Manipulation? How?

As a hobby photographer, I applaud to the skills of the journalist for taking the second photo.

As a news reader, I feel ashamed and disgusted for the journalist for distorting the truth.

As another example of media manipulation, Yahoo! News hosts a series of photos taken during the riots:

http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Ethnic-riots-spread-China/ss/events/wl/070609chinaethnic

The first impression: 1) Almost all photos of Chinese Han people show that they carried sticks; 2) A majority of photos of Uighur people show women and children facing the police; 3) Photos of chaos and property damages, such as burned cars and shopts, etc. So what conclusion can you get from these photos? I bet you would say: it seems Han people are attacking Uighur people and causing all the chaos and damages, and the police is standing on the side of Han people.

Put the truth aside, and take a close look at the photos, you will notice: 1) not a single photo shows that Han people are attacking Uighur people; 2) not a single photo shows that Han people were burning car, shops, causing the chaos and damages; 3) all wounded look like Han people. Hmm, doesn’t this seem a bit contradict to the first impression?

I think you can get the idea on how the “free media” is distorting the truth now.

How to Report Riots in China 1-2-3

This is a template for the “free media” journalists to cook any reports of violent riots in China.

. Call it a PEACEFUL PROTEST (or peaceful demonstration) against the Chinese government even though innocent people are killed, shops are mobbed, cars are crashed by the rioters. Do use the words like “protester”, “demonstrator”, “crackdown”. Do avoid using the words such as “riot” and “violence” as much as possible.

. For any facts of violence that you cannot avoid mentioning, always start reporting them as “state-run media reported…”. In the “free world”, nobody gives any credit to the Chinese government statements. For the “protesters” part, always start reporting it as “a witness told us…”, and don’t forget to include “men, women, and children, all ethnic minorities…”. See, even women and children are protesting the evil Chinese government.

. Show photos of the police instead of the tragedy and chaos left by the violent rioters. After all, the “free media” just want to feed their readers an impression that China is a police country. For example, please compare CNN’s photos about riots in France http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/11/27/france.riots/index.html to BBC’s photos about riots in China http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/8137810.stm. Do you see the difference? In democratic France, those rioters are bad guys. In a police country like China, there are only “protesters” against a dictatorship.

. Use the word “crackdown”, and mention “armed personnel carriers and what looked like TANKS” (CNN) in the report – hey, never forget to hint your reader about the Tiananmen Square. Oh, don’t forget “tear gas, automatic rifles and armored vehicles”.

. Write some small details about the “crackdown”, such as “police chasing protesters”. Of course, “according to some witness”. Don’t worry, no readers will actually care whether the witness ever exist. Or, if this witness is complaining about the violence by the rioters, cut him off the air. Find another witness who complains about the “crackdown”.

. Cite international NGO’s statements that “condemned the crackdown on what it described as peaceful protest”. (CNN)  Usually those NGO are funded by NED (National Endowment for Democracy) – a substitution of CIA. But who cares about their background? Your readers just need to get the impression that these NGOs are “non-government organization” from their names and thus are credible.

. Now mention how many people died. Up to now, your readers will get the natural conclusion that the whole thing is just about the police killing these “peaceful protesters”. That is one of the many hints in this report. Brilliant job!

. Cite Chinese officials about how many people are detained and will be interrogated. If the officials ever mention “those convicted would be dealt with severely” in their speech, that will be super. A police country like China certainly is going to arbitrarily arrest and harshly “punish” those dissents. We the “free world” would never ever detain innocent people or torture them.

. If the riot is related to ethnic minority, always describe how they are discriminated by the ethnic majority. Never ever mention China’s official national policies that help the ethnic minority. We the “free world” are doing a great job to “protect” and “preserve” the minorities in reservations. China cannot do anything that even just sounds better than us. So do NOT mention those policies!

. If possible, try to find a scenario to use the word “ethnic cleansing”. You will trigger more sympathy from your readers for the “protesters”. And based on all the great job done above, your readers will conclude that the evil China is trying to eliminating the minorities.

. Do write something about the natural resources in the area of the minorities, immigration of the majority into the area, and the minorities “feel they are not getting enough of the goodies”. (bloomberg)  Oh, don’t forget to mention “restrictions on religions”.

OK, now the world is up-side-down. You have done a perfect job on MANIPULATION. Go get your pay check.

“In a dictatorship, censorship in used; in a democracy, manipulation.”

I am sure that many of you, our readers, have read the news about riots happened in Xinjiang China. From what we’ve read from the “free media”, it looks like another “brutal crackdown” by the Chinese government. Yes, every riot is just a testimony of how the China dictatorship suppresses its people. This, is what the “free media” have been feeding us.

Today, when reading some online discussions about the riots in Xinjiang, I come across the following links, and would like to share them with you:

Trojan Horse: National Endowment for Democracy. Ever heard about NED, National Endowment for Democracy? I heard a lot of mentions of it from the “free media”, including NPR, especially when certain countries are involved such as China, Cuba, Russia, etc. A beautiful name, isn’t it? Well, as some former CIA agent has pointed out, it is just another covert CIA operation to overthrown the governments mentioned above.

Corporate Media’s Threat to Democracy: a collection of quotations. Please read them, and think about the recent reports you have read from the “free media”. And if you can recall the reports about Tibet riots last year, that will be even better. A Chinese slogan is perfect for the “free media”: if it is a dog, it will never stop eating crap.

