Slashdot Mirror
Chinese Blogs, Netizens React To the Tibet Issue
Bibek Paudel writes "Over the past few weeks Chinese bloggers and people on Internet forums have been reacting to events in Tibet and the protests disrupting the torch relay. The BBC and Global Voices have interesting insights on the recent happenings on the Net. A western commentator says, '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.' One of the most vocal appeals by the Chinese blogs, forums, and text-messages has been to boycott French goods in response to the protests that accompanied the torch relay in Paris. One response post reads, 'Who is abusing human rights? Who is bringing violence to this world?' There also are two versions of music video of the song Don't Be Too CNN, and its lyric has assumed the status of a cult catch-phrase. Sina.com has a popular page: 'Don't be too CNN, fire to the Western media.' Many analysts believe that the protests over Tibet have only served to strengthen Chinese nationalism rather than evoke sympathy for the Tibetan cause. Sina.com has a petition against the Western media which has reportedly accumulated millions of signatures. There is also Mutant Palm, a blog by an expatriate in China who has been watching and commenting on the fallout from Tibet and torch protests online."
From the summary:
'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.'
Wh...WHAT?
They're calling us hypocrites, and as a citizen of "the West" I can say they're exactly right.
I'd like to say nationalism is the new evil, but, unfortunately it's been around for as long as there has been nations.
More Twoson than Cupertino
Racist Western Conspiracy to Stop China From Being Successful.
China is a race? I thought the Chinese were Asian (or Oriental). Japan, Korea, Thailand, none of these Asian countries populated by Orientals have been stopped from being sucessful. When I was in Thailand in the USAF in 1974 it was incredibly primitive, but we had a Thai intern a few years ago who informed me that the roads are now paved, they have electricity and running water now, and it has become thoroughly modern and industrialized.
I'm starting to believe that whenever someone starts screaming "race" (Jesse Jackson et al) the one screaming "racist" is, in fact, the true racist.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Because of China's overt and explicit censorship of the news media, those outside of China (and probably those inside China, too, for that matter) can't possibly be aware of the actual sentiments of the Chinese people.
Basically, what's going to happen is that the pro-Tibet folks will be squelched, either by the Great Firewall of China, imprisonment, or self-censorship, and so only those voices advocating the pro-Tibet stance will be allowed through the filtering and be heard as the "popular" sentiment of the Chinese people.
Just goes to show you how powerful the propaganda machine in China is. To give you an idea of how unsurprising this really is, consider the fact that there are many Chinese people who believe that Tiananmen Square never happened.
I don't buy stuff made in China anyway.
Granted, I don't buy much of anything to begin with, but what I do buy isn't made in China.*
*Except for sunglasses and gloves. Still haven't found a way around that. Yet. But then, how often does one buy glasses and gloves anyway?
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
As long as they call all non-Chinese media "Western Media" they clearly cannot seriously criticize it in any meaningful way. I mean, Fox News, Slashdot, BBC, FAZ and Corriere della Sera are all part of same group of anti-Chinese conspiracy? With that argument, dear Chinese blogging friends, you are becoming pretty laughable.
839*929
please never use the word "netizens" ever again, in any circumstance.
thank you,
the internet users who aren't douchebags
Chinese culture is vastly different from western cultures. People either don't understand or refuse to acknowledge this. They've always been ruled by a totalitarian regime, communism is just another variation. They aren't apt to enact quick changes unless their is an actual benefit. Some of the people I've talk to, point to Russia as an example of why it's not a good idea to quickly move to a democratic system.
That and people don't like to be told why their country is bad. Just look at America.
What is wrong, exactly, with hypocrysy? It is the homage that vice pays to virtue. Besides, being hypocrytical certainly beats being openly racist and paranoidal.
I would like to die like my grandfather did - sleeping. And not screaming in terror, like his passengers.
On one hand I don't get good coverage of the situation in Tibet because western reporters just do not go there. And on the other hand Chinese reporting is state run and thus essentially a state run propaganda outlet.
Having observed the Dali Lama's tours and speeches for the last few year I find Chinese media assertion that The Dali Lama is running a terrorist network absurd, but their reporting to the contrary might be causing Tibetan supporters of the Dali Lama to become more extreme as the only media source available to them tell them that the Dali Lama is urging armed uprising.
In many ways the Chinese government is seeding the dissent which will give them an excuse for violent oppression of the Tibetan people. I am not sure whether this is evidence of a brilliantly executed evil agenda or standard government incompetence.
do they call french fries fuck tibet fries in china?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
..the voice of the Tibetans is lost. I say, who cares about hypocrites and nationalists, who even cares about Olympic games and sponsors and the Great Market of China; isn't sympathizing with an oppressed minority a good thing - regardless? ESPECIALLY when the odds are stacked so firmly and outstandingly against them? Because being on the receiving end of China is, in the end, being on the receiving end of any country that wants to do business with and in China.
Just think about that, for a moment...
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
The idea that the "West" is hypocritical hinges on the notion of a unified "West"; i.e. the "West" is opposed to Chinese human rights abuses, but this is hypocritical because the "West" has itself committed human rights abuses in the past. This notion of a unified "West" is pure fantasy. The group of Westerners protesting Chinese human rights abuses is not necessarily in any way identified with the group of Westerners committing human rights abuses -- if anything, I think it's highly probable that they're distinct. Everything I've said so far should be obvious, but from within the Chinese ideology of "a Western world, united against us", it is not so obvious, and this kind of craziness persists.
Yeah, it's really incredible how people will believe in their government, no matter how batshit crazy they act...
Luckily, that would never happen in the West.
I think this is a great example of what the 21st century has in store.
I have a lot of Chinese (national) friends, even one who is a member of the CCP. They definitely take the Tibet protests personally. The CCP has been very clever at manipulating national sentiment on this issue, and it is very interesting to me because it is a clash between the western narrative of China as a brutal oppressor and the eastern narrative of the west as a patronizing colonial force.
Talking to Chinese of all stripes, I find they don't understand the western image of China is a man standing down a tank. That isn't the life they came from. On the other hand, most can't grapple with the Maoist atrocities. They're taught all about the opium wars and colonialism, though. So when east meets west, both sides see the world in very different light.
Personally, while I do worry about Tibetan culture being diluted and people being oppressed, I'm not sure that (a) I have the moral standing to tell others not to opppress people (It's not like we're going to offer Hawaii autonomy now, is it?) (b) it's generally good for every ethnic group to live in its own autonomous enclave.
I also think that worrying about cultural dilution is something rich nations can ponder, along with rights for dogs, and all the other quandaries of affluence.
I do wish the Chinese would confront the human rights abuses in their past more fully. I wish they had better protections for workers and better labor laws. Communist regimes seem to always have this problem. If the government is made of labor unions ("soviets"), but the union is no longer responsive to the workers needs, who can they turn to?
It's not an idle question. Look at the coal mine riots in the USSR during the 30's. The workers "unionized" and complained about unsafe conditions and long hours. The government, nominally concerned primarily with the average worker, sent in the troops who busted the riot in a way that would make Pinkertons blush.
I'm not saying that's how life in China is, but I am saying it's a structural flaw of a one-party government. But if it looks like I'm casting stones from my glass house, I'd say that my own government was set up to have competition between branches that would protect my freedoms. However, the formation of political parties has lead to collusion between branches, undoing much of the good envisioned by the writers of our constitution. It'd be nice to have a structural change here to deal with that.
Use the Firehose to mod down Second Life stories!
They're calling us hypocrites, and as a citizen of "the West" I can say they're exactly right.
No they aren't. There's no censorship in the west to the extent there is China. There's no individual right to keep and bear arms in China like there is in the west. The differences are staggering and people that proclaim dictatorship whenever politics don't go their way do more to undermine the very definition of what a dictatorship really is.
This is my sig.
or go south of the rio grande, or south of the straights of bosporus or the rock of gibraltar... bzzzt, bap, pow... human nature suddenly radically warps, and the people there don't value things like freedom of speech, a fair say in their government, etc.
this is what you are saying, right?
it seems to me that "cultural difference" is doublespeak in your mind for "i don't give a damn"
the idea of a human conscience is exactly that. its not a western conscience, nor an american conscience
the only morally and intellecually defensible stand on issues like free speech or democracy is that it is deserved by everyone, on the entire globe. every other stand on this issue is morally and intellectually dishonest
do you believe human nature fundamentally alters when you cross a national border? if not, then "cultural difference" is a loaded concept for saying that you think people elsewhere are somehow less deserving, a soft racism
as for nationalism: yes, there are ultranationalists in china. as well as the usa. as well as russia, etc.
yet more proof that human nature is pretty much the same everywhere
"cultural difference" is a load of crap
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This shouldn't be surprising. For more than 100 years, Chinese nationalism has thrived on a steady diet of actual and perceived instances of imperialist aggression and interference, not to mention historical justifications and myths for its own imperialist occupation of Tibet and other frontier areas populated by non-Han peoples. The interesting thing about these developments is how the government is reacting in the runup to the Olympics. The current regime, as part of its strategy for staying in power, has pumped up Chinese nationalism for decades by shrilly denouncing foreign 'insults,' but it has to tread very carefully as the Beijing Olympics approach. Spontaneous demonstrations against athletes, members of the foreign press corps, and foreign visitors would be a disaster for the Olympics and China's public image, but attempting to quiet or clamp down on Han anger might prompt Chinese to turn against the government.
... had absolutely nothing to do with starting this "backlash". Why do we even care what the average Chinese citizen thinks about this issue? They have no power, and would be arrested if they tried anything like the Paris protests.
The whole point of the protests is to embarrass the oligarchs, not to get the Chinese people to pay attention.
========
CINC, 4th Penguin Legion
Welcome to the age of mob rule. We created the tech tools for the world to raise it's voice and assert its values. I think we generally assumed that this voice would express our values better, more clearly. I do not think this is going to be the case. Maybe oppressive authoritarian regimes are actually a good thing. They seem to be pretty popular!
or else they might start shipping us lead tainted toys, poison pet food and contaminated medicines... oh, wait.
Xenophobes being xenophobic - why is this news?
Power does not corrupt - power attracts the corrupt.
europe sent crusaders to the middle east
both of these things are wrong
however, you wish to use events of 200 years ago and 1000 years ago to excuse and condone the same kind of colonization by han imperialists in tibet today, or the actions of violent muslim fundamentalists today
this is not morality or a human conscience
the only morally and intellectually defensible position is to condemn:
1. the slaughter of native americans
2. european crusaders
3. han imperialism
4. violent muslim fundamentalism
condemn all of it. that's morality and intellectual honesty
to excuse 3 and 4 because of 1 and 2 is i don't know exactly what, but its not morality or intellectual honesty. its some sort of weird kind of attempt to avoid a human conscience
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The idea that the "West" is hypocritical hinges on the notion of a unified "West"; i
When China says "West", China means NATO. It is NATO that allows Europe and the USA to turn the Atlantic into our lake, and from there, we project power across the globe. China may be a billion people, but there are a billion people in NATO as well these days, and NATO is a much more powerful bloc. China may have a GDP of a few trillion dollars, but I think the EU+USA combined is around 30 trillion, give or take. So, even if the USA sags and Europe surges, or vice versa, NATO is still a pretty powerful bloc.
China and Russia's strategy really, is to keep driving wedges into NATO by catering up to stupid suckers like Chirac, and thus far, it hasn't really worked, although, if EU does bail, I'm all for the USA bailing too and just buying a mountain of nukes.
This is my sig.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
people's fries
;-)
with side order of mao's little red sauce
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Here are my understandings of the situation, in chronological order: 1. Crisis in Tibet, there were government crack down of demonstrations and riots by Tibetans, including hate crimes against other ethnic groups. 2. Western media (not all of them, but a majority) eager to paint the picture of evil Chinese, so that people can feel good about themselves being morally superior. 3. Chinese overseas who saw the news react to the distortion of media and (in my view) the ignorance of crimes committed by Tibetans. 4. media and politicians keeps feeling good about themselves, think that the Chinese doesn't deserve the Olympics. 5. Various humiliation effort against Olympic torch, Chinese react strongly. 6. (in my view) nationalism in China goes overboard.
