Chinese Blogs, Netizens React To the Tibet Issue 926
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."
Re:They're Right (Score:1, Informative)
Re:History (Score:3, Informative)
Re:History (Score:5, Informative)
You know full well it was precisely because the french were not only not going to commit forces to Iraq, but actively opposed it and rubbished the evidence. They turned out to be correct.
yes, they may have had dodgy financial involvements in the region, but it was the sheer gall to oppose the US in its supposed hour of need (bullcrap) that caused the backlash.
Re:Racist (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Uh.. (Score:3, Informative)
Not only that, but Taiwan is probably one of the best-defended chunks of land on the planet. There's also some pretty strong rumors that Taiwan either has or in short order could produce nuclear weapons, so any attack on it would likely lead to reciprocal attacks against major Chinese centers.
Re:Uh.. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Uh.. (Score:3, Informative)
Did I blame them on anybody else?
And your point is....?
We were engaged with and provided assistance to the Communists during WW2 even if they weren't the recognized Government. In fact, Stillwell spoke in favor of cutting off supplies to the Nationalists and working with the Communists specifically because the Communists were actually fighting the Japanese -- the Nationalists were hording everything we sent them to use against the Communists after the war was over and were only too happy to let the Communists absorb the blunt of the fighting with Japan.
Sometimes it gets personal (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Uh.. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Uh.. (Score:4, Informative)
Or Hanging Louis Riel in the 1880's?
Shooting the people protesting against the conscription in WW-I?
Ditto for WW-II
Or is it in october 1970, when martial law was declared and the political opponnents of Trudeau were jailed without trial???
My little introduction to Tibet (Score:2, Informative)
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.
What the CCP isn't telling the Chinese population (Score:5, Informative)
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 [phayul.com] (in chinese) [middle-way.net] 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.
Re:They're Right (Score:3, Informative)
Re:They're Right (Score:4, Informative)
A growing market will destabilize existing markets until they themselves are saturated. It's not just China, it's India, Brazil, and Russia (again) - all striving to be superpowers themselves. Unfortunately corruption and a lack of transparency hamstring each of you and it's beginning to tear the United States apart as well.
> When we strived to get stronger, we are called The Threat.
Not many US policymakers consider China to be a threat, though China is the closest thing to a threat the US has. Consider it a badge of honor, only two other nations in history ever really were.
> When we closed our doors to the world, you forced them open with drugs and guns.
But forcing Tibet's doors is just fine. I'll freely admit that the US has committed many, many wrongs. Acting like China hasn't does not paint a healthy picture of you.
> When we finally embraced Free Trade, you blame us for taking away your jobs.
This is a lie, since your trade is not 'Free', but listening to your compatriots whine about Indonesians taking your jobs is amusing.
> When we were falling apart, you marched in your troops and robbed us blind.
Ah, yes, I suppose we should have let Japan run free and build the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. How many Nankings do you want?
> When we put the broken pieces back together again, "Free tÂbet" you screamed, it was an invasion!
It was an invasion. No matter how atrociously Tibet's previous leadership treated its people, it's still an invasion. In truth, it would not concern us so much if you did not try to suppress or co-opt belief systems.
> So, we tried Communism, you hated us for being Communists.
Except you didn't, you were Maoists.
> Then we learned from Capitalism, you hated us for being Capitalists.
Except you're not.
> When we had a billion people, you said "The planet is starving."
No, we said 'the planet is starving', and an American man showed you how to feed a billion people.
> So we tried to limit our population, you said it was Human Rights Abuse.
No, when you perform gender-specific abortions, we called -that- a human rights abuse.
> When we were poor, you think we are dogs.
I think it's a pity, when entire rivers are drained dry and water supply is intentionally misregulated.
> When we loan you cash, you blame us for your debts.
Who's blaming -you-? You could always not lend, but that's not an option for you. When two people place themselves into a mutual trap the fault is not the sole fault of one or the other.
> When we build our industries, you blame us for global warming.
And we blame ourselves too. The corruption inherent to your coal industry is not our fault.
> When we sell you goods you can afford, you blame us for dumping inferior products.
Lead and arsenic in products is, by Western standards, inferior. Your point?
> When we buy oil, you called that exploitation and assisting genocide.
When did we say that? It's a bit ironic since:
> When you fight for oil, you called that Liberation of Its People.
Iraqi oil is for you, not us.
> When we were lost in chaos and rampage, you wanted Rules of Law for us.
America has long appreciated peace. Peace is good for business. These past few decades have been an odd spot.
> When we uphold our law and order against violence, you called that Violating Human Rights.
Murdering intellectuals and running over protesters with tanks is generally called that by us, yes. We like to think that you got the Great Leap Forward out of your system. Do you even -know- about that?
> When we were silent, you said we have No Free Speech.
When people are arrested for making dissenting statements, we call that a move against free speech.
> When we are NOW
Re:Nationalist propaganda works (Score:3, Informative)
And at least this American believes that patriotism is a huge problem. Unbridled patriotism; the thought that our country is the best and freest and can do no wrong is what got us into the Iraq war. As my sig says, patriotism is no different than racism, and should be fought just as vigorously.
Re:Matter of culture (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Uh.. (Score:4, Informative)
The best single thing I've ever seen is a documentary film called Cry of the Snow Lion [cryofthesnowlion.com]. A lot of film which was smuggled out of Tibet which the Chinese government would rather never happened.
But, there are likely a lot of news footage and the like from when it all happened.
Some of your questions are strange -- how many Tibetans with advanced degrees for instance. They were largely an agrarian/livestock based culture, so not a whole lot of universities except the monasteries. Some of them just sound like they're designed so they either can't be discredited or to show how much life has been improved by the presence of the Chinese -- there was no bureaucracy for them to participate in before the Chinese came, the monks were the government. The Dalai Lama was the head honcho. Who knows what a couple of generations under Chinese rule have done to peoples opinions and the like.
Most of the entire Tibetan Plateau was devoid of Han Chinese, and the Chinese government has been moving large quantities their people into the region, building railroads, and generally making their presence known. Tibetans are ethnically and linguistically different from Chinese, and they've become a largely marginalized minority.
A google search might not readily turn it up, and I certainly can't give you numbers or statistics. But, I will say that a tremendous amount of this is documented historical fact, and the fact that several 10's of thousands of people walked over the Himalayas (not exactly a walk in the park) to escape wasn't so they could perpetrate a big historical fraud on the rest of us and claim all of this when they could have stayed home and had tea.
Most countries have a population of Tibetan immigrants who have been trickling out for the last five decades to escape the oppression. I won't even try to provide you corroborating evidence here. I've been satisfied with the evidence provided to me, but I'm hardly a store house of it.
People have been protesting and railing about this for a very long time. It's not like these are new or extra-ordinary claims being made.
Cheers
Re: Neutral statistics (Score:2, Informative)
http://discussions.pbs.org/viewtopic.pbs?t=68073&sid=ce0b20590dd445725153c83b5ef21c7f [pbs.org]
Re:Uh.. (Score:2, Informative)
The Chinese view (Score:2, Informative)
"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.
Re:Uh.. (Score:1, Informative)