When NYT Criticizes, China Must Have Done Something Good

In its monthly or weekly or even daily China-bashing campaign, New York Times published this report To Protect an Ancient City, China Moves to Raze It. I have no interest to quote its content here since it is as disgusting as NYT’s other China-bashing articles. Usually, when NYT criticizes China, it means that China must have done something GOOD to its people. The issue reported in this article is no exception. I would like to quote some comments of the article here. Thank God there are still many non-self-righteous people here in US who actually care about the people living in those places!

From PC of Brooklyn, New York: This is another NY Times’ “Damned if they do, Damned if they don’t” China bashing article. I wouldn’t be surprised that next month there will be an article portraying that the Chinese government develops modern high apartment buildings for the Han Chinese while not modernizing the lives of the Uyghurs whom live in these old, dilapidated huts in utter squalor.

From Jie of New York: My hometown in China is also an ancient city dating back to over 2000 years ago. My family had lived in a historic neighborhood before I was 14. The house was dilapidated, with no modern plumbing or sewage. And my standard for being “modern” is really low – I would have been thrilled if we had a toilet that flushed. In winter, my mother had to hand-wash our clothes in freezing water that my father carried back from the local well. No doubt we jumped on the first opportunity to move into a state-built, “Stalinistic,” apartment building. The whole city (which is in a Han area, by the way) has been turned upside down by “modernization” over the past 30 years. Except for a few “intellectuals,” no one complained.

I do think of our old neighborhood all the time since it is filled with memories of my childhood. So a couple of years ago, when I learned that the city government had preserved and restored part of the old city to maintain the city’s status as a “historically and culturally famous city” and to attract tourists, I flew back to visit our old neighborhood. However, to my unpleasant surprise, I didn’t enjoy it at all. Instead, I pitied the people who stayed in the neighborhood (as they do themselves). I even felt guilty for having wished that the neighborhood be preserved because I witnessed again how inconvenient it was to live there. So when I read that the Kashgar government is demolishing 85% of the run-down city, my reaction was “Why not the other 15%?”

Will my feelings change as I grow older? Maybe. But the point is, the issue in the article is not as simple as the article suggests. For those commenters who throw around terms like “genocide,” “authoritarian government,” “communism,” you are the reason why Americans get the reputation for being arrogant, gullible by the mass media and even plain stupid, which others don’t deserve. For those who have visited Kashgar (or any other historic town for that matter) and pity its demolition, I beg you to think for a second about the people who actually live there – the inconveniences, hardships and even health hazards they have to endure for your enjoyment of “history.” To ask some people to endure these “for the greater good” (assuming it is greater), now that’s Stalinistic.

From Jason B., Massachusetts: It sounds so awful doesn’t it…a monolithic government displacing people from their ancient, picturesque (to those of us who don’t have to live there), and historic dwellings.

The reality is that these are old mud structures with no sewage, fire hydrants or garbage collection, havens for disease and built over an earthquake plagued geological fault.

Maybe we should all take a deep breath, put away our tourist cameras and self-righteous indignation and understand that ultimately, the people will benefit by becoming part of the 21st century.

I mean who among you would want to live like your ancestors did 500 years ago?

From Paul of New York City: These are old, ugly, unsanitized and dangerous buildings. Why should these people live live animals in the 21st century? These are human being, not animals to be entertained by tourist, whom all live in modern buildings.

From Ham of Los Angeles: To American tourists who came from modern, air-conditioned homes, this is historic and exotically beautiful. To those who actually live there, this is a dark, dusty, uninsulated, plumbing-less, depressing ghetto. I know. I lived in one before. It is just so arrogant and cruel to expect other people continue to subsist in such inadequate environments simply for our own travelling enjoyment. We should ask how to retain the characteristics of the old town while rebulidng, not whether it should be rebuilt. With the few exception of some elderly people, you won’t find too many who aren’t excited about moving to the new homes.

From Cis of New York: I though the NYTIME’s readers would have know better than throwing slogans aimlessly, until I saw someone using “genocide”. Do not abuse that word! It is disrespectful to every victim who was and is being killed in genocide. Talking about how to treat racial and ethnic minorities, at least the Uighurs culture is not “protected” and “preserved” in reservations. (Yes, it is sarcasm.)

From GL of Seattle, WA: It always annoys me when people decry the tearing down of “ancient” cities to be replaced with modern structure, simply because OMG it’s so historic and such a beautiful tourist destination(even if they have zero intention to ever visit it).

Would any of you like to live in a non-earthquake proved riggety old building without modern plumbing in an earthquake zone? Try and live in these places please before you opine. These places do not exist simply for your viewing pleasure. People actually live there 365 days a year for their entire lives.

For all we know majority of the people in that town are probably happy that they’re finally getting a comfortable modern home to live in. But of course the author of this article is so biased he would never allow us to know such people exist, and if they do, they just don’t know any better.

China is not India or the West. They believe in assimilating minority cultures rather than allowing different minority groups to form their own separate cultures and countries within their country. It’s smart nation building, pure and simple. Eventually modernity and economic prosperity trumps all. What good is “culture” if you live in eternal poverty compared to your next door neighbor, ride on donkeys when your neighbors drive by in cars? Sure it’s nice for the tourists, but would you rather ride the donkey or the car, everyday for the rest of your life?

