than Westerners are engaging Chinese in Chinese).
As long as there is not another breath-takingly stupid action by free-tibet groups to attack another handicapped Chinese athlete, this may yet have positive results.
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I've been keeping up with this situation, reading a rather large variety of blogs and other articles, as the Western media has somewhat let coverage slide as the interesting events shift to inside China rather than outside China (sigh).
Anyways, I'll try to highlight some events of interest, if there are any questions I'll try to point people to appropriate sources since I don't remember all that has been interesting these past two weeks.
So, an overview:
To start, something amusing, Jackie Chan (an Olympics Ambassador) makes the following succinct but rather good observation in his usual English delivery:
quote: However, Chan insists anyone trying to protest on his watch can expect short shrift, warning: 'Demonstrators better not get anywhere near me.'
And the 54-year-old, speaking at the launch of latest movie Forbidden Kingdom, claimed many of the protestors are simply publicity seekers.
'They are doing it for no reason. They just want to show off on the TV,' he said. 'They know, "if I can get the torch, I can go on the TV for the world news".'
Ironically, its a rather succinctly and clear point, with a viewpoint that has considerable popularity. Regardless of whether the torch protestors think they're doing something for a good cause, the consequences are hardly helpful. The torch rally IS a media circus and really, what good is snatching a torch going to do for Tibetans, meanwhile, the main message that is resonating in China from the protests is the assault on Jin Jing.
It is important to note, that even though Jackie Chan is not in fact outside of the common consensus. Hong Kong, though you would expect it to be the most sympathetic part of China is in fact, quite not. Consider this poll
quote: Q6. Other people think that the Beijing Olympics is a good opportunity to apply pressure on Beijing to improve human rights conditions in China as well as the Tibet issue. Do you agree? 18.4%: Extremely disagree 51.6%: Disagree 19.5%: Agree 2.0%: Extremely agree 8.6%: Don't know/hard to say
Q7. Some foreign groups are proposing to boycott the Beijing Olympics in order to pressure Beijing to improve human rights conditions in China as well as the Tibet issue. Do you agree? 27.6%: Extremely disagree 59.6%: Disagree 6.7%: Agree 0.8%: Extremely agree 5.4%: Don't know/hard to say
Another big story in China is the continuing backlash against both the foreign media and Carrefour as a proxy for the French.
The Carrefour situation is in part a (somewhat unfair) response to the Jin Jing situation and the revelation that the company has donated money to the Dalai Lama.
Nonetheless, grassroots protests around several of their locations have been going on and the intensity, well, somewhat reminds me (and exceeds) of the 'Freedom Fries' craze a few years back. It looks like the French ... are the new French. The best coverage I have seen of this situation is from the EastSouthWestNorth blog from April 11-20 (although, the situation is ongoing) Here is an example in Hebei. http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20080426_1.htm
Interestingly, the authorities seem to be somewhat discouraging the protests, going to the extreme of parking construction vehicles in front of some stores to block protestors Some figures have also spoken out against the protests, examples are The former Chinese ambassador to France http://www.blackandwhitecat.org/2008/04/28/the-dont-boycott-carrefour-campaign/ a group of Chinese journalists http://www.zonaeuropa.com/200804b.brief.htm#016 , and even a televised debate on the issue. Its all rather amusing.
As of yet, there surprisingly has been no violence, despite one rumour of an isolated incident, circulated by one blog and squashed by the same blog.
quote: Last weekend, I spoke to a group of journalism students about the mainland Chinese media operation model and reform. I asked them about their overall impression about China and they said: "one party dictatorship," "rule of law is inadequate," "but the economy is growing rapidly," "Hong Kong relies on mainland China on many things" ... such were their answers. Then I asked the second question: "Where did you get that impression?" They said: "From reading the newspapers and watching television news." My third question was: "Do you watch CCTV or read the mainland newspapers?" Answers: "Very rarely" and "Those are government propaganda." I asked next: "What do you think of the latest popular mainland catchphrase 'Do not be too CNN'?" These students replied: "CNN is biased against China" and "news reporting ought to be objective." These future news workers of Hong Kong remembered the most basic principle of journalism. ... When China opened up thirty years ago, a countless number of Chinese people reached for VOA and BBC. Through these western media, the Chinese people (especially the young people) expanded their vistas and found out that media were not just propaganda tools but can actually serve as watchdog over the government. As China opened up further and technology improved, the Chinese people came into contact with more western media. Among these, CNN stood out because it had 24/7 news coverage as well as bringing live coverage right from the scene. Through CNN, the common folks as well as national leaders can understand what was happening around the world. CNN made it impossible for the authorities to shut down information. CNN caused the official Chinese media to open up their eyes and imitate how to become quicker and better. Although the mainstream western media are still not freely available inside China, the Internet age has made the names of CNN, BBC, ABC and CBS familiar to the Chinese people. Many people (especially the young people) regard these as important sources for the latest information.