Surely the argument should be that the west is successful with a goodish human rights record and can't china be equally successful with an equally good human rights record.
poor branwashed masses.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Now replace the word Chinese, with the name of your country.
Long live the Speaker Bracelet
Rolo D. Monkey
The chinese people are not going to suddenly admit that Tibet is not chinese and that they've been the bad guys "oppressing" the innocent natives. To do so would mean a great loss of face for them.
No, their only face-saving posture is to accuse the western media of being out to get them. For many chinese, it's very bad taste to ruin the Olympic games which bring honor and prestige to China.
Quite simple really.
Some strong Chinese Nationalists take the position if criticize one piece of China'a policies you are criticizing the whole system and all the people. This is pretty thin-skinned in many non-Chinese view.
Tibet is, and always has been, forever a part of China. Thus the people that China "Free Tibe"t would be rather like people calling for the US to "Free Indiana."
Best Slashdot Co
Really? Then I wonder why it was Hong Kong medias that were among the firsts to report on this.
I know things aren't black and white and our Western news channels shouldn't be totally trusted either, but the difference is that we still have a choice to believe what we are being told.
I know that the Western countries have done very bad things in the past (or even now: Iraq anyone?). I'm from a former colony myself. Does this excuse what they're doing?
It's time China wakes up to their history. Not everything they do or have done is glorious or, as they like to say, harmonious.
captcha: victims
Slashdot always comes up with interesting captchas.
In March 2008, dalai's followers (most of them are monks) killed people (>18 were killed, at least 5 were burned to death), burned building and cars, attacked policeman and normal people. The Chinese government did little to stop the riot at the beginning (I hope they will be sued for that); if they did, less people would die. The western media did not blame dalai's followers, worse yet, CNN used photoshoped pictures to imply Chinese army did very bad thing to the monks, some german media, france media, BBC used pictures taken in Nepal to accuse Chinese government. It seems to me they wish more Chinese to be killed by dalai's followers.
Give me a break.
France has had an ego problem since the 18th century about its "role" in the world. They've never been able to get over playing second fiddle to the British Empire and they've now transferred their "small penis" ego problem to the U.S.
They made a colossal mess of central Africa, in many ways sharing some of the responsibility for the problems in Rwanda, Cote D'Ivoire, and let's not forget Algeria or Viet Nam. The French are STILL involved in interventionism in Africa in Chad, often through the Foreign Legion, a force whose sole mission is foreign interventionism.
And when we fall back on France's moral superiority, lets not forget the DGSE's (French Security) bombing the Greenpeace ship "Rainbow Warrior" which killed a journalist, all so the French could conduct nuclear tests without interference. In other spheres of French "moral superiority", there's the comfy exile of dictator and general bad guy Duvalier, among others.
Basically it all boils down to France wanting to be taken seriously as a "player" and not playing second fiddle. It has NOTHING to do with the moral or political superiority of French policy.
About the only thing the French got right and we STUPIDLY passed on was DGSE's offer to kill Khomeni when he was in exile there in the 1970s. Had the Khomeni died "tragically in an accident" and the U.S. given the Shah an early retirement in favor of a more moderate government, we may have never seen an Islamic revolution in Iran and consequently had FAR fewer problems in the Middle East today. What would Lebanon be without Iran's proxy force, Hezbollah? What would Israel be without Islamic Jihad and Hamas to deal with? But that was the short-sighted Carter administration for you.
I love French food and champagne though. I just tire of French egos and their completely misguided view of their place in the world.
A pretty significant number of people both in Europe and the Middle East would thank you if you did
This makes me feel good actually. Don't you think the world would be better off if the USA had business office overseas, rather than troops. I keep asking myself, what country in their right mind really likes having foreign troops on its soil. I mean, I wouldn't really care for it too much if a German division was stationed in Delaware, and I can't imagine the Germans feel any differently. Now with the USA and UK, its a different animal and for some reason I could see the British being in the USA just because my grandfather and my wife's grandfather fought in the Pacific during World War II and to this day I am grateful that the British sent the largest fleet they ever produced (18 aircraft carriers, 4 battleships, and more), to have Seafires flying CAP over American landing forces at Okinawa. And, the British are with us in Iraq...
I keep thinking that the perception of America military hegemony with troops all across the globe is bad for public relations. The Cold War is over... if someone invades Europe, America will be there to defend you, but right now, I honestly think the best thing for the USA is to be a trading empire, not a military one.
I do not want the USA to make the Athenien mistake.
This is my sig.
You know why the fscking Sina is hosting the "petition"? Because there are a whole shit load of nationalism extremist fanboys here in China (many of them are teens), and they are the group that makes a great portion of netizens and bloggers. They are the ones that clicks the ads and pays online and they don't think much. If you want profit, get your network traffic from them. It's relatively easy.
Most of netizens in China don't bother to think twice. They are used to "learn" things from websites like Sina, where there's a muddled-up mixture of blind, pro-govn't news, sports, entertainment, p0rn, and ads. Most of them are not able to read in another language. They believe in what they are told. Those nationalism fanboys is a subset of them.
However, there are also people who have a good habit of reading and thinking. They read news from Western media also, e.g. International Herald Tribune, Spiegel, and Financial Times (just name a few that are not banned by the Great Firewall). They don't easily believe in them either, as they don't completely believe the govn't.
If you can read in Chinese, you would realize there are not only one voice in China. Things are like everythere: most of people don't read or think, while others make a multitude of voices.
Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
The Tibet issue seems to have eclipsed a much more clear-cut one: Darfur. China is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, trading partner of Sudan, and, as I understand it, they've used their position on the U.N. Security council to block any U.N. action to stop the Sudanese government sponsored genocide in the Darfur region. While one can have some argument about countries annexing others and whether the Tibetan people would actually be much better off under indigenous rule (which was historically non-democratic), anyone who has leaned about the atrocities in Darfur cannot feel there is any gray area there. Not only do we have moral standing to say this is wrong, we have the duty, as members of the human race, to do so.
That the Chinese government has been instrumental in allowing the ongoing murder of hundreds of thousands of people, children murdered in front of their mothers who are then subsequently raped and/or mutilated, is appalling, and I don't understand why people aren't spending more time talking about this. I am, frankly, ashamed that I and my government (the U.S. government) haven't done more. People should be trying convince China to stop supporting the ongoing genocide.
"You call it a new way of thinking; I call it regression to ignorance!" -- Operation Ivy
I love French food and champagne though. I just tire of French egos and their completely misguided view of their place in the world.
Well, let's cut to the chase. We Americans love the French as much as we hate them, because, well, their' egos are as big as ours. I can't stand Chirac and the whole notion of the country that gave us Napoleon and Napoleon the III as a center of liberty in the world is just nuts. The French were very cool in the 1920s and early 1930s as a center of the arts - but the invasion ruined them and since then they've been trying to get their pride back and its annoying.
So yeah, France sucks sometimes,
but, you know, I just can't get past the rather excellent wine they make. I know the USA makes some good stuff but I had a bottle of French wine that was just out of this world. I am by no means a wine connoisseur, but to me, the difference between this bottle of French wine I had and a number of American wines was like night and day. A good French wine is a beautiful, wonderful, thing, and I'm not giving that up, for sure.
This is my sig.
This is not surprising at all. Russians rally behind Putin. China ceased to be a communist dictatorship a long time ago. It is now a nationalistic dictatorship. Same as Russia. When we see ethnic groups rising up everywhere and demanding rights, why would we be surprised to see the same with national groups?
But I guess US-Americans don't really view nationalistic pride as a problem, since patriotism is about the only thing keeping the US together and is working great for them. And patriotism and nationalism are very close, if not the same thing. If anyone from the US is surprised about certain opinions shared among Chinese blogs please take a look at many conservative and right wing US blogs on Iraq. And please don't think I am comparing Tibet and Iraq. I REALLY don't want to get into that, OK? Thanks!
At a pro-Tibet rally at Duke University, some 4-500 Chinese counter-protesters showed up from across the area. The two sides were shouting back and forth, waving flags and such like that, when a Chinese freshman at Duke came on the scene and recognized people she knew in both groups. She positioned herself between the two groups and attempted to get people to actually talk about the issues instead of just shouting insults back and forth. Pictures of her were taken, as was video, and they were posted to the web. As news of her actions spread around Chinese message boards, a picture of her with the Chinese word for "traitor" written on her head was posted, as was her Chinese identification number and directions to her parents' home in China. Soon thereafter a picture was taken of a bucket of feces dumped outside her parents' door, and they had told her in emails that they had gone into hiding. She has also received numerous death threats and emails telling her that she should never return to China. The story made the New York Times and Washington Post, but I can't help if wonder if this girl has ruined her chance for a safe return to her home.
For why Chinese people are angry over 'fair' and 'unbiased' Western media, please check the not so beautiful facts at http://www.anti-cnn.com/
For the 'peaceful' protests in Tibet, please check
http://www.peaceintibet.com/memory.html
For anyone interested in an objective opinion on Tibet from an Australian professor teaching in China, please check:
http://discussions.pbs.org/viewtopic.pbs?t=68073&postdays=0&postorder=asc&topic_view=&start=0
Jack Cafferty, a resident curmudgeon at CNN, charged the Chinese people with a highly racism and despicable assault by saying, "They (Chinese) are basically the same bunch goons and thugs they have been in the past fifty years." (http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0804/09/sitroom.03.html)
CNN and Cafferty refused to applogy to Chinese people for those comments.
It is extremely rare to find a Chinese person who is willing to even listen to the Tibetans' own arguments about their millenia of independent history, not to mention about the horrors perpetrated by the CCP regime after Mao Zedong's 1950 invasion. Google for Grace Wang at Duke Uni. and "burned in oil" to learn how the true Chinese patriots deal with those of their own who merely want to promote debate.
For the Han Chinese race, and not just those still within the Great Firewall of China, this perceived imperial right to rule over neighbouring peoples has become an obsession, which is all the more ironic since the #1 pet hate of the Hans, basically taught since kindergarten, is against the foreign imperialists who "humiliated China" in the 19th and 20th centuries. The Chinese are taught, and this ideology only arose in the late 18th century, that the now billion+ overpopulated Han nation will violently break up if they allow their neighbouring peoples to regain their freedom and independence. (Why is that, btw.?)
Here's a fairly compact Aussie radio programme, with a transcript, about the reasons why the Chinese rulers claim that Tibet and Tibetans are theirs to do what they wish. Basically, the Chinese regime claims that since both Tibet and China were (albeit in very different ways) ruled or under the protection (as Tibet was) by the same foreign power during roughly the same period, after that foreign rule had collapsed the Chinese emperor automatically assumed (perceived) ownership over Tibet as well, despite having no de facto control or rule over the Tibetan nation.
The ultra-nationalistic Chinese you may have seen screaming LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! to pro-Tibetan demonstrators during the CCP's recent global torch parade tend to shout slogans like "TIBET BELONGS TO CHINA!", but if you somehow manage to ask them on what basis, they'll either continue screaming or come up with wildly different historical explanations, ranging from a marriage between a powerful Tibetan king and a Chinese princess (they always forget the Tibetan and Nepalese princesses somehow) in the first millenium to the claims of the foreign Mongol rule (known as the Yuan dynasty in China) in the 13th and the foreign Manchu rule (the Qing dynasty for the Chinese) in the 17th centuries as giving the Mao Zedong's China the absolute right of ownership over Tibet. (waitasec, I thought the communists were totally against any such feudal claiming of lands and peoples??)
If only such mediaval imperial babble was the end of it, but unfortunately the brutal oppression and systematic destruction of Tibetan cultural heritage, identity and language which started with Mao's invasion in the 1950s is still going on strong today. Even sadder is that very few Chinese either know or choose to believe the horrors China has committed in Tibet over the last half century. Some, like the well-known Chinese dissidents Wei Jinsheng and Henry Wu Hongda, who spent years in a Tibetan prison unit alongside Tibetan prisoners of conscience, have told about their experiences, but why would the proud Chinese of today choose democracy and the admission of their own shame when the Communist Party is hauling in foreign money and promising unprecedented global power?