People who advocate every ethnic group holding on to their language and culture without assimilation should just look at how that is tearing apart India, and is slowly tearing apart the US and much of Europe. The US has a large minority group who would rather speak Spanish than English, leading to the chaos in our education system. The UK, Germany, and France are all struggling with large influx of muslim immigrants who refuse to assimilate into the mainstream Christian or secular culture. I applaud what China is doing. Instead of letting these minority groups holding on to their identity then discriminating against them like we do so hypocritically in the West, they encourage acculturation to deter discrimination. Chinese are very practical people. They have no time to be hypocrites like we do in the West, they’re too busy trying to feed 1.3B people and avoid civil strives.

Above all, stop being so self-righteous and always telling other countries how to run their country! We can barely keep ours in one piece and running!

Why Tibet has been so important to China?

Aurora Forum of Stanford University hosted an interesting discussion about Tibet two months ago. The title of the discussion is Tibet: Where Continents and Cultures Collide . The main topic of the discussion covers environmental and historical issues of Tibet. Today I find out that the transcript of the discussion is available for download, and would like to share it with you.

One question raised by the audience is, why Tibet has been so important to China? Lyman P. Van Slyke, Emeritus Professor of History at Stanford, gave an excellent explanation of a part of the answer, and I quote it below:

“I would not for a moment discount the force of history as the Chinese see it. The past century of Chinese history – the century leading up to 1950, let us say, from 1850 to 1950 – was a disaster for China, and many of the areas that it had traditionally thought it had influence in or a degree of control over were taken from it by the European powers, by Japan, by Russia, by others. And there was a sense that Tibet might fall into the hands of either the British or the Russians, to the great strategic detriment of China. And so when the People’s Republic of China was established in 1950, there was a strong sense that no more is to be taken from China, and that what China had and can claim and had always claimed is a claim that can be disputed. I’m not for a moment saying that this is a claim that all would recognize or should recognize, but for the Chinese leaders from Sun Yat-sen to Chiang Kai-shek to Mao Tse-tung, Tibet was a part of China and Taiwan is a part of China, and it must be that way just as we would not ever permit any part of
the United States to secede. We are a nation integral, and if Florida decided that it was going to establish an independent republic, we would resist that notion. So this historical and cultural imperative, I would almost say, the nationalism that Emily referred to, is extremely strong. And from a balance sheet standpoint, China has invested far, far more, and continues to invest on an annual basis, far more money and other resources, including prestige, in the international arena, where it is generally criticized for its policies in Tibet, far more is invested there than it derives from the mineral deposits or other tangible assets that Tibet may have.”

Not surprisingly, Da-Lie Lama’s representative, Tenzin Tethong tried very hard to distort the history and reality. For example, he kept repeating that there was deforestation in Tibet. Indeed, as an audience and the other guests pointed out, Tibet is mostly covered by grassland. The area he referred to is a part of “the Great Tibet” and actually was rarely controlled by the Tibet government in history. Asserting that “the Great Tibet” is the actual Tibet is just like referring California as a China territory because there are many Chinese living here. It simply does not make any sense. Unfortunately, Da-Lie Lama and the exile group never recognize this problem in their arguments, and this actually causes some huge gaps in their talks with the Chinese government that cannot possibly be filled. The other example is that Tethong kept ignoring the reality and using the past to attack the Chinese government. Recently, the Chinese government has recognized the environmental damage caused by development in the past, and are making great efforts to restore the forests and grassland, as the guests have confirmed. One can never hear anything from Da-Lie Lama and the exile group about this kind of development. A similar example is about the monastery temples in Tibet. Even though many were damaged by the Tibetans themselves in the Culture Revolution, most of them have been repaired and restored after that by the Chinese government. From the propoganda from the Da-Lie Lama, the exile group, and the western media, one can only get the impression that they were all destroyed by the Chinese government and there is no temple left in Tibet today. The last example I want to give, is Tibet’s status before 1950s. He did not mention that the Da-Lie Lamas’ were actually approved by the Qing emperors. Even the famous flag that the exile group used as their “national flag”, is a flag approved by a Qing emperor. So Tibet was always independent from China? Somebody must be lying or out of his mind.

Overall, I feel that it is an interesting discussion. The pities are, 1) Tenzin Tethong tainted the supposedly academic forum with his zero-credibility political junks; 2) there is no scholar from China joining the forum.

Some Inconvenient Truth

On April 6, KQED forum interviewed George Galloway, a British Member of Parliament, who is announced by the Canada government as a terrorist supporter. Usually, I did not give any credit to the political views of any British politicians. After all, one cannot expect too much from some one who sits on the legacy of the largest colonist, slave smuggler, drug dealer, pirate, and war lord ever in the human history. But this time, I was quite shocked by Mr. Galloway’s talk about the Middle east, Gaza, Iran, etc. Indeed, in the main-stream (extreme) media of the western world, his opinion is very unique. He speaks out some inconvenient truth that western people can hardly hear from their extreme media, and can hardly understand without putting their feet into the shoes of the people in the middle east. By this mean, I see the so-called Middle East Peace Process going nowhere under the rules drawn by the western world.