Of course, more and more Chinese people (including journalists) have adopted the value that the media should be watchdogs as opposed to mouthpieces. They agree that news reporting should be fair and objective. But then all of a sudden now, they found out that mainstream western media such as CNN which had embraced freedom of press and objectivity/fairness were in fact cropping/editing news photos, mislabelling photos and making prejudicial commentary. Rather than saying that the Chinese are angry, it is more appropriate to say that they feel cheated.
Actually, there is no such thing as absolute freedom of press in the world and there is no absolutely objective news reporting. Journalists have their unique backgrounds and education which form their ideas and positions. The key is whether a journalist can make a fair and balanced report irrespective of personal position. ... After "Don't be too CNN" became the most fashionable phrase in China of the moment, do western media such as CNN recognize that the young China people who used to be more receptive to the western viewpoints have now become the major force in opposing the inaccurate western media coverage and any Olympic boycott? This should be something that the western media and certain politicians to think about.
CNN and other western media have 're-educated' the Chinese people. The Chinese people (especially the young people) no longer believe blindly in the western media. That was an unexpected windfall for the Hu Jintao-Wen Jiabao administration and it was definitely not the intention of the western media. ...
That entry makes a reference to the "Don't be too CNN" which has become somewhat of a catch-phrase among the Chinese youth, spawning T-shirts and the like.
quote: I am sure it is possible to be cynical, and say it's just playing for time: keep the foreign governments happy, ensure they'll come to the Games ceremonies, fob everyone off with a new round of meaningless talks, and in the meantime keep up the patriotic education in Tibet itself in the vain hope that that'll see the situation all right.
There's a good chance - what, 80, 90 per cent? - that that's exactly what will happen.
But I have been thinking some more about nationalism, and the unity of the Chinese people in the face of western attacks on Beijing over Tibet and on the Olympic torch. As I wrote before, this unity of feeling has led some to say that the pro-Tibet protests backfired.
But as I did then, I wonder.
People have compared the current wave of anti-French (and anti-foreign media) activism to the anti-Japanese protests in 2005: in the same way, the government then seemed to encourage, then cool down, the nationalistic sentiments.
But note: in Japan's case this was followed by a warming of ties. This was helped by a new Japanese prime minister, but it was also fed by Beijing, where the politburo went from being very uptight, cancelling visits, to being bosom buddies of Tokyo (well, almost) in a few months.
I have a pop psychology explanation for the political machinations at work here.
The CCP has a long history of hitting with the right before hitting with the left (or vice versa) - it will feint one way, to satisfy one wing of the party, before actually enacting policies that lean the other way.
...
To my mind, the sudden outburst of nationalism as regards Japan was not particularly dictated by outside events, but was a reflection of the Party wanting to engender a sense of national unity among the people before it led out a new policy. No matter that the new policy seemed to contradict the spirit of the people, the point was that once they had this feeling of solidarity, the people could be sold a new idea by a government behind which they had united.
I do not know if the same thinking is at work here: indeed, the whole idea may be very fanciful. Yet I feel the government is now well set to moderate its policies to the Dalai Lama, and to the Tibetan people more generally, should it choose to do so. It has stirred up some considerable support for itself, as the legitimate embodiment of the Chinese people, along with a sense of "something must be done". Controversially, I would say it has also provoked (and perhaps even this might be a little bit deliberate, at least among some of the more reform-minded people) a genuine sense among many thinking people that beneath the rhetoric previous policies must be admitted to have failed, and that there is more to the Tibet situation than previously met the eye.
The Party is now in a position where it can, if it chooses, move to offer genuine compromise while appearing to be magnanimous.