International law be damned.
How much longer do the Tibetan people have to suffer until the Chinese learn that there are higher and more positive values in life than genocidal jingoism?
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
Joseph Goebbels was Adolf Hitler's propaganda man.
I believe he once said something along the lines "Give me the control over the media, and I will give you the control over the people"...
"But the most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly and with unflagging attention. It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. Here, as so often in this world, persistence is the first and most important requirement for success." -- Adolf Hitler
"Propaganda should be popular, not intellectually pleasing. It is not the task of propaganda to discover intellectual truths." -- Joseph Goebbels
cultural differences DO exist. but cultural differences do not excuse explain or condone transgressions against basic human rights
for example: a say in your own government, rather than being ruled by an elite class with a different agenda than the ruled. you say other people don't value this. really? who is saying that? the mediac ontrolled by said elite class? please
you say other people don't value the same things as they do in the west. well, obviously they don't care about SUVs, coffee bars, and suburban homes. but EVERYONE cares about self-determination, freedom to express themselves, and a desire to be considered equally. well, how do i know that? because human nature is pretty constant when it comes to these fundamental concepts, across all cultures, all time periods
but because the media mouthpieces of an elite ruling class in another country says differently you believe that? if the media mouthpieces under mugabes foot tells you zimbabweans like his economic policies, do you take that at face value?
here, try this analogy: a mythical country's government condones cannibalism. they say the victims of canniblaism are free participants in the practice, and any criticism of said practice is cultural imperialism and ehtnocentrism, and inability to see that other people have different beliefs than you
really?
i fully accept other people have different beliefs than in the west. but that idea doesn't extend to outright crimes against humanity!
obviously, cannibalism is an extreme example of condoning crimes against human rights under the bullshit rubric of "cultural differences", but i do it only to illustrate a concept in principle, not in scale
the fact is, the chinese government is not chosen by its own people, it is chosen by a bunch of grumpy old technocrats in beijing. therefore, IN THE NAME OF respecting the chinese people, i disrespect the chinese government
of course, the chinese government uses ultranationalism to force a rally round the wagons. the eeevil west has its machinations and manipulations. but this is a feint, a bit of demagoguery. a pointing out of the enemy over there, while you slip your hands in their pocket and steal your wallet, aka, their human rights of having a voice in their own government. appealing to xenophobia in order to squelch internal criticism is a tried and true propaganda move, as old as time, used in every government in every coutnry that has ever existed
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
>'Who is abusing human rights?
>Who is bringing violence to this world?'
Actually, I wish I knew where to post on some of these blogs so I could respond to some of this ridiculous stuff. Of course the fact that the majority of this is Chinese language stuff causes extra problems.
Sadly, due to massive censorship, many Chinese know very little about their own country's history. Even the (large number) students living in the US typically don't know about things like Tienanmen square. Students at the University of Washington, where I go, held protests last weekend when the Dalai Llama visited which involved flying a plane over the school with a banner insulting him.
I think the best thing anyone could do to get around the massive censorship would be to use the internet to engage Chinese *in China* with information about what is happening in their country that has been kept secret internally.
Additionally, I wish that the large number of students who come to the US would be in some ways engaged by the universities here. It would make sense to require them to take Chinese history classes taught by an education system that is actually free to teach history that actually happened.
Whatever complaints I might have about the US education system, it is true that history is discussed more freely than in other countries where censorship of embarrassing details is rampant. Things the various acts of persecution and extermination that took place against native peoples in the US, plus things like slavery, and the internment of Japanese during the war, and various atrocities committed against civilians WWII and the Vietnam war, and even the current Iraq war are well known and discussed in history classes. This kind of freedom of information is rare even in democratic countries.
You really need to bone up on your knowledge of world events and history.
China is a communist country, so it is natural for them to use propaganda to claim things like this. On the other hand, rabid anti-Americanism is clearly widespread and led to, among other things, the attacks on 9/11, which was the most horrific attack on civilians in history. China may claim that they are being attacked for being successful, but America actually IS.
Actually, the moment western media claimed a picture taken in Nepal to be violence from Chinese soldiers, the western media lost the legitimation to say that the Chinese people are under influence of propaganda.
Now to tell people that their genuine opinion is the result of propaganda, wont make them stand back and rethink their position. It will make them angry.
The claim is ridiculous anyways. You might as well state that the Ukraine should be reabsorbed into Russia, or that the Vatican has some claim to Central Italy. Maybe Austria should demand Hungary back. Austria controlled Hungary a helluva lot more recently than any Chinese emperor ever controlled Tibet.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Look, the point isn't "Oh, we're hypocrites, let's go wring our hands melodramatically." It's "WE'RE HYPOCRITES! OF COURSE THEY'RE IGNORING US! DID YOU EXPECT THIS TACTIC TO WORK!? Let's try something else!"
If we want to get anywhere, other than pooh-poohing China's reprehensible actions towards Tibet (and Taiwan), we have to acknowledge what the common Chinese belief is, and respond accordingly. Anything else (like Richard Gere's stunt on the Oscars a few years back) is just feel-good grandstanding that the Chinese will reject out of hand.
I don't know how to stop people from doing something they view in their own self-interest and have no shame whatsoever about. How would England have stopped Spanish colonization of the New World in 1500? But I know that a lot of foreigners waving their arms in the air isn't going to convince the Han that their race and culture don't deserve to be spread all over the world.
Freedom isn't free; its price is the well-being of others.
How many of us are talking high and mighty about the EVIL Chinese while wearing chinese shoes, sitting at a chinese made desk, typing on a chinese made keyboard.
If you want to protest, stop messing with the torch and stop buying their CRAP!
Buy mexican or indian or german, just get off of chinese stuff.
"We are not oppressing Tibet," says Sum Ting Wong. His brother, Vey-we Wong, agrees...
There are many reason Chinese are bloggers are angry.
One most important reason is that lots of Chinese people trust blindly in western medias in the past and they found out that they were betrayed by western media due to their biased, and one-sdied, twisted reporting of recent Tibet riots and Olympic torch relay events since western media has always claim balanced, objective news report.
So when people say news reports in China are controlled by the government, can anyone find a truly, honestly objective and unbiased western media?
Why on earth CNN did not show any images or clips that innocent people being killed by burning live, stoning, stabbing by those violent monks?
Since when burning shops and killing people by monks become acceptable to, or even applauded by western media?
This is what makes Chinese people angry all over the world.
It's also true that it's more and more difficult for western media telling lies and not being caught these days because information comes from all directions. Not only they read news from China's domestic sources, but also from across world. On the opposite, do or can any westerners read any news from Chinese media? Oh, I forget, most of them can't read Chinese.
I don't think these days Chinese people can be manipulated easily. That's a bad thing to Chinese government and western media equally.
Anyway, the biggest losers out of these recent events are western medias. They definitely lost quite many loyal Chinese audiences. The winners are the Chinese people and they learned first hand how a biased western news media worked.
"As a person, you can't be too CNN" for those of you can't read Chinese.
I am not from China, but i am from the region, so i wanna say what i have in mind. I do not think that this correctly reflects how Chinese generally think about Tibet. I don't even think it is done by regular people, rather planned by gov'nt. even if it is true, understandable to do so, it is done that way because of they are ignorant, patriotic. I am no more ignorant than they are in general, so i am not trying to be elitist for living in the states. but they are ignorant about their own country and about the world and where they are now. I rather feel strong apathy. i am happy to be living in the free world because of my own rights to not be "ignorant". One may be more "free" in 3rd world country if you have money than in the 1st world. This only reflects that Chinese are just ignorant and has openess in their attitude. Personally i have met friends who came from China and people close to me went long term missions trip to China, so i know that not every chinese people are this ignorant and apathetic. The people who wrote this article should not have shown only the biased side of them, should have balanced both side of the opinion even if one side is minority. How apathetic are we? comes to think, to accuse China for Tibet, yet 1st world nations commit something aweful everyday, and all of us commit sins everyday how do i have right to judge another and accuse another?
wont go more fascist ?
screw them.
they should force themselves to comply with MODERN standards of TWENTY FIRST CENTURY.
there is no way in hell that noone should ever be let to try justifying a BLATANT invasion without a cause like what chinese did in tibet in 1950. NO justification or cause whatsoever.
and screw their whatever knowledge and understanding about history they have - get a load of that. 'west is bringing violence to world' - budding chinese fascists, WEST was the place almost everything modern was invented and spread around, including YOUR FASCIST COMMUNIST IDEALS.
get a load of that. whole internet is being made to justify humanism to a bunch of brainwashed young bigots in china.
im turkish. even im aware of whats going on. and what im saying is that, screw them. they have to modernize themselves, not west.
Read radical news here
It is called Web 2.0.
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
I am from a small town, South India. It was like any other small town, full of one kind of people. Also, small town in India means a few hundred thousand people. Any outsider is immediately recognized, stared at, passed comments on etc. The economy was lackluster and most people didnt know places beyond a 100 km of the town.
One fine day, I was walking home from school. I was about 12 yrs old. We didnt have to worry about pervs in this town, so this was absolutely safe.
On a sidewalk (or foot path as we called it), there were these curious-looking people - a complete family or two - sitting down and hawking what looked like very attractive carpets and rugs.
They wore strange clothes and it was a sight I have not seen before. It just stayed in my memory.
They kind of looked like the people from the far east that I have seen on TV, but this is the first time I am seeing anyone with Mongoloid features.
I saw them day after day, at the same spot, their lives spread out on the side walk. They cooked there, their kids played around there and the infants were in cloth cribs that hung from tree branches. I presumed they slept at the same spot as well.
The small town being the small town it is, the sidewalks had open drains on the far side and it was generally not a nice place to be hanging out all the time. It was sordid to live there. There are homeless in India who do this, but to see very strange people come to my non-descript small town and live there on a sidewalk was something else. It stayed with me.
Years later, I realized that these people were Tibetan refugees, who left their homes because of Chinese aggression. India provided them a safe haven and they have joined the vast under-class of India, doing things they probably never did in Tibet. I felt truly sorry for them. Being poor is one thing.
Being poor in a strange place is something else. These people didnt have any rights and honestly, it doesnt look like there is anyone who would care for them. I hope they find peace someday.
And Down With China.
Looks like the link to the BBC article got dropped from the summary.
"Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, 'Where have I gone wrong?' Then a voice says to me, 'This is going to take
Deal with it.
I agree that China deserves criticism; however, don't get your politics mixed up with your philosophy.
Moral relativism is a fact of life. There is no ultimate moral law that everyone agrees on, because there is no ultimate moral *lawgiver* legislate moral law.
The world doesn't care if you get murdered, eaten, or whatever. If it happens, the only thing that can saw whether it was good or bad are humans, and probably not everyone will agree. Obviously, whoever kills you isn't going to think it's a bad thing.
The canonical example is the value system relationship between predator and prey. A lamb, if it could think, would think that wolves are evil, and that sheep, not doing evil things like eating sheep, are good. A wolf on the other hand thinks that sheep are delicious, and doesn't consider itself evil anymore than I consider myself evil when I eat a hamburger. The world itself doesn't give a damn either way.