For example, Mr. Galloway’s interview of Iran is particularly insightful. The western public often cannot forgive 1970s Iran Evolution which took over the US Embassy in Iran. The truth is, the US government helped a brutal dictatorship to overthrown a democratic Iran government. The Iranees have no choice but to drive the US influence away from their country and restore their democracy, even if they had to occupy the US Embassy. It is a natural reaction. When some one back up a brutal dictator who has killed your families, what will you do? Throw flowers to them? This is simply ridiculous and non-sense. Unfortunately, the western extreme media have been feeding this to the public for decades. Finally, Mr. Galloway spoke out this inconvenient truth. Without understanding this, the western will never find peace with the rest of the world.

One thing Mr. Galloway did not realize is the Jews’ influence of the western society. He repeated states that Israel is just a “puppy” of the US. This is so wrong. Just take a brief look at this list, you will get the idea who is the puppy of the Jews. This well explains the questions that a caller raised during the interview. Why is it politically unacceptable to criticize Israel in the western world? It is not because doing so is equivalent to denying holocaust. It is because the governments, the media, the financial systems, and the society in the west are deeply influenced (controlled?) by the Jews.

Cannot refute academic studies? Let’s do some wording games instead.

Today Reuters published an report titled “Tibet serf debate shadows China’s ‘emancipation day’”. For years, after failing to refute the academic studies, the western journalists and the exile group started to play some kind of wording games. Please allow me to quote one section from the report below:

—– start of quote ——

SERFS OR NOT?

Even the name of the new holiday is controversial. Opponents say “serfdom” is too loaded to describe the Tibetan system, while China denounces its critics as apologists for a cruel regime.

“The serfs and slaves, making up over 95 percent of the total population, suffered destitution, cruel oppression and exploitation and possessed no means of production or personal freedom whatsoever,” a recent government white paper declared.

Few serious scholars contest that most Tibetans were bound by birth to estates held by nobles, monasteries or officials.

“The key characteristic of the system was that individuals did not have the right to opt out. They could not give back their land to the estate and live as free peasants,” said Melvyn Goldstein, at Ohio University’s Center for Research on Tibet.

But many foreign academics and exiled Tibetans also say Beijing has rewritten history, oversimplifying and distorting a complex system, in part by using transplanted concepts.

“The Chinese trick is to say the words ’serf’ and ‘feudal’ and make us think brutal,” said Robbie Barnett, director of the Modern Tibetan Studies Program at Columbia University.

Obligation to provide labor fell on families or households, not individuals, so while some worked for the estate, others were away trading or in the family’s own fields, academics say.

Peasants who ran away often were not brought back, and although trading of serfs happened, it was not widespread. Others rented their freedom on a yearly basis with a “human lease.”

Some “serfs” were also wealthy landowners in their own right, with serf-servants of their own, making a more complex social picture than is reflected in Beijing’s official line.

Managers could be brutal, and whips were still used in 1959.

“The owners always wanted more and one way of getting more is doing hard physical punishment and setting an example for the others, and that was common,” said Dawa Tsering, from the Tibet Academy of Social Sciences in Lhasa, who studied under Goldstein.

“The extreme was that they may beat you to death.”

But many Chinese accounts of cruelty mix details of extreme and disused punishments from centuries-old legal codes with actual practice in the 1950s, like a recent exhibition in Beijing where an “eye-gouging stone” was placed next to whips.

The last official blinding was in 1934, of a nobleman convicted of treason. By then, no living member of the caste who performed mutilations had ever done it, or even seen it carried out, Goldstein recounted in his “History of Modern China.”

They had to rely on stories of the technique passed down from their parents and bungled the operation horribly, he wrote.

—– end of quote ——

So who is Robbie Barnett, director of the Modern Tibetan Studies Program at Columbia University? Here is the introduction of him at Columbia University’s website: “Before joining Columbia in 1998, Professor Barnett worked as a journalist and researcher in the United Kingdom, specializing in Tibetan issues for the BBC, the South China Morning Post, VOA, the Guardian, the Independent and other media outlets. From 1987-1998, Dr. Barnett was director of an independent Tibet news and research project in London. He has also worked as a journalist for the South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), the BBC, The Observer ( London), The Independent ( London), and other news outlets.” Hmm, I think these experiences well explain his stands.

FWD: Why You Shouldn’t Care About Tibet

This is an interesting article about Tibet by Jack Elgin of DC Independent Conservative Examiner. It is a bit long, though.

http://www.examiner.com/x-1000-DC-Independent-Conservative-Examiner~y2009m3d10-Why-you-shouldnt-care-about-Tibet

For those not in the know, today marks the 50th anniversary of a famous uprising in Tibet against the occupation of the People’s Republic of China, which led shortly thereafter to the Dalai Lama’s exile, which has been recorded, mythologized and celebrated by numerous vapid Hollywood celebrities.
Roughly ten years before that, the PRC, which is to say the People’s Republic of China, had begun it’s occupation of Tibet, the exact nature of which is still up for historic (and historiographical) dispute. The CPC, which is to say the Communist Part of China, has two arguments on it’s side which are undoubtedly true, namely;

- That they were met with scant resistance,

- That as the successor state to the Qing Dynasty, they were merely renewing the relationship that had existed within Zhong Guo prior to 1904, when British troops invaded Lhasa and occupied Tibet, demanding, amongst other things, that the Qing Dynasty pay the expenses of their invasion (a small taste, just in case you were wondering where anti-Western Chinese Nationalist sentiment came from)
The latter is a point of some importance; Tibet and China had varied from a hostile to a symbiotic relationship by the last few centuries, with the central Qing government administrating the region, and the Dalai Lama acting as spiritual advisors to the court.