Interesting speculation.
If anyone has questions, or wants more information on particular events mentioned here, I'll try to provide answers or useful links Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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It's hard to tell if Richard Spencer hit the nail on the head, or if he put the hammer in the hands of the CCP and is holding the nail himself for them to hit.
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quote: Bin Laden says: “China is the only country in the world where you absolutely cannot cause trouble! That’s because al-Qaeda once sent seven terrorists to launch a surprise attack on China, and the result was this:
When the first terrorist went to blow up a grade splitting bridge for road traffic [where one road goes on top and the other below], he got dizzy and fell over;
When the second terrorist went to blow up a bus, he couldn’t get on because it was too crowded;
When the third terrorist went to blow up a supermarket, he found that his remote detonation device had been pick-pocketed;
When the fourth terrorist went to blow a government building, he was beaten madly to pieces by security guards, who exclaimed: “We’ll teach you to demand wages and appeal to the authorities for help!”;
The fifth terrorist successfully blew up a mine and killed and injured several hundred people, yet after his clandestine return to al-Qaeda, not a single news report about the incident appeared in the media for six months, so al-Qaeda punished him for the “crime of spreading lies”;
The sixth terrorist attempted to blow up Guangzhou, yet when he exited the train station, his explosive material was forcibly stolen by the “Galloping Band” (feiche dang) of motorcycle thieves, which left him traumatized for quite some time;
The seventh terrorist went to blow up Tieling - the base of China’s steel industry - yet the sad appeals of Zhao Benshan [famous actor and comedian from northeast China] discouraged him.
Recently, a female terrorist was sent to blow up Henan, but she was hoodwinked and made a prostitute!
On May 1st, don’t go to Carrefour! Let the world know that China can’t be messed with! Happy Holidays!
Background commentary:
quote: ... More intriguing, however, is the growing popularity of satirical text messages. These texts crystallize the power of the vox populi: the age-old craft of catchy verse, combined with the earthy humor of the disempowered cynic. Two messages circulated widely in recent weeks illustrate this point.
Circulated on May 1st, the first message sets out to prove that “nobody can mess with China”. It concludes with an appeal to boycott Carrefour over the May 1st holidays. Yet the bulk of the text reads more like a scathing satire of Chinese society (original Chinese at bottom of post):
...
It is hard to tell whether the author is truly proud of China and in support of the boycott, or is in fact ridiculing patriotic fervor because it obscures domestic issues, such as poor infrastructure, rampant crime, and strong-armed governance. The satire genre leaves plenty of room for interpretation.
posted
Some observations on the response to the Chinese earthquake:
quote: In Wenchuan county, one of the most severely affected regions, the Communist Party secretary, Wang Bin, made a widely reported appeal over a satellite telephone for immediate airdrops of food, medicine and tents on Tuesday. He said the aid was needed to care for what he estimated were 30,000 people left homeless by the destruction in Wenchuan town, the county seat. "We are in urgent need of supplies, especially doctors," he said.
Helicopters dispatched to bring help to destroyed villages in the mountainous terrain near the Wolong panda reserve were forced to turn back because of heavy clouds and driving rain, the New China News Agency reported. Similarly, paratroopers who had planned to parachute in called off their mission because of the weather.
...
Premier Wen Jiabao, who was in the region directing rescue efforts, was seen bowing three times in a ritual of respect for the dead before the ruins of the collapsed school in Dujiangyan, the official agency said. Wen declared that the soldiers, police and other rescuers should make clearing roads to reach those pinned under the rubble their top priority.
Wen, who flew in from Beijing soon after the scale of the disaster became known, has been photographed and televised repeatedly directing rescue workers and shouting encouragement to victims. His display of concern, and its wide reporting by the official media, was in marked contrast to the secretive way the Communist Party has handled emergencies in the past.
...
Zhang Jian, director of the committee's project management department, stressed to reporters in the capital that the quake area is a long way from Beijing and would have no effect on the Games.
Still, officials said China is scaling back celebrations along the route of the Olympic torch out of respect for earthquake victims and will observe a minute of silence each morning before the torch relay proceeds.
Donation boxes will also be set up along the relay route to help provide relief for victims of the quake, a statement said.
quote: On his race from Beijing to reach the epicentre of the deadliest earthquake to rock China in more than three decades, Mr Wen made sure that his first public comments hinted at the gravity of the tragedy.