I'm not saying that *you* have to agree or even *respect* someone else's values, but I'm saying that *they exist*. You have the right to say those values are stupid, but if you fail to acknowledge that some people think differently from you, you are just sticking your head in the ground and acting like an idiot.
is appeal to people's conscience
that's the only thing you ever could do, or ever can do
its not some sort of weird game to figure out what motivates people. that's easy: self-interest is what motivates people. duh
you believe that if you study chinese culture and chinese point of view for 10 years you will arrive at some magic set of words that if you say to the chinese they will suddenly go "oh yeah, this is wrong, we'll stop it"
dude: you chastise someone when they do something wrong. thats the beginning and the ending of this complex thing called morality. anything else is not morality
hypocrisy? hypocrisy has nothing to do with it. EVERYONE, all cultures, in all backgrounds, has done wrong. so by your basis of being ineffective because of hypocrisy, then no one can ever criticize anyone for anything in this world!
in other words, you cannot expect someone to be a saint before they start criticizing others. because no one is a saint. charges of hypocrisy are completely groundless and pointless. anyone who charges that hypocrisy means they can commit crimes too is attempting to avoid personal responsibility. a crime is a crime is a crime. because someone else commits a crime, you can to?
example: you see some guys steal from a store. so you steal too. the cops catch you and you go "but its ok, because those other guys did stole too"
does that make sense to you?
you might say that the scenario is really like this: some guys steal from a store. you steal from the store too. then the guys who originally stole from the store try to criticize you for stealing
THAT'S hypocrisy
however: what if the guys who stole from the store go to jail for their crime, feel really bad about it, makes amends, and grows up to be a man, 10 years later, and to be more responsible
then he has every right and reason to criticize you for robbing from the store and charges of hypocrisy are bullshit. even if you go "but you stole from this store 10 years ago!"
well yeah, and i grew up!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I can see why the Chinese are upset with the west. We (the west) say the abuse human rights, tell them they are bad for what they did in Tiananmen square, and use the Olympic Torch Relay as a platform to further our message.
How would you like it if someone bashed your country that way, regardless if the bashing had truth and fact behind it or not? Do you expect them to simply listen and watch? Are we really that naive? What did you think they would do?
This is China's time to be proud of itself as a nation and as a people - let's celebrate with them and address the other issues in a more appropriate forum and manner.
between explaining and excusing?
all of your wonderful historical narrative means nothing, and you admit as much at the end: "Still, that's a Chinese problem, but the invasion and attempted cultural genocide of Tibet is something else entirely."
you hold people to a simple universal code of human conduct. no, it is not complicated. if its a simple code of human conduct, it is something universally appreciated by 99% of everyone on the planet. if what were happening in tibet were happening in africa, the chinese would condemn it
the chinese are clearly doing wrong in tibet. your historical narrative helps EXPLAIN what they are doing but it does not EXCUSE what they are doing, so it doesn't change any moral outrage, any sense of right and wrong, any need to condemn what deserves to be condemned
its not like you can study chinese history for 10 years, thereby arriving at some magic set of well-phrased words and at the end of which, the chinese go "oh yeah, that's wrong, we'll stop". its not about cultural understanding leads to a better outcome here
no: bad behavior is bad behavior is bad behavior. absolutely amount of cultural understanding changes that. you condemn bad behavior. any cultural or historical tweaks are bullshit
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I mean the points they bring up are valid.
1) CNN crop images. (They only use the portion of the photo where Chinese police is arresting people, cropped out Tibetans beating up Chinese Tourists in the back.)
2) BBC and Fox all used images of Nepal police beating up Tibetan protesters and labeled them Chinese police beating up protesters.
3) Chinese own property damage, death and injuries are not mentioned anywhere in Western reports.
What would the Chinese people be doing today if they'd been under constant genocidal foreign rule for two or three generations, under daily humiliation, millenia of their invaluable cultural heritage destroyed, their own language, religion, identity and history all but banned and twisted to serve the occupiers, their homeland flooded with ever greater numbers of aliens who consider themselves culturally and racially superior...?
The Han Chinese hate even the partial and relatively brief Japanese invasion in the 1930s and the trade imperialism by the Western colonial powers as absolute evils so why can't they possibly understand why the totally non-Chinese people of Tibet are desperate for their own freedom from colonial brutality under China?
But importantly, what the CCP proparanda machine isn't telling to the Chinese people is that the riots in Lhasa on the 14th of March started only after several days of *peaceful* demonstrations (starting on March 10th, the day of Tibetan Uprising in 1959) during which the Chinese paramilitary (PAP) violently beat and imprisoned a number of Tibetan monks. Monks are revered in Tibet as if they were one's family members, which they often are!
Also, there has been dozens of large demonstrations (in chinese) all over Tibet (more than half of which was annexed into neighbouring Chinese provinces in the 1960s by the Chinese communists!) consisting of tens of thousands of Tibetans. All have been violently suppressed by the PAP, with hundreds of Tibetans dead (nearly 200 confirmed), hundreds more wounded or badly injured without medical care and several thousand Tibetans detained in the not-very-pleasant Chinese jails where abuse and torture in endemic, especially for the Tibetans.
These demonstration against Chinese misrule are still flaring up daily with the same results.
So yes, it is very sad that some young Tibetans' emotions boiled over and some Hans were attacked and some died while hiding inside the Chinese-owned buildings, but please, please try to also look at these issues from the Tibetans' perspective.
Yes, the western media also made some mistakes in labelling a few photos (though do realize that the Nepalese police were indeed beating and jailing Tibetans there at China's behest and for no other reason), but don't you think that the security cam footage from Lhasa, repeated ad nauseaum by the CCTV, was extremely selectively screened for propaganda purposes, and not just by mistake? The Chinese security apparatus has surveillance cameras at absolutely every part of Lhasa.
If the CCP has nothing to hide, why did they evict all foreigners and journalists from all Tibetan areas? Why are they promising massive 100,000 yuan (or well over $1000) reward for anyone who may have filmed the demonstrations and especially the bloody crackdowns that inevitably followed? Why is the CCP confiscating Tibetans' mobile phones, cameras and computers? Why does the CCP refuse even international (UN) observers and medical groups entry into Tibet?
"Free Tibet" is about Tibetans ruling themselves. Nothing more, nothing less.
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
kurdistan please.
I've been covering this for awhile now on my blog
http://teribidwell.blogspot.com/
Come read some eloquent letters from Chinese
nationals, learn about why they are upset,
and get some history about the issues.
Much like how who the next US president is will determine how long/many American troops will remain in Iraq, it was a change in Chinese government that was the cause of their intervention in the Korea War.
The legitimate government during WW2 (and the one that the Allies supported) was the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party), which got exiled to Taiwan sometime around 1949 after they got ousted by the Communist Party.
Regime change in China caused them to fight the UN in the Korea War.
Well, these Chinese workers/students were nice enough to listen to you, try listening to them.
I suspect that their government has little reason to hold back on things that another government would want to hide...
Hopefully it won't just be a rehash of what you already know. But at the very least, it will be with emphasis on different things.
Tibet is not China. Tibetans are not Chinese. Tibetans don't want you. Get over it.
A few points from a Westerner who has lived in China.
1. Must supporting Tibet and the Olympics be mutually exclusive?
2. Talking to my Chinese friends (I have many), almost none have ever actually seen CNN. They have A. read www.anti-cnn.com or B. read or seen about it in Chinese media.
3. China is not the last bastion of independent thought, nor is the USA for that matter. Chinese people almost never seek out secondary sources of information, either because of lack of education (cannot read English, etc), Western media is blocked (i've lived there, don't tell me it is not true, though it is accessible if you know where to look), or lack the desire, or discipline, to seek out other perspectives.
When I lived in Beijing from 2004-2006, I got the general feeling that Chinese were enamored with Tibet and thought they were doing no wrong when they brought development to Tibet. So naturally, Chinese think they are in the right. By human nature, people will believe what they want to believe, and furthermore, people develop strong convictions based on little or no information.
Another thing is that the Chinese have demonized the Dalai Lama, which is somewhat absurd. They cannot in any demonstrable way connect him to the violence. Furthermore, the Dalai Lama is a wily politician who has forged relationships with powerful people in the West, whereas the Chinese have little guanxi outside their own nation, save countries they are pouring money into.
Like I tell my Chinese friends, if I want to know what bad things Taiwan has done this week, I'll read Xin Hua or People's Daily. They are at least as crappy as CNN, though they are a different kind of poison than CNN.
One lesson China should be taking from this, and I have seen no evidence of this so far, is that they really need to do a better job of Public Relations. Frequently my Chinese friends, try to make the argument that Bush would not let Texas separate from the USA (I am from Texas), just as China would not let Tibet separate. To which I reply, Texas was already an independent nation, and if you really want a compelling argument, read about the American Civil War on Wikipedia (har har).
I have a fair number of friends from Taiwan as well, and I have guaged their reaction to be a combination of A. Apathy, because Taiwan has been going through this sort of nonsense for a long time, and they are sick of it B. Not agreeing with violence from either party C. Some empathy for the Tibetans, because the Olympics presents them with a rare opportunity to gain media attention.
So, what to take from all this. I'm not quite certain, because I do not have all the information. I am sympathetic to both sides. Living in China was the happiest part of my life.
My feeling is, if China wants to be a great nation, they need to act like a great nation, not whine on anti-cnn online forums.
A witty saying proves you are wittier than the next guy.
Doesn't matter Tibet will be silently removed from the map by populating the area with ever increasing migrants from the heartlands of china while religion and expression of native Tibetans is squashed.
Nothing we can do, and nationalistic feelings about Tibet from mainland china, it's how most Americans feel about giving back Hawaii.
when you are a position of power, you are blamed for everything
china will surpass the usa as world power in the next few years, if it hasn't done so already
as such, the chinese need to develop some thicker skin
because if you think that poem sums up the worst of the hypocritical complaints you get from the world, just you wait, it gets ten times worse
you don't get to be powerful in this world and everyone loves you
no one, NO ONE, who has ever ruled, was also loved
china is coming to rule. so china will come to be hated. this is utterly and completely unavoidable, no matter what china does
you think anti-americanism is unique to american actions? ha! just wait and see china, you will see nothing but criticism. and it is completely unavoidable. it is a simple byproduct of china growing stronger and basic human nature when it comes to power dynamics
china: grow some thicker skin. criticism is soon all you will know
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
But to the Chinese, for whom modernization is coming late, Buicks look awfully good. I noticed this during my first year as a teacher in China, when my writing class spent time considering the American West. We discussed western expansion, and I presented the students with a problem of the late nineteenth century: the Plains Indians, their culture in jeopardy, were being pressed by white settlers. I asked my class to imagine that they were American citizens proposing a solution, and nearly all responded much the way this student did: "The world is changing and developing. We should make the Indians suit our modern life. The Indians are used to living all over the plains and moving frequently, without a fixed home, but it is very impractical in our modern life... We need our country to be a powerful country; we must make the Indians adapt to our modern life and keep pace with the society. Only in this way can we strengthen the country." Having lived in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong has helped me see both sides of this debate, and it's fascinating how difficult it is for the two sides to comprehend one another. I wrote more about this in my blog a month ago.
Who said Freedom was Fair?
The Chinese and the Americans are both hypocrites. That does not mean that it is okay to make excuses for the human rights abuses coming from either nation. That being said I find it somewhat alarming and suspect that you can capture the sentiment of the Chinese point of view with a single opinion that covers so many issues and is 100% one sided. Coming from an individual that is fine but it is completely irresponsible as a general sentiment. Calling someone a hypocrite is fine but there is an important component to that which is to critically assess your own standing in that situation.
Is this the time to encourage Chinese citizens to make excuses and turn their backs on their wrong doings? Hell no. The crap they do needs to be made clear and the same goes for the US. If anything needs to change its that the people pointing this out need to set a better example. I have been exposed to plenty of Americans that are trying to do this. What would be more interesting would be to hear from the Chinese citizens that are doing the same.
And while we are throwing bombs and bullets with far less regularity than we did in the 20th Century, we are indeed in a world competition for resources, wealth, ego and power. Not to mention transposition of our personal perspective over the landscape of everyone else's existence, whether it applies or not.
Having said all that, at some level there really is a better or worse answer, even if we can't come to an absolute perfect answer. Dispersing an unruly crowd with tear gas and even rubber bullets cannot be equivocated with running over people with tanks and crushing them. There is no excuse for that; and if you can find it in your heart to excuse that behavior with weak parallels to someone else's less than perfect behavior, then you have lost your ability to understand the meaning of evil.
In other news, does anyone see any issue discussed today, internal to the US even, without some specific group claiming horrific outrageous harm? Possibly even a group that is not the subject of the alleged harm? We seem to have developed into a culture of the masses and who can shout the loudest and evoke the sympathy of the masses wins; has the net transposed all physical boundaries and we have effectively created one giant mass of people, for better or worse?