The CPC makes other claims that are completely unverifiable, but which probably have some basis in truth; certain other scholars have agreed with most of these claims, while many others take a wide gradient of stances.

Penn and Teller, eminent stage magicians, libertarians, and Run-DMC hanger-ons, detailed some of these complaints on their show, (profanity-filled) clip to be seen here.

Featured in the clip is Michael Parenti, a scholar who writes his own description of the sort of feudal, slavery- and sefdom-filled, poverty-ridden and backwards, oppressive place Tibet was under the relatively brief rule by Lama caste, from 1912-1949, in his essay, Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth. Complete with sources.

Surprisingly, I also found an actual comprehensive answer on Yahoo Answers, too.

Most supporters of the Free Tibet cause, of course, are idealogues, hippies, and Hollywood celebrities who, having thoroughly rejected their own European culture, are just looking for something to believe in. The peculiarities of Western self-hate being what they are, most activists never get as far as to question whether or not Tibet was actually ever a Shangri La before it was arbitrarily and brutally attacked by China some fifty years ago. Heck, as a dare, go search for news stories from the usual gullible suspects in the media about Tibet; see how many feature pictures of either the Dalai Lama himself, or other monks (even in their heyday, a small percentage of the population), and see how many actually feature pictures or even references to the lives of average Tibetans. I know I’m shocked whenever I see the latter. To left-leaning activists, the Free Tibet movement is an indulgence and ongoing fantasy, the common socialist fantasy of a numerous, simple, happily ignorant peasant class toiling under the gentle, nurturing care of a spiritually and mentally enlightened elite, who gladly lift the burden of free will from the former and take it for themselves. Meanwhile, to many warhawks, any excuse to complain about China is a good one.

Thus, most people never actually get so far as to question what Tibet looked like as an independent nation, and what it would look like again as the same. But several counter points might occur to those that come this far and are still skeptical. I shall try to address these.

Q: But aren’t the portrayals of 1912-1949 Tibet the biased propaganda of the CPC, attempting to justify their invasion?

A: Of course. Only a fool would take information coming out of an authoritarian state like China without a hefty dose of salt. However, parsing information reveals a number of things. Even the most pro-Dalai Lama sources have to concede a number of facts about Tibet prior to the Chinese invasion; 1) It was one of the poorest and most illiterate nations on Earth. There was not enough food, girls were not educated at all, boys were lucky to learn how to read. 2) Tibetan society was essentially caste-based, with a secular aristocracy, a theocratic monkhood, and numerous peasant serfs who were under the thrall and contract of the former, working land not theirs to support these castes. No serious scholar contends these two points. The counterarguments rely largely on supposing that Tibetans are a people naturally inclined to enjoy a simple of life of ignorant serfdom and high mortality, which is a fundamentally racist supposition.

Q: But wasn’t the PRC rule just as bad, if not worse?

A: Probably. Tibet has been part of China, and China’s government under Mao was pretty terrible and incompetent. Tibet, however, was actually relatively sheltered from some of the worst fallouts of the Great Leap Forward, given how far to the west it was- the PRC is, after all, about the same size as the United States or Europe, andLhasa is no closer to Beijing than Madrid is to Minsk, or D.C. is to Denver. It would also be a mistake to ignore that nationalist rhetoric coming from China on the subject; they do not view Tibet as a foreign region being occupied, but as a part of Zhong Guo, the traditional region of influence of the Chinese empire, which is, after all, a multi-ethnic one to start with. There have been extensive efforts from the CPC to win Tibetan hearts and minds, and to raise the living standards and economy of a region that remains China’s poorest. It’s a lukewarm victory to say that Tibet has about a 50% literacy rate, but it’s certainly a vast improvement over where the nation was under the Lama caste.

Q: But don’t the Tibetan people have the right to be Free? (or any variant of a “Free Tibet” slogan)

A: No. Not specifically. Exceptio probat regulam in casibus non exceptis. More on this later.
This one bears getting into, because it’s a common misunderstanding, and a continuation of a common misunderstanding that caused a lot of common grief and suffering throughout the 20th century.
First of all, it is not at all clear here what is to be meant by “The Tibetan People”. It’s all well to talk of an abstract concept of Tibet, as a cultural concept, but as a nation or people? To go right to the most severe form of this fallacy, this distinction is no easier to enforce in any way than that between the concept of an Aryan race and the realization of an Aryan nation. The most extreme calls from the Tibetan Government-in-Exile have included demands for whole swaths of Western China that feature prominent Tibetan communities; but advocates here fail to realize that these regionsare no more homogenuous than 1930’s Germany. Large populations of Han, Hui, Salar, Monpa, Lhoba, Mongol, Qiang, Dongxiang, Pumi, Lisu, and some several dozen other peoples live in this region. The common phrase, “One People, One Nation”, associated with the Free Tibet movement, is not only a lie but a chillingly racist and fundamentally fascist one. We could go to Israel and Palestine, or India and Pakistan, to see how well partitions along cultural, religious and racial lines work out, or explore the many-fractured maze of failed states and tribal emnity raging through sub-Saharan Africa, but it shouldn’t take much convincing to persuade a reasonable person that multi-ethnic nations are stronger and more secure than those who strive for anything else. Even the Han majority in China are deeply fractured amongst many cultural-linguistic groups. If one were to dump a hundred buckets of paint onto a marble floor and be commanded to get each color back into it’s respective bucket, pure and whole, one would still have an easier task than that of sepearting the tens of thousands of inter-mingling and criss-crossing ethnic groups that cover the globe.