The response of China’s rulers highlights the lessons that they have learnt from the mishandling of several crises in the past few years. This time there is little sign, at least so far, of an attempt at a cover-up as there was during the Sars outbreak in 2003, when secrecy triggered rumour and panic. And there has been none of the delay and confusion that drew criticism after the late winter snowstorms brought south China to a halt.
State television has interrupted normal programming to run live updates of the earthquake in southwestern Sichuan province. The usual evening soap operas have been replaced by interviews with residents and survivors.
On the internet, official news agencies have issued report after report to provide the latest death toll. Details of rescue operations, of missing children and damaged hospitals have not been concealed.
...
Mr Wen does not want to see China come in for criticism for its slow or secretive handling of this disaster – criticisms levelled against neighbouring Burma as it struggles to deliver aid to 1.5 million people affected by Cyclone Nargis. Further secrecy about China’s latest challenge, after effectively cutting off restive Tibet from contact with the outside world in the past few weeks, would serve only to fuel controversy.
China’s rulers have on many occasions in the past chosen to hide details of natural disasters, anxious that casualties could be perceived as a sign of failure. But the leadership, aware that its people have access to increasing amounts of information on the internet, is becoming less defensive.
The party knows that the main risks from such a disaster are a tardy response and a cover-up. Leaders with the media-savvy of Mr Wen – who made sure he was photographed poring over papers with his advisers on the flight from Beijing to the scene – differ hugely from the secretive junta in Burma. Mr Wen may be burnishing his image as a man of the people. But past performance would show that he – and several of his Politburo colleagues – care about the sorrows of China’s people. And not only because to care will help them to retain power.
Some food for thought for those that may be a little *too* cynical that China is not changing and on the role of international pressure. I think the connection with the Olympics is a bit tenuous, but it is still an interesting observation.
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posted
China's Premier Wen Jiabao graduated with a major of geological structure from the Beijing Institute of Geology. He undertook postgraduate study and now is an engineer. 1960-1965: Student majoring in geological surveying and prospecting of the No. 1 Department of Geology and Minerals at Beijing Institute of Geology. 1965-1968: Postgraduate majoring in geological structure at Beijing Institute of Geology. 1968-1978: Technician and political instructor of the Geomechanics Survey Team under Gansu Provincial Geological Bureau and head of its political section. 1978-1979: Member of the Standing Committee of the Party Committee of the Geomechanics Survey Team under Gansu Provincial Geological Bureau and deputy head of the team. 1979-1981: Deputy section head and engineer of Gansu Provincial Geological Bureau. 1981-1982: Deputy director-general of Gansu Provincial Geological Bureau. 1982-1983: Director of the Policy and Law Research Office of the Ministry of Geology and Mineral Resources and member of its Leading Party Member Group. 1983-1985: Vice-minister of Geology and Mineral Resources, member and deputy secretary of its Leading Party Member Group and director of its Political Department.
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I abhor China for a lot of reasons including Tibet and Taiwan, but I'll still watch the Olympics. Back when they were first announced, I even thought that it might be a good time to visit the fatherland, but I haven't made any concrete plan that would bring that to fruition.
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posted
The ReliefWeb map of the WenchuanEarthquake in Sichuan Province. Note that the initial earthquake propagated northeastward along the fault-line from the epicenter in WenchuanCounty through Beichuan to the aftershock epicenter.
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posted
You may or may not find this thread interesting. I kept the (mostly) quake related posts there, while leaving the political post about the quake here.
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I think some of this is also applicable to more affluent/cosmopolitan Chinese citizens on the mainland and to overseas Chinese such as myself.
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posted
I'm taiwanese and that's not racist in any way...even if "taiwanese" were a race (because, well, it's like, a nationality). Taiwan has enough of its own issues (as people stopped caring about it and few countries even recognize it) to be worried about Tibetan affairs. And does anyone think it's a tad worse that China is both funding AND arming the Sudanese in Darfur? that's not getting so much media play. hmmm...I wonder why?
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
Firstly what 2 soveriegn nations trade to each other is not immediately of note.
Secondly, the situation in Darfur is not black and white.
Thirdly, 87% of Sudans weapons come from Russia with only 8% from China.
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