While other former colonial dominions have been developing their societies and political systems on their own accord, especially post-WWII, Tibetans have had all those rights and possibilities taken away from them.
If you're seriously interested, I suggest that you start by checking out my homepage above or simply google for "tibet" and "human rights". Those terms will catch very few Chinese websites.
The Tibet Justice Center also has some easy starting points.
If you're audio-visual type, here's a very recent British documentary, filmed undercover in Tibet by a Tibetan exile.
Another thing that the Chinese Communist Party likes to claim is that the Han Chinese have sunk billions of dollars into developing Tibet. Well, the Chinese have indeed built some infrastructure to aid the Chinese military, to help extract Tibet's large natural resources and more recently to promote the massive Han Chinese migration into the Tibetan homeland, but the CCP's own experts estimate the value of Tibet's oil, gas, uranium, industrial metal, timber, water and other resources to be several orders of magnitude larger than the Han-centric investments by the CCP.
Ultimately everyone except the CCP would hope to allow the Tibetans to hold a referendum on whether they wish to remain under Chinese rule or whether they'd prefer to be in control of their own affairs, as the inalienable right is enshrined in the United Nations' declarations, which even the People's Republic of China (or the CCP which equates itself as the PRC government) has signed and recognized.
Do you think the Tibetans might voluntarily remain under Chinese rule, or choose to represented by their own democratically elected government, like the one already operating in exile? And if they choose self-determination, why should the Chinese be violently opposed to that choice?
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
Westerners just can't grapple with the reality that the Chinese government is still generally popular and it's people, though overly addicted to nationalism and cultural pride, are NOT ignorant slaves that your corporate media and your condescending feel-good activists like you to believe
Westerners just can't grapple with the reality that the Chinese government would participate in such embarrassing lies and historical revisionism. At least in the west we are cynical about what the establishment feeds us.
Why is that important?
When Ghandi was campaigning for independence, he and the Indian people were subject to many brutal and unfair things by the British government. So Ghandi's side of the story was heard, and eventually a peaceful rationale solution came about.
When the people in Tibet complain *peacefully*, they are confronted with the gun, and then the Chinese government attempts to resolve the situation by managing perception. It's no wonder that the peaceful demonstrations turned violet.
When you tell a lie, you must keep lying to preserve that lie. I think the chinese government has told so many lies that they don't know which direction is up. It's too bad to see so many people suffering because of a lack of straight-forward honesty.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
if the chinese experience in tibet evolves the way the us experience with native american evolved, it will proceed like this:
1. chinese greed will lead to tibetans being crushed, exterminated, humiliated
2. after awhile, tibetans will be forgotten and only 14 will be left living in a government trailer park
3. the chinese government will make gambling legal only on the tibetan reservations
4. chinese greed will lead to tibetans being made billionaires
see? it all works out in the end
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
i do believe that the quality of life and average income of a tibetan is higher than under a feudal and theocratic rule under the dalai lama.
"Free Tibet" is about the Dalai Lama ruling Tibetans. That's not exactly the same as Tibetans ruling themselves, because he is now inextricably dependent on Western powers seen as hostile to China.
What the West sees as a noble independence movement is seen by China as a puppet figure controlled by foreign imperialists --- a concept especially painful to the Chinese national conscience, which harbors bitter memories of British and Japanese colonization and more recent American interference regarding Taiwan.
I also challenge you to think about the motivation behind recent Tibet protests in a different light; I would go so far to say that these protests were driven more by anger at ethnic Han economic dominance than by Chinese misrule. It's a subtle but important distinction, and I believe the pro-independence aspect is exaggerated by those who have a vested interest in ruling Tibet that may not be flush with the best interests of Tibetans themselves.
OH and I forgot to mention,
That petition linked to by the OP has been signed so far by
672 WAN (6,720,000) Chinese people.
more than 10 year I have believed CNN and ABC. Back 10 years ago, there was Tiananmen square and Students were killed for nothing. That time, all oversea Chinese stood together to condemn Chinese Government. But this time, it becomes opposite. All Chinese stand together against CNN. Why? Because CNN and other medias lied. Why did they lie? I have no idea. I do not want to judge. I come from China so I know Tibet better than you guys. Let me tell you guy the Tibet under Dala Lama. It is up to you guys to believe it or not. At least, think about it. Before Communist took over from Taiwan government, Tiber was under slavery. (1954) 95% of people there were slaves. The others were the monks and owners of slaves. Just like USA before the civil war. Under Dalia lama, they can take the skins from the slaves for their religion purpose. They can rape the female slave with their guests, visitors. they can cut the arms and legs from slaves just for fun. The slaves were 95% Tibet people. Then the communist took everything from the monks and the owners of slaves and freed every slaves. The slaves got the the farms and animals . Of course , the communist did it in a very very tough way. Lot of Monks died. the monks of course hated this, so did the slave owners, after two years, they did fight back . US CIA provided the money and guns. the result, Dalai Lama went to India, and stayed there since then. This is what the truth is. I do not like communist either. But this is not the reason that CNN can lie and insult all Chinese. We as human, want better human rights, just like you, because we are human, not slaves. But hold on, we do not welcome the slavery back to China either. So you want to free Tibet? go ahead. Without the support from Tibet people in China, it can only be a joke.
more than 10 years I have believed CNN and ABC. Back 10 years ago, there was Tiananmen square and Students were killed for nothing. That time, all oversea Chinese stood together to condemn Chinese Government. But this time, it becomes opposite. All Chinese stand together against CNN. Why? Because CNN and other medias lied. Why did they lie? I have no idea. I do not want to judge. I come from China so I know Tibet better than you guys. Let me tell you guy the Tibet under Dala Lama. It is up to you guys to believe it or not. At least, think about it. Before Communist took over from Taiwan government, Tiber was under slavery. (1954) 95% of people there were slaves. The others were the monks and owners of slaves. Just like USA before the civil war. Under Dalia lama, they can take the skins from the slaves for their religion purpose. They can rape the female slave with their guests, visitors. they can cut the arms and legs from slaves just for fun. The slaves were 95% Tibet people. Then the communist took everything from the monks and the owners of slaves and freed every slaves. The slaves got the the farms and animals . Of course , the communist did it in a very very tough way. Lot of Monks died. the monks of course hated this, so did the slave owners, after two years, they did fight back . US CIA provided the money and guns. the result, Dalai Lama went to India, and stayed there since then. This is what the truth is. I do not like communist either. But this is not the reason that CNN can lie and insult all Chinese. We as human, want better human rights, just like you, because we are human, not slaves. But hold on, we do not welcome the slavery back to China either. So you want to free Tibet? go ahead. Without the support from Tibet people in China, it can only be a joke.
It seems that the central government fears that if it gives too much autonomous political power to one province (or even HK/Macau,) the rest will demand that power. and they also fear of interference from the West behind the back should the people have more political freedom and power.
Many of the movements against China have been linked to foreign influences, like the Tibetan resistance was/is supported by the CIA. Falun Gong may also be supported by the CIA. Basically, for any cause to become any significance in the general public, large amount of money is needed on a continuous basis.
I would think it is very hard for us average joe to see all the facts and intricacy of these political matters. We certainly can't rely on what the Chinese government tells us, but it is just about as risky to rely on accusations from these movement groups.
Fortunately, these really aren't our matter, other than their entertainment values to us.
Here in Ireland, one of the major forums has banned all talk of China/Tibet until that they can set some rules up because people are getting so heated up over the issue. It is kind of sad the way we cannot have decent discourse about the issue.
you simply say to the chinese: treat tibet like you do macau and hong kong, "one country, two systems", and we will allow you to absorb taiwan in the same manner. treat tibet like you did democracy protestors in 1989, and we will ship aegis anti-cruise missile technology to taiwan and station troops there and sign a defense treaty with taipei... or something like that: we will help taiwan militarily if tibet is treated like shit, and that makes sense, because if china gets away with treating tibet like shit unopposed, then the ultranational hawks in beijing will reap political windfalls and will begin to cast their eyes elsewhere for hard line tactics
btw, war between the usa and china will devastate the philippines. war between japan and the usa devastated the philippines in the 1940s for the same reason: the philippines is the "land in between" the two powers and so it is where the conflict will naturally gravitate too
so it is in the interest of every filipino that china and the west remain at peace
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=527156&cid=23120160
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
----- You know you have ego issues when you register a domain in your name.
China WAS dependent on us. These days, US exports as a percentage to them. They are rapidly taking over our exports ot other nations. In addition, China is Totalitarian. Had they been a democracy, then the leaders would have a difficult time screwing over America. As it stands, they just tell the citizens that 1 trillion of AMERICAN money was wasted, not Chinese money. It gets bought and they are happy. At this time, if China decides to pull their funding, then WE are screwed, not them. This can and should be stopped. We need to quit buying so many products from China. This is partially due to our own greed, but it is also due to their tying of the yuan to the dollar (it has gone up 17% against the dollar while all other monies have gone up closer to 100% in the same time). In addition, we need to bring back manufacturing to this country. It is easy enough to do. But if we do not do it soon, it will get harder as our money is sucked out of here.
The one good news, is that EU sees what we ahve done and is already starting to fight this. It is certain that they will insist that China drops their high tariffs and open their borders. Which explains why China (Sina IS the government) is pushing this anti-western. They will probably drop tariffs and count on everybody saying no to western goods, which would poor in otherwise.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
China demographically overwhelms Tibet, so by annexing it they can easily deprive the Tibetans of self determination, even under a democracy.
But if Britain and India were combined into a single democratic state, the British would be outnumbered ~18 to 1 come election day. In effect the UK would become a minor state of India.
there is no god but truth, and reality is its prophet
While we can't rely on what the Chinese government tells us, it is just as risky relying on what the Tibetan-in-exile tells us. For one, the Tibetan movements are backed by some influence like the CIA behind the back which, of course, would be very interested in having the US to deploy missiles over in Tibet.
The Chinese government have acknowledged atrocities occurred in the 1960's and 70's but those were due to Mao's Cultural Revolution which affected all of China and not just Tibet. In the current times, the Chinese government or Han Chinese probably eradicate Tibetan culture/language/religion probably no more effective than the mainstream Americans eradicating the culture/language/religion of American Indian.
Hey, Sparky, well before Pearl Harbor we were helping the Chinese. Look up Claire Chennault and you'll find that the U.S. was deeply involved prior to PH.
Hope history doesn't get in the way of the point you were trying to make.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
"one country, two systems"
its a good model for tibet and taiwain
the communists are slaughtering people in hong kong and macau?
uh... what are you smoking?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
not exactly a genocide like the holocaust. actually a pathetically horrible lack of foresight by the nationalist party government back then, they just forced people to move without providing them any supplies. the horrible fact is, at that date (1915) noone, not even the turkish army which was fighting russians had any supplies to withstand the winter. (30.000 soldiers died in ne turkey around that date, out of cold). the ottoman sultanate government back then were rather devoid of the realities of the common folk. turkish, armenian, kurd, all of them lived in equally pathetic poverty. govt wasnt able to foresee what would happen if they did such a forced move.
its something that can even happen today again.
Read radical news here
as long as all the kurds occupying cities in the west go back to that kurdistan. but, what they say is they wont. they want to enjoy all the privileges modern turkey provides them AND have a kurdistan. go figure.
Read radical news here
Hi there, It's my 1st post here. Propaganda is everywhere. It is the same in the States, or in China, or in any country in the world. Chinese government has its own propaganda on Tibet, so does the States, Canada, UK, and France. People are usually hard to give their objective judge over one case. Just like there is always a gap between pro-M$ and pro-Linux sides. I personally do not like G$ but there are so many google fans. I can hardly talk with them, neither they can :)
Anyway, do not be fooled, either in Tibet issue or in M$ issue. Thanks to Internet, you can be an expert by your own research.
I am a Chinese. I am not here to sell my points, nor here to change your mind. I am here to remind you to do a research before reaching a point:)
Chinese nationalism is besides the point. The protests are to raise awareness of Tibet in the rest of the world.