Not that ethnicity alone could guide politics even then- then we’d have to come to mention the Tibetan Atheists, Muslims, and members of several large sects of Buddhism that do not place particular reverence on the Dalai Lama, and thus would not want a return to his rule, an unspoken and implicit assumption of the Free Tibet movement, based on the smiling mugs of His Holiness used in about every vapid National Geographic, Rolling Stone and even (I’m so disappointed in you) Economist articles on the subject.

Which brings us to the next point;

Q: But doesn’t the Dalai Lama want to institute democratic reforms in Tibet, making it a free, liberal democracy?

A: Maybe, but I wouldn’t bet my life savings on it. First of all, the Dalai Lama sings whatever tune’s going to please the audience; when appealing to more Leftist groups, he’s described himself with the Progressivegasmic phrase, “Half-Marxist, Half-Buddhist”. He’s basically hinted that if he were to try and lead Communist reforms, he would make them work, dammit. On the other hand, more recently he’s put forward a proposed constitution. It guarantees religious freedom and freedom of speech, but then, so does the PRC. Moreover, it looks a lot like a Western democracy, except for the references to Tibetan Buddhism, making the Dalai Lama President for Life, and giving him exclusive power to hire and fire elected officials at will, as well as generally pause the democratic reforms he talks about at his own discretion.

I’m not saying that the Dalai Lama’s plan is to use gullible Western support to secure a huge nation at the axis of Asia, announce democratic reforms, and then put them on indefinite hold while he establishes himself (again) as theocratic dictator for life with absolute power over the law and no accountability, I’m just saying that that’s exactly what his proposed constitution allows him to do.

Q: But don’t the Tibetan people want the Dalai Lama back in power?

A: Well, some certainly do. Most of them have a funny way of showing it. Just for clarity’s sake, the Tibetan landscape makes Afghanistan look like gentle rolling hills; if there were substantial local opposition to PRC rule, you’d assume they could make life a bit more difficult than it is. Buddhists, despite what white college students might tell you, are exactly as capable of political violence as other religions, as anyone in Sri Lanka or Japan could explain. The Dalai Lama, in concert with the CIA, in fact sponsored train guerillas in Tibet during the 60’s, but they didn’t seem to garner a lot of popular support.

Certainly some want the Dalai Lama back, and express this by trapping Han and Muslim businessmen and their families inside of shops and burning them down (yeah, I know this was missed by the media, but those crackdowns last year? Weren’t initiated by monks peacefully humming and clinking thumb-cymbals together), but it’s hard to gauge where there’s any real support anywhere other than exiled monks/aristocracy, Hollywood, and amongst privileged white college students.

Q: But the PRC government is repressive, exploitive, violent and abusive. How can you support that?

A: I don’t. I just don’t think this is a Tibet-specific issue. Hence why I said Tibetans weren’t specifically entitled to freedom before.

Everyone is entitled to freedom. As it so happens, there’s roughly 1.3 billion people that are having their religious freedom, their freedom of speech, freedom to assemble, right to trial, etc., abused by the government of the PRC. There’s also another eighty million or so suffering far worse fates in Burma and North Korea, broken military regimes supported by the CPC. The repressions of free speech, free practice of religion, the opaquness of government and corrupiton of justice suffered by Tibetans are not more or less wrong than those suffered by Uyghars, Mongols, Koreans, Yi, Hui, or Buyei, or Han.

I’m simply being realistic. For all the freedoms it doesn’t allow, the PRC does allow it’s people the freedom to eat, to read, to an education, to an opportunity at economic success. The freedom to vote or write an article means nothing when your family is starving, you can’t read, and you can’t walk down the street without being shot by roving thugs in jeeps. The PRC is better than the alternative the Dalai Lama is offering; if it were a choice between Taiwan remaining independent or being absorbed by the PRC, my stance would be very different, since Taiwan is an actual liberal democracy.

Of course, the status of Taiwan in the UN and international community isn’t an issue that college campuses are throbbing about, since it only involves twenty million, mostly Han Chinese trying to retain their democratic freedoms and economic prosperity from other mostly Han Chinese, rather than some smiling monk spouting Hallmark catchphrases that Steven Spielberg made a movie about, but that’s neither here nor there.

I’m against a Free Tibet. I’m all for a Free China. Free from poverty and theocratic oppression, free from corruption and secular oppression. But those who are concerned about human rights in the Middle Kingdom should look to Taiwan, not Tibet; to the brighter future, not an even darker past.