A consequence of that awareness is that westerners should consume less stuff from China. An immediate & desirable consequence is that the olympics are a "flop", ala Montreal, and fail to make Bejing a desirable tourist destination.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
http://www.dalai-liar.com/
It claimed "Shoko Asahara. Good friend and supporter of Dalai Lama. Provided over a million dollars to Dalai Lama. Also an admirer of Hitler. Convicted of mass murder by placing poison Sarin gas in the Tokyo subway on 3/2/1995."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This whole thing came about because people believe CNN mis-represented the facts about Tibet. True or false, the real issue is do you want to be the next person to further contribute to incorrect information. To all the Jack Cafferty's out there. Don't generalize a country, don't think of them as a ideal or a group of people. These are people just like you and me. They are fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters. They are not blind or stupid. To all the so call experts, be cool, listen more, talk less.
One Chinese fellow posted below with something smart, saying that it's all propaganda no matter what country you're in, but with things like the internet it is possible to do your own research. It is possible to think for yourself and not jump on any of the pre-fab bandwagons. If people work to educate themselves and not give into emotionalism, then we might have a chance. But if people go along with this media nonsense, then how long will it be before the "terrorists" are Chinese?
-FL
Talk about ignorance. The behavior of the British in China was flat-out evil. From Wikipedia:
China banned the trade and importation of opium, on the basis that "Opium is a poison, undermining our good customs and morality. Its use is prohibited by law." They even wrote to Queen Victoria, asking why, since opium was banned in Britain, the British continued to sell it in China. When China seized opium from British traders who violated the law, Britain responded by invading China, seizing territory and forcing China to allow the opium trade. Other countries achieved similar concessions (including at least the French French, Italian, American sand Japanese). At one point, the British army marched to Beijing and burned down the Old Summer Palace, then said to be one of the wonders of the world .
The Chinese are on firm ground when they criticize past Western behavior in China. They are often correct when they describe our current policies and attitudes as hypocritical and self-serving. I detect an undertone of racism, or at least of xenophobia, in much of what is said about China. These are echoed by many Chinese, in China and in the West. We need to get beyond resentment, arrogance, and paranoia on both sides. The Chinese government is brainwashing its citizens. But (as a student of Communication) I can assure you, our media is doing something similar (in response to different pressures). Even though few people pursue alternative sources of information, it is important that in the West we are permitted access to them. For example, here's an in-depth argument by an expert that the Western media have slandered China with respect to Tibet. I haven't assessed it in detail, and I don't think it exonerates the Chinese government, but it is clear there's much more to this than we're hearing.
I live in Vancouver. Chinese comprise a large proportion of the population here. To stereotype a little, they are thoughtful, productive, essential members of my society. The same is true in Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa. For me, Canada would not be Canada without them. It saddens me greatly to witness the hatred directed toward them, just as it saddens me to see so many intelligent people (on both sides) follow the party line on Tibet.
As an oversea Chinese who has been in the North America for a decade, I cannot help noticing the condescending tone used by many in this thread, which is too common in most west media. It is true that the Chinese government has a tight control on media. But it doesn't mean that all Chinese are brainwashed to be "slaves to tyrants." Many of those who are most angered are here in the West and have received higher education here; many have been exposed to both Chinese and West media; those living in China are by no means as blind as people would like to imagine. It might be hard for you to believe, but most Chinese are deeply critical of the current government. You don't see many complaints, if any, from Chinese people when the west criticizes the Chinese government of being corrupted, controlling speech, lack of law enforcement, etc., do you? The Tibet issue causes such heated reactions in the Chinese community with good reasons. I am happy to provide my point of view if any of you are interested in knowing the other side of the story. But please bear in mind that any honest discussion and debate about China is essentially impossible if you immediately assume moral or intellectual superiority over the Chinese people by no other virtue than that of being âoefrom the democratic Westâ.
i strongly support this position. it just seems to be easier to dismiss unfavorable opinions based on the origin of the person who is voicing those opinions. common fallacy.
one-sided news reports and information is just as bad as censorship/fabricated news. most chinese people know that their media bends the truth. i wonder how many americans knows that about their fox news and cnn.
How ironic, five years later and the threat of a French Boycott by the Chinese makes you all realize how petty and childish American French Bashing really was. Too bad this didn't happen earlier, would have saved me five years of uphill work (at Miquelon.org) with the likes of Leno, O'Reilly, Dennis Miller, SNL, O'Brien, Roy Blunt, Ginny Brown Waite, Tom Delay, Jack Kingston, Dennis Hastert, Bob Ney, Walter Jones (ok he said he was sorry), Jim Saxton, Tom Lantos (RIP), Mike Foster (LA), Bill Owens (CO), Fred Barnes, Ann Coulter, Tucker Carlson, Steve Dunleavy, Thomas Friedman, Frank Gaffney, Bill Gertz, Jonah Godberg, Daniel Kurtzman, Rush Limbaugh ...
I'm exhausted... But at least now most of you get it...
One thing that baffles me about this Free Tibet protest is why Buddhist monks even care. That they're out there violently protesting goes against everything I understand about Buddhism. What happened to non-attachment? Non-violence? The eightfold path?
The sight of orange-clad monks rioting truly and utterly amazes me. I guess people can't be consistent with their own beliefs.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Cheers? How can you cheer when there is such suffering in Tibet? Have you no sympathy at all to the long suffering Tibetans?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Here is one of the deepest discussion on Tibet I have seen which include many reference including statistics from academic source which may relate to your questions.
http://discussions.pbs.org/viewtopic.pbs?t=68073&sid=ce0b20590dd445725153c83b5ef21c7f
Before the Chinese they were a feudal theocracy... in reading this .. http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html ... to many movies of smiling peaceful monks, I reckon.
it doesn't sound very "free"
waiting for ad.doubleclick.net
I was wondering when anyone would mention it. Mao was a CIA asset-OSS before that. Just like saddam was, just like osama was, just like noriega was. The spooks frequently support all the various factions so they can always fall back on the winner in any outcome. Wheels within wheels. The bulk of this thread is surface level analysis.
So in other words you are no better than the Chinese. The world is exactly the way you want it to be and anyone who feels differently is obviously a danger and needs to be torn apart (your demonizing of the politically left). I think you need to learn the definition of hypocrisy, and start by looking at yourself
This is utterly ridiculous. Chinese bullets are not nearly the same as American flamewars. The guy started with a flamewar, and I responded. It's a sports like thing. He demonized the right, so I demonized the left. That's all sports, and playing that game, however heated, is a hallmark of how democracy operates.
If anyone is anti-democratic and hypocritical, its you. You argue that people cannot criticise your opinions because your feelings get hurt. That is exactly the same sort of excuse that the Chinese use to execute dissidents - that they cause hurt feelings. Well, guess what.. the truth is, that, people do not agree with you, and just because you and a bunch of your friends all go to the same web site and consume the same political gobbledygook doesn't entitle you to oppress other opinions in the name of solidarity. Other people hang out with other people and they consume other political gobbledygook, and your religious-like revelations are not universal and never will be.
And yes both China and the US practice imperialism (look at Iraq, what would happen if the Iraqi people tried to elect Sadr?) the US is just more insidious about it.
The Iraqi people did elect Sadr's party and he holds quite a number of seats in parliament. Indeed, he is part of the ruling coalition with Maliki in Iraq... so, to a certain extent, Sadr does run Iraq.
I also note that you are posting as a.c. That's really cute, just like a terrorist thug, hiding in the dark and unable to state his or her real name. So typical.
This is my sig.
1) You can't trust China or the Bush Admin; I'd expect the Chinese to be better at fudging.
2) China has no right take over another country. Neither does the USA.
3) I don't care about stats.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
I agree with some of the points you have to make regarding putting Tibetans in a bad position and creating a lot of the violence that they have committed. However, the tone and implication of your post mirrors what I believe a lot of Chinese have with "Western media".
First, you, possibly unintentionally, trivialize the brutality of Japanese occupation and Western colonial exploitation as essentially minor inconveniences. Even an insuation similar to this about Nazi atrocities would, rightfully, be beyond acceptable. This inconsistency is one that can quickly cause someone to see bias in what you have to say. The issue here is not to compare the sufferings of Jews, Han Chinese and Tibetans. The issue is the mistake in dismissing the strong feelings of any of those group as non-sensical.
Second, although there may be reasons for which it is not a perfect mirror, there are similarities to this situation with the situation in Israel. Israel as a Jewish state does not pre-date Tibet as an unquestioned (occupied) part of China. Jewish settlers displaced many Palestinian inhabitants as Han Chinese have displaced Tibetans. Arabs in Israel are treated as second-class citizens as native Tibetans are. Yet, Arabs against Israeli settlements and occupation are labeled as terrorists while Tibetans for independence are portrayed only postively. Although I understand there are differences and I am not anti-Israel, hopefully you can see how this difference in treatment of these issues could make people think there exists a media bias.
To conclude, I want to say that I want as much as anyone for the Chinese goverment not to be totalitarian or communist. This is probably the most obvious difference between Tibet and Israel. However, if you problem is with the Chinese government as a whole, that is what you should protest. If you argue for self-determination and do not show consistency in that belief, you should be prepared to defend against accusations of bias as it is only natural.
Sampling Chinese blog and media views on Tibet would be like sampling US blogs and media just after the Iraq War started. It was all pretty rah-rah and gung-ho then. The Chinese are no different.
That doesn't make it right to colonize a whole people with a different language, a different alphabet, different customs, and a different religion.
Interesting factoid: there's oil in Tibet and lots of valuable minerals.
www.anti-cnn.com
Sure, sure. The Tibetan exiles say that. Just as the Iraqi exiles swore that Saddam had nuclear weapons. As far as I'm concerned, both groups are about equally credible.
In 1675, Machiavelli had this to say about exiles in his Discourses, Book 2, Chapter 31:
Face it, an exiled elite will do and say anything to return to power. Exiles are notorious for their manipulative tactics.I doubt we'll ever learn the truth, but the following may be closer to it. In 1950, the Dalai Lama's government certified that the population of Tibet was about 1 million. If as the exiles claim 1.2 million Tibetans have been killed, why are 4 million Tibetans alive today?
My personal experience was that when I was working in US a white man wanted to have a "serious" discussion with me about Tibet but he could not find Tibet on a map. His "Tibet" on the map was actually Mongolia. When I showed him on the internet some Berkeley professor's study on Tibet history. He first saw the human skulls and skins used in Dalai's spirituals, how Dalai's brothers planned a coup in Bhutan while being kindly allowed to stay as exiles in that kingdom (yet they still call them buddhists?) and how for so many years Dalai had been working with and getting fund from CIA. He was totally shocked.
I for one am excited and happy that so many Chinese bloggers have been able to finally puncture the information controls set up by their government. Now we can finally hear the true voices of China, free from propagandistic manipulation, free from oversight by the Great Firewall of China, and free to say whatever they want about the Tibetan Troublemakers!
The Chinese government has been far too soft on the Tibetan Troublemakers. Now that the government has finally allowed the true voices of China to be heard, the government will no longer be allowed to coddle and protect those violent, dangerous Tibetan thugs!
With the voices of the people forcing the Chinese government to respond to the evil that the Tibetan thugs represent, we'll finally see just how powerful true Chinese democracy can be!
It is shameful to suggest that any of the spontaneous outpouring of disbelief and anger by ordinary Chinese citizens has anything to do with the government's control of news outlets, or with the government's Internet filtering apparatus. Shameful!
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Sampling Chinese blog and media views on Tibet would be like sampling US blogs and media just after the Iraq War started. It was all pretty rah-rah and gung-ho then. The Chinese are no different.
You're so right on the money. After all, the American and Chinese media and blogosphere are both equally open to diverse views. It's not like the Chinese government controls mass media or the Internet in China!
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Good question. The short answer is that the Lamaist (Buddhist) theocracy is very cruel and inhumane.
You obviously cherry-picked from the Parenti page, which is lengthy. First, the focus of the page is on the *history* of Tibetan Buddhism, not on what it is now. He points out that while many in the West see "old Tibet" as some sort of wonderful place, the Tibetan Buddhist hierarchy was authoritarian and cruel. The specific quote you pulled was from an encounter with a Tibetan in the 1960s.
This is also the same man who has written: "The dismemberment and mutilation of Yugoslavia was part of a concerted policy initiated by the United States and the other Western powers in 1989," as part of a larger conspiracy in which the South Slavs seem to have played no part in the war and atrocities that caused so much destruction and horror. If the US government holds an official position, you can expect Parenti's to be in direct opposition to that position, regardless of the particulars.
Parenti's job as a social critic is to criticize, to poke holes, and to hold himself in opposition to the existing social order in the United States. That's a good thing, but that doesn't make him an unbiased source of information. It makes him one voice out of many.
Interestingly enough, that's what this entire thread is about. It's about expression of opinions. Funny isn't it, that Chinese citizens get to express themselves about issues like the recent unrest in Tibet, but you don't hear much from Tibetan bloggers in China?
Gee, I wonder why that is?
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
What scares me is more than one western educated Chinese has told me things like this:
"Don't believe what ever Dalailama said in the western world!! He
kills, tortures the ppl in Tibet in the way that no human can bear.
For his birthday, he requires ppl to give him human Eyeballs, skin,
hands as a gift! He treats all the ppl there as slave!
The only reason why he wants Tibet to be independed is bcs he wants
that power back! And he is supported by the western extreme...He was
abandoned from China bcs the goverment and the ppl there can't bear
his cruelty!
"Free" Tibet back the murder??
Don't be fooled by him!!!!
He kills without thinking!!!!!"
They fully believe it is true and have websites with pictures to prove it. I live in China. I want to see Chinese think for themselves. But when this type of mis-information is take as truth, I'm at a complete loss. Well educated Chinese will argue these points as if they where defending their family's honor.
In fact the whole fake China protests stink of autocratically controlled media and, the whole foul, corrupt idea of launching protests against other countries, for what, failing to silence their own citizens in their own countries, for failing to curtail the ability of citizens to express their freedoms and liberties in their own countries, for failing to punish citizens of other countries when they don't agreed with the corrupt government in China, you just really don't get how offensive that idea really is.
You will note, that I never call it the Chinese government but always refer to it as the Government of China, as the majority of Chinese have absolutely no control over it and are just exploited by it, it is not the government of the Chinese people, it is simply a government of a greedy and self serving, corrupt minority and the greed and ego involved have nothing to do with race or even politics. Those same kind of deceitful arse holes can be found all over the world in every country and in every nationality, the only difference is how much they are excluded from controlling the countries they fester in and, obviously not enough is being done in China or Tibet to curtail those autocratic individuals.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Just keep stamping out new flat panel TVs for me at under $1,000 a pop and you can hate me all you want. You get the lead poisoning from the solder, I get to watch Harry Potter in full 1080p goodness. What's the problem?
I am a software engineer,living in Beijing now,working for a foreign software company. I come here everyday,read almost all threads,and I learn a lot from these discussions,especial technology. But any threads related china, no matter what it is wrong or right, rumor or fact, can be used to assault China,our culture,our government,our people. Nothing's changed as i came here server years ago. But during these years, many things, economical or political, have changed hugely in China. Compared current China with China 20 years ago, sometime I doubt, are we living a same China, governed by same Communist party? "Rome Wasn't Built In A Day", Please try to understand our culture,our history or come to China.China maybe far from your country, but our Chinese people are not living in Mars, Please give us respect.Do not dismiss our opinions so quick Thanks
I have to think that if your point of view was that valid on an issue that concerns all, you'd want to share it with all.
For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods
Unless you want to convert the world to your own particular morality (i.e., destroy freedom), you have to live and let live to a certain extent
"Live and let live" is a moral dictum; it is the essence of liberalism (in the classical sense, not the American Democratic Party sense). If that is your ethic, and you go about pushing it on other people, that can only equate to defending other people from those who would deny them their freedom, and there is no way that that can possibly "destroy freedom".
If you think that everybody should live and let live, and that people who aren't doing so are doing something wrong, then you are not a moral relativist at all, you are a liberal moral universalist; you think everybody should be free, that nobody should deny anybody their freedom. If you think that we in the liberal west should live and let live, but it's ok for those strange alien foreigners in the east to go about oppressing each other because obviously different moral standards apply to them, then you are a moral relativist, which basically equates to either some kind of moral nihilism (it's not *really* good in any strict sense for people here in the west to live and let live, that's just how we happen to do things), or some strange kind of racism or nationalism whereby us westerners have true moral rights which it is wrong for anybody to infringe upon, but people in the east do not have such rights, so it's ok if they do things to each other which we here would consider violating eachothers' rights.
Backing up a bit:
It's not about condoning others' moral beliefs, it's about acknowledging that they have them, and are sincere about them, and might even be rather attached to them, and then modifying your behavior so that you can get along with them.
What you describe there is what's called descriptive moral relativism, coupled with some pragmatic considerations. Descriptive relativism is a trivial truism - obviously, different people disagree about what is right or wrong, and that's a fact that you might have to cope with and work around some times.
What's at issue is prescriptive moral relativism - the idea that different people have different moral beliefs (duh) and they're all equally correct, and we should respect their beliefs and not intervene and impose our own moral beliefs on them. Prescriptive relativism is just utter nonsense; say Person A has the moral belief that he is fully within his rights to physically beat Person B for disobeying him, and Person B disagrees and says that his right to be free from physical abuse supersedes any obligation of obedience he may owe Person A. True prescriptive moral relativists can't do any thing here but throw up their hands and say "oh well, people have different moral beliefs! who am I to impose my opinion on them?"
Of course actual people who call themselves relativists never think about it on an individual level like this but on a cultural level; whether A or B is right is relative to what their neighbors or countrymen think of the situation. But then you get into the question of where do you draw the arbitrary limit of what size group is necessary to establish such local moral truths; if my three housemates decide that I have no right to physical security and they can rightly beat me at their whim, does that make that morally true within the confines of this house? What if everybody on my block was of that opinion? Everyone in my city? State? Country? Where do the scales tip? Keep in mind that they *have* to tip at some point for it to be relativism: if you say that something like that is never ever acceptable, then you have just declared something a universal moral truth, and you are no longer a relativist; or conversely, if you say that everything is always acceptable (and no action is ever *truly* wrong, maybe just unpopular), you are a moral nihilist, and again not a relativist. Likewise if you accept the initial setup, that the situation with A and B is int
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Ahhh Parenti! The leftist history scholar who never went to Tibet or spoke to Tibetans and who speaks neither Tibetan nor Chinese... Ask him what he thinks about China's swerve from communism to fascism.
A Lie Repeated - The Far Left's Flawed History of Tibet
China's Favorite Propaganda on Tibet ...and Why It's Wrong
These articles are under the Fact vs. Myth category alongside CCP propaganda so people can evaluate both sides on merit. The CCP only allows you to see their highly revised version of reality, wonder why is that?
Do you reckon the Tibetans are smiling now, behind the great wall of Chinese PLA and PAP troops?
After reading and hopefully understanding the above-mentioned articles, it would be nice to hear if you gained any understanding for the Tibetans' struggle for national self-determination.
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
Lets pretend for a second that the the situation in Tibet is okay, lets even ignore the support the dictatorship in Burma is getting from China... let me look at it completely from my own continent and my own perspective of an African.
China is supply the Sudanese militants in Sudan with the weapons they need to commit the genocide in Sudan... all for oil. They make the Bush government look like little angels...
But my BIGGEST bug bear .... I am a South African, we live right next to Zimbabwe. A country that has undergone the most horrible of dictators, and now that Robert Mugabe has lost the vote... guess what? CHINA is SUPPLYING Robert Mugabe with the weapons he needs to continue his dictatorship.
As an African I dont fall under the "Western Media" umbrella. I am simply and African and caught in the middle, and the people of Africa are suffering due to China.
The people of China are ignorant and censored... they dont know the blood that their country is leaving all over the world, and the world itself are a bunch of hypocrites to allow this slaughter to happen.
Wake up CHINA!
i see what you did there.
using different words makes a genocide seem so much more acceptable.
how can you justify starving a minority to death by forcefully moving them by "lack of foresight"?
and how do you actually justify forceful resettlement in the first place?
you, sir, have double standards.
New mod option wanted: -1 DrunkenRambling
How about "Tibet is as much a part of China as Northern Ireland is a part of Britain"?
When the CCP has the same opinion as the Chinese people, that's brainwashing or propaganda. Then they differ, that's no human rights, no democracy. Very convenient argument.
as long as both sides believe and accuse the other to be misinformed and brainwashed, nothing will change.
Just FYI...
As to the slogan "LIAR! LIAR! LIAR!", I as a chinese know more on what this means since I witnessed how it was proposed and evolved. It was first proposed to protest CNN. Its first version was "CNN, LIAR!" Then some people cut it short since it is easy to shout out, and some also intended to generalize it to protest Dalai (or his government in exile)'s lie (at this point I don't want to argue if they lied or not). So don't take it so seriously that you use "The ultra-nationalistic Chinese" to refer to them. It is just a way to express their anger (somewhat invoked by biased reporting from media like CNN).
Absolut Vodka? http://www.boycottabsolut.com/
Ok, Chinese made up the history. How about this one? Tibet: The Truth (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xsoc4-QnplY)
What does that have to do with it? The GP didn't say that "Free Tibet" is about Tibetans bringing back the feudal theocracy of yore.
hmmm ...
Tibetan refugee* news here:
http://www.phayul.com/
*refugee
Main Entry:
Pronunciation:
\ËOEre-fyuÌ-ËjÄ", Ëre-fyuÌ-ËOE\
Function:
noun
Etymology:
French réfugié, past participle of (se) réfugier to take refuge, from Middle French refugier, from Latin refugium
Date:
1685
: one that flees; especially : a person who flees to a foreign country or power to escape danger or persecution
Look, you hail your founding fathers as heros, despite things like "mainstream Americans eradicating the culture/language/religion of American Indian" (and slavery too). Why is it that hard to understand Chinese people could also hail their founders as heros, despite the crap they have done to some ethnic minorities?
Don't quote me on this.
The CCP (Chinese Communist Party) is startlingly good at information control, especially in shaping the perceptions of Chinese people. They're subtle and wiley. I have many [immediate] family members who are Chinese, some of whom went through the horrific "Great Leap Forward". The story they tell is quite different from the history taught to the last two generations.
Check out the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party http://www.ninecommentaries.com/ (link to free online version), and then see how much of what Xinhua says you're willing to take at face value. Sadly China's last two generations often lack the history to recognize how much the CCP affects their opinions.
That was exactly the message I tried to convey as well. Many of accusations of the Chinese government did happen but they happened during Mao's era and to all of China.
Today, there are still some problems but it is vastly improved, in Tibet and in the rest of China.
Whereas the mainstream Western media still have their mind stuck in the past, relying solely on anti-China groups for information, and downplay any progress happening in China. Don't tell me that the government restrictions forbid them to know anything -- they should at least notice some positive progress, shouldn't they? And if you follow media coverages from Hong Kong (which still has a lot of freedom in expression,) those are usually a lot more neutral.
Like it is portrayed that the Chinese government try to eradicate the culture or language of Tibet today. But how? Are the Tibetans not allowed to speak their languages? Not allow to celebrate their holidays? No. Not allow to worship Dalai Lama publicly? Yes. Do they have to use Chinese currency? Yes. Do their children need to learn Mandarin like children in Guangdong province? Yes. Are capitalistic economy being introduced to the region? Yes. But should these be considered as "eradication of culture/language" or just as "development"? As I said, the government and Han are less effective eradicating Tibetan culture than we mainstream Americans eradicating Indian culture today.
All I said is that both sides have some facts -- it is just that what they want to exaggerate are different -- and that are motivated by who pays, for both sides.
OMG...
1.lejdd.fr
2.AFP(fr)
3.AFP(US)
4.Yahoo(AFP)
text:
Janne d'arc=prostitute
Napoleon=pervert
FRANCE=NAZI
FREE CORSICA!!!