If anyone can cite a different reason why the Free Tibet movement should be considered valid and not simply the mewling of angry and ignorant college students/Hollywood actors, let me know and I’ll try to address it. Meanwhile, for a very good read on the great 20th century evils brought about by the idealization of the centralized, culturally homogenuous nation state, pick up a copy of Niall Ferguson’s War of the World.

Tibet ‘hell on earth’ under China – for less than 5% of the Populations

Today is the 50th anniversary of failed Tibet rebellion and Da-Lie Lama called Tibet `hell on earth’ under China. It is a pretty funny statement. Looking at all the reports from Da-Lie Lama, the exile group, and the western media, the best they can come up are some complaints from the monks and Tibetans in Dharmsala about tightened security in Lhasa. As for more than 95% percent of the Tibetans who are formally serfs under Da-Lie Lama’s governance for generations and live out side of Lhasa, their voice are deliberately unheard and forgotten. I guess ‘hell on earth’ is an accurate description of the current status of those formal landlords in Tibet who lost their treasures, land, and privileges to enslave the serfs. But for the majority of the Tibetans, they are pretty happy today.

Please allow me to make some quotations from Foster Stockwell (http://my.telegraph.co.uk/elle/blog/2008/03/06/mythandrealityoftibet) below.

“The idea that most Tibetans are unhappy about what has happened in Tibet and want independence from China is a product manufactured in the West and promoted by the dispossessed landlords who fled to India. Indeed, to believe it is true stretches logic to its breaking point. Who really can believe that a million former serfs – more than 90% of the population – are unhappy about having the shackles of serfdom removed? They now care for their own herds and farmland, marry whomever they wish without first getting their landlord’s permission, aren’t punished for disrespecting these same landlords, own their own homes, attend school, and have relatively modern hospitals, paved roads, airports and modern industries.

An objective measure of this progress is found in the population statistics. The Tibetan population has doubled since 1950, and the average Tibetan’s life span has risen from 36 years at that time to 65 years at present.

Of course some Tibetans are unhappy with their lot, but a little investigation soon shows that they are, for the most part, people from families who lost their landlord privileges. There is plenty of evidence that the former serfs tell a quite different story.

You will find some Tibetans who hate the Hans (the majority nationality of China) and some Hans who hate the Tibetans, a matter of ordinary ethnic prejudice something any American should be able to understand. But, this doesn’t represent a desire for an independent Tibet any more than black- white hostilities in Washington, D.C., Detroit, or Boston represent a desire on the part of most African-Americans to form a separate nation.”

I am pretty sure that Da-Lie Lama supporters will try to dismiss the above statements by either 1) accusing Foster Stockwell as a Chinese; or 2) asserting Foster Stockwell as a Chinese government agent; or 3) questioning the personal credibility of Foster Stockwell himself; or 4) labelling Foster Stockwell as commie; or …. Come on, are these the best Da-Lie Lama followers can come up with? Next time, please try do some research first and show people some solid evidence of the reality of Tibet before repeating Da-Lie Lama’s propaganda.

Stay in hell and don’t bother us, please, Da-Lie Lama!

The Price of “Freedom” and “Democracy”

It isn’t cheap, seriously. I guess Iraq people know exactly what is the price they are paying, especially when “Freedom” and “Democracy” are enforced by the western.

The interview with Nadje Al-Ali:

http://www.kqed.org/epArchive/R902111000

And her book titled “What Kind of Liberation?”

http://www.amazon.com/What-Kind-Liberation-Women-Occupation/dp/0520257294/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1234310819&sr=1-1/kqedorg20

Difference on reporting “fake” performance

Remember one New York Times’ report titled “In Grand Olympic Show, Some Sleight of Voice”? It covers a story that “Chinese organizers superimposed the voice of a sweeter-singing little girl on that of a 9-year-old performer featured at the opening ceremony of last summer’s Olympic Games.” The full report is here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/13/sports/olympics/13beijing.html

Now there is another New York Time’s report titled “The Frigid Fingers Were Live, but the Music Wasn’t”, covering the “pretty close” to “lip-synching” music performance at the Inauguration. The full report is here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/arts/music/23band.html

I must admit, it is always entertaining to read reports on similar topics. You get the idea of how media are treating stories differently.

BTW, while searching for the New York Time report on Beijing Olympics, I come across this interesting article “How the New York Times (should have) covered the Olympics”. It is a good example of writing practice for any one who wants to be a journalist, depending on which side she/he is sitting.

http://www.blackandwhitecat.org/2008/08/28/how-the-new-york-times-should-have-covered-the-olympics/

Things about commercials in political news

When our “dear reporters” encounter some unexpected stuff, commercials are always there to save their $ss.

BTW, not just this poor guy of foxnews, Larry King is also a master of using commercials.

http://ca.youtube.com/watch/v/NFnn83qyLW8

Difference between reporting China and US news

Chinese Riot Over Handling of Girl’s Killing

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/30/world/asia/30riot.html

BEIJING — Thousands of people have rioted in a county in southwest China, setting fire to government buildings and overturning cars in angry protests over the official handling of the death of a local teenage girl, according to a human rights group, state news media and videotapes of the events.

The protests in the county of Weng’an in Guizhou Province are another reminder of how quickly public anger can ignite in China over cases of perceived official corruption and malfeasance. For the past few years, public discontent has erupted into small demonstrations and violence across the country.

The protests in Weng’an on Saturday appear to have been larger, reportedly involving thousands of residents, including children. News agencies reported that protesters clashed with paramilitary police officers sent to the county.

In March, thousands of paramilitary police were sent to quell violent anti-Chinese demonstrations in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa. Videos from Weng’an posted on YouTube showed groups of protesters standing and watching as fires engulfed a local government building.

The Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy, a Hong Kong-based human rights group, reported that the riot was incited by the case of a teenage girl who was reportedly raped and murdered.

Relatives of the 16-year-old girl blamed the local police for a shoddy investigation and also claimed possible corruption, the group reported. The family said the teenager disappeared after being seen with two young men with family ties to the local public security bureau, the report said.

By Saturday, the human rights group reported, about 500 middle school students had gone to protest at the public security bureau. But the students were turned away and beaten, a move that immediately roused an angry mob of thousands of people who began setting fire to buildings and overturning cars.

The Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy reported that one person died, 150 were injured and 200 were detained. Officials in the province could not be reached to confirm these figures.

By Sunday morning, a local resident told The Associated Press that the police were using megaphones to urge the crowds to leave while local television channels were calling on people involved in the protests to surrender to the authorities.

“Thick black smoke billowed everywhere,” one resident told The Associated Press. “The incident shows that the social order around here is not stable.”

The state-run news agency Xinhua confirmed the violence in a brief article and said the situation had stabilized. Referring to the investigation into the girl’s death, the news agency reported, “Some people who did not know about the exact context of what had happened were instigated to mob the police station and the office buildings of the county government and Communist Party committee.”

The demonstrations were less than six weeks before Beijing hosts the Olympic Games, and security officials are deeply worried about potential outbreaks of unrest across China.

In California, Protests After Man Dies at Hands of Transit Police

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/09/us/09oakland.html?_r=2&scp=1&sq=oakland%20protest%20riot&st=cse

OAKLAND, Calif. — Protesters angry over a deadly shooting of a young unarmed black man on New Year’s Day stampeded through city streets on Wednesday night, burning cars and smashing storefronts and leading to pleas from city officials on Thursday for patience and calm.

About 120 people were arrested during the violent outburst on Wednesday, which came after a day of demonstrations over the shooting of Oscar Grant III, a 22-year-old butcher’s apprentice who was shot in the back by a transit system police officer while he lay on the platform at the Fruitvale Station of the Bay Area Rapid Transit system.

“My message is, cool it out there, folks,” Mayor Ron V. Dellums said. “This is not a game.”

On Wednesday night, police officers in riot gear responded with tear gas and nightsticks, and arrested protesters on charges of vandalism, unlawful assembly, rioting and assault on a police officer. Two people were arrested in possession of handguns. Dozens others were cited and released, said Wayne Tucker, the city’s chief of police.

The police chief for BART, Gary Gee, said that transit police detectives were still compiling clues in the shooting, which occurred after Mr. Grant and a group of friends were removed from an eastbound train in the wake of a fight among two groups leaving a New Year’s Eve celebration in San Francisco.

At least four cell phone cameras held by passengers on the train idling next to the platform captured images of Mr. Grant lying face down when Transit Officer Johannes Mehserle, 27, pulls his gun and fires a single shot. Mr. Mehserle looks up at another officer, and then handcuffs Mr. Grant. The images have been repeatedly broadcast on local television and streamed online.

Christopher Miller, a lawyer for Officer Mehserle, said in a brief statement on Wednesday that the officer’s resignation, which took place on Wednesday, would allow BART to “get back to the business of managing regional transportation,” adding that the officer had the full support of his union, the BART Police Officers Association. But it made no reference to the circumstances of the shooting.

Mr. Mehserle has not been charged with a crime. Investigators said their efforts to interview him about the circumstances of the shooting had been rebuffed by his lawyers, something that has fed complaints that the transit agency and the Alameda County district attorney, Tom Orloff, have each been sluggish in their investigations.

“If you can’t file charges in a case like this,” said John Burris, a lawyer for Mr. Grant’s mother and his live-in girlfriend. “I don’t know what kind of case you can file in.”

At an occasionally unruly press conference at Oakland City Hall on Thursday, just down the block from where a small clutch of protesters set trash cans and cars afire on Wednesday night, Mr. Dellums said that the Oakland Police Department would start a third investigation of the shooting event, which he referred to as a homicide.

Mr. Orloff was more measured in his statements, saying only that such investigations take time and that he hoped to be finished in two weeks.

“I think it’s important that when we move forward we will move forward with a case that is court-ready,” said Mr. Orloff, who was interrupted by demonstrators several times as he tried to speak.

But the district attorney’s timetable seemed unlikely to please residents of Oakland, an ethnically mixed city of 400,000 across the bay from San Francisco. At a public meeting of the transit system’s board, Desley Brooks, an Oakland City Council member, said, “The community does not have confidence in BART investigating itself.”

But a BART spokesman, Linton Johnson, said Thursday that “the worst thing that we could do, the thing that would cause absolute chaos, is if we screwed up this investigation.”

The shooting is just the latest incident in a historically tense relationship between Oakland’s black community and law enforcement, including a corruption case known as the Riders case in which a group of Oakland police officers were accused of abusing and falsely accusing suspects. Three of the officers were acquitted