To help the Tibetan people, then you work with China to improve China (which includes Tibet). Insurgencies, freedom fighters, riots, protests, arming Tibetans to fight for democracy, or sending in troops from other countries to free them.. is all that really the best thing ?
waiting for ad.doubleclick.net
lets see. i cant spot anywhere where i justified forced migration of any people. neither am i able to see the fact that forced migration and genocide are same things. let me explain you how genocide happens - you take people into gas chambers saying that they are in fact disinfection showers, all the while playing classical music in the background, and then you gas them to death. or you shove bamboo sticks up women's vagina. like japanese did in china.
no. im no nationalist. i hate the concept of nationalism even. but im also someone that believes truth shall be told as it is. because history is my hobby.
the ottoman government at that time had the power to gun down each and every armenian in their houses. they didnt. they made them to go on a forced migration, because they were supporting armenian gangs which gangs were indiscriminately killing anyone who didnt help them, like the turkish, kurdish, and any other ethnic nationalistic gang at that period, after the centuries old tradition of anatolian highwayman heritage.
im not someone that hesitates from calling shit with its proper name. there are many genocides and brutalities in ottoman history. but that event is not one of them. if you want to talk about genocides ottomans did, go a few centuries back and youll see a plenty.
Read radical news here
for the bad name they've earned -
http://english.sina.com/life/1/2008/0418/155240.html
Hackers have long memories. It works both ways.
He certainly thinks better than you do, with all due respect.
Sure, I just finished a post on how I think Lamaist Theocracy is cruel, both in the past and in presence. There are just too many misconceptions here in my opinion. And I am new to slashdot and have trouble posting formatted comment. So I will have to take it slowly. I think it's easier to dialog. So maybe we can start here. My position is like most Chinese, against the Free Tibet Movement. My reason is that 1. China has legitimate sovereignty over Tibet. 2. Tibetans life in general improves a lot and is getting better compared to when they were under the theocracy. So, are you supporting the "free tibet movement"? Why?
Tibet was part of China since the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368).
Christopher Columbus "discovered" America in 1492.
For those European Americans who demand Tibet independence, you know what to do.
The more the merrier. I have nothing against freeing the Indians, Aborigines, Basques, Kurds and so forth. The less power central governments have the better.
Wow. What a link. Parts of it are quite persuasive. I really like the quotes from academically researched material. If China had worked a lot harder on having a better reputation for fair and accurate statements (by actually being fairer and more accurate), this type of data might actually help them.
Here is a completely contrasting link.
http://www.tibet.net/en/diir/pubs/wp/tb96/Tibet%20Proving%20Truth.pdf
Some parts (though fewer parts because it has more of the feel of hearsay and uses references to other politicized documents) of it are persuasive as well.
My general consensus is that both sides are lying and both sides have good points. Much the same as in a lot of similar disputes. But I still don't feel I have accurate answers to my originally proposed questions.
To help the Polish people, then you work with Germany to improve Germany (which includes Poland). Insurgencies, freedom fighters, riots, protests, arming Poles to fight for democracy, or sending in troops from other countries to free them.. is all that really the best thing ?
Sound familiar?
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
This is so not the root problem. You are killing your own straw man here. It is intellectually insulting to suggest that's how we Chinese think. And it's blatantly bashing to claim that our race "is obsessed in rule over neighboring countries". Have you seen us claiming Russia and many other European countries as part of China? They were under the rule of Yuan Dynasty too. Have you seen us claiming Republic of Mongolia as part of China? It was separated from China only decades ago. Have you seen us claiming South Asian countries as part of China? There were many Chinese princesses marrying their kings. If it is up to me, there is really no need to bother bringing up history here. The reality has always been: Whoever has the upper-hand at the right time in history, gets the land and rules the people on the land. This could be through military means, or diplomatic maneuver, many ways but not whining with lies. The current U.S. map has been built this way, so as the current European map, why Chinese map has to be defined otherwise? But the fact that every single nation on earth formally recognizes Chinese sovereignty over Tibet - this has always been the case, even long before 1951, is not enough for people like you. You have to go around telling lies about history, such as "China invaded Tibet in the 1950s. Tibet was an independent country then". So it's people like you who bring up horrendously distorted version of history. You should thank those Chinese who took time to correct your illusion. Do yourself a favor, study from the history, not media. Find some maps, old and new, published by all countries, see for yourself the clearly marked boundary of China including Tibet. And good luck arguing with historians that Yuan and Qing were not China, starting from Marco Polo ï¼1254-1324). And as another reader pointed out, how convenient for you to skip Ming Dynasty? I would add, how convenient for you to jump from Qing to Mao's era. Seriously, how do you learn your history? There were so many lies in your post, not to mention serious exaggerations. It's people like you who cause the problem. Stop! Just stop spreading this mis-information! And that Grace Wang. Who are you to call her a true patriot when over a billion of Chinese disagree? You obviously hate China. And you get to decide who is true patriotic to China? What a joke! And please don't waste everybody's time by citing the findings of the self-proclaimed "International Commission of Jurists" which is essentially a non-government human rights organization representing the political agenda of the Tibet lobby. Their legal assertions hold little weight among the world's experts in international law. China's sovereignty of Tibet is indisputable. Indeed, Tibetans have always required Chinese passports to enter the U.S. - always, both before and since 1951. Here is a quote from Wikipedia: "Not a single sovereign state, including India, has extended recognition to the Tibetan Government-in-exile in the more than two decades of its existence. This lack of legal recognition of independence has forced even some strong supporters of the refugees to admit that "even today international legal experts sympathetic to the Dalai Lama's cause find it difficult to argue that Tibet ever technically established its independence of the Chinese Empire, imperial, or republican." It's getting late. Pardon me for being lazy by citing from others. Also, I know I've become angry as I wrote this, but my anger is only to those who spread lies knowingly. Let me post a documentary made by Monarex here for those who want to find out truth before forming opinions. "Tibet, the truth (A political history). http://youtube.com/watch?v=Xsoc4-QnplY
I remember the days of the Cultural Revolution and the cold war; everybody in the West agreed that the Chinese people was being oppressed and the they would, all as one, welcome us if we came and liberated them. The best that could happen, we were told, was if they got Democracy (TM) and Capitalism (TM) and Opened Up (TM) to the world - now that they opened up and introduced capitalism and are on the way to democracy, everybody is howling because they have turned out to be bloody good at what they do and we have a hard time competing.
In recent years we have been hearing loads about how the Chinese government controls all aspects of the news, and if the Chinese people knew what really went on, they would turn against the evil government etc etc. This view doesn't quite add up, of course, not when you consider how easy it is to circumnavigate the so-called 'Great Firewall' - and now it turns out that not only are the Chinese not so cut off from the world news as we've been told, but they actually support their government.
Isn't it time that we in the West - and especially in the US - stopped imagining things about what people in other countries want, and instead look at the facts. The Chinese like their way of life, they support their government and agree with most of their government's policies. Haven't we already learned a little bit of humility from what happened in Afghanistan and Iraq? Neither the Iraqis not the Afghanis have turned out be overly eager to embrace The American Way. So what if their world view seems radically different from ours? They prefer their own way, same as us, and they weren't really trying to force it on us.
Why doesn't anyone over here see that when we barge in with harsh and insulting criticism, and talk about forcing our lifestyle and views on them, we can only be seen as enemies? If there is anything that can drive people away from us and into the arms of radicals, it is if they feel under serious threat from us. So, back to China: do we want the whole population of China to unite under a radical and possibly aggressive form of Communism/Nationalism? It is not an impossible scenario - the Chinese are rightly proud of what they have achieved, and they are beginning to feel that we are trying to deny them their rightful place in the world.
It is possible that we have more and bigger weapons than them, but believe you me, we don't want an all out confontation with China. So let us turn around and moderate our language and attitudes just a bit. We can still have our opinions and express them, but there is such a thing as being responsible and mature.
As much as you think most if not all Chinese are brainwashed by their government, we Chinese think you westerners are brainwashed too. And may I say you westerners are wronger than us, since we obviously have no freedom to truth, while you guys have the freedom but are not using it at all. :D
The majority westerners just can't know less about Tibet and at the same time they just can't be more confident. Luckily, China is *NOT* Iraq.
I meant only to criticize your comment about opium, which missed the point entirely. Your other responses to the previous poster seem generally reasonable. I did not get the sense you stereotyped or hated the Chinese people. My later remarks about anger and hatred on both sides were not directed at anyone in particular. If they appear to place more blame on Westerners than on Chinese, or to let China's human rights abuses off lightly - as it seems to me reading my words again now - that was certainly not my intent. Though we can't take responsibility for the actions of our ancestors (it's not unlikely some of my British forbearers might have been involved in the 19th century exploitation of China), it is important we recognize the history. Denying what happened makes us accomplices of a sort. One consequence of that is that we lose the authority to critique the situation today.
Hey guys,
I am new to this discussion. All the opinions I see here are two extremes:
1) Tibet was never a part of China before 1950
2) Tibet has always been part of China
Come on, we are not cowboys from Texas or repairsmen in autoshops, let's use some numbers, maths and rigorous logic to prove to each other.
1) Can someone show me when Tibet was recognized by the International community as an independent country? A link to the official government documents would be mostly appreciated.
2) Can someone show me when Tibet was viewed as a part of China, of course, by a non pro-China government? Again, a link to the official government document would be mostly appreciated.
I always have the feeling that people in slashdot's forum are independent thinkers. Hence, a proof from your highschool history textbook from either side will be regarded as valueless propaganda.
Let's play this "Fear the Facts" game!!
Thanks for your interests.
I traveled in Tibet two years ago, although I don't pretend I have precise data, there are a few things I assume are not too far from reality: Most part of Lhasa is Han, Lhasa like most cities in China is full of cranes, and the workers are mostly Han. From the Chinese perspective, the Central Government is helping Tibet develop. On many school buildings in Tibet, you can read "built with the sponsorship of xx province". So if you do not consider what is being taught and whether economic growth is good, you can say that China is helping Tibet develop. I was told there is positive discrimination in university enrollment to the benefit of ethnic minorities: they need lower scores to enroll even top universities. What is the result of this, I cannot tell. Given the tough competition to get a place in Chinese universities, this can be considered a benefit, but again education is in Chinese, so even lower scores can be difficult for minorities to get. In Tibet, road signs and public buildings bear both Chinese and Tibetan writings. There is public broadcast in Tibetan, so I assume Tibetan is taught as well. As for the content of the teaching, I don't need to explain there is much propaganda about the unity of the nationalities under CCP leadership, this is what is taught to all Chinese pupils. I was born in China and attended school there before my family moved to France, so I roughly know how education in China consists of. I think there is similarity between Chinese official policy regarding minorities and French education policy in the late 19th century: republican unity and communal education. Chinese policy could even be considered more liberal given the space left for minority languages and cultural traditions. Of course, there is political and spiritual oppression that is well known to communist regimes. There is a very communist disdain for anything religious, religion is just superstition, and I suppose the party makes sure it is only supersition and not spiritual believes, so that it is easier to control. From discussions with Han settlers in Tibetan regions, local governments are quite accomodating with Tibetan customs, there is no birth control for ethnic Tibetans (true also for most minorities); when there is conflict between Han and Tibetan people, Han people say that Tibetans are often advantaged. I heard an anecdot when I was travelling on a bus: an army officer who was drunk spoke to a Tibetan woman with sexual allusions in a restaurant. The woman happened to be the wife of an important man in a Tibetan tribe. The tribesmen beat the officer almost to death in a back street, and he later commited suicide for losing face. A girl(Chinese) I knew in my hostel in Lhasa went to a temple to see sky burial, the priest was so furious that he ran after her and other tourists with his knife to slaughter them, they hardly escped. Other witnesses said that the police would not have stopped the priest. So as long as it does not get political, the Chinese government is quite easy about the folklore side of Tibetan life. This tells of the intricated relationship between the Han, the Tibetans and the Chinese Government. This also tells there is little rule of law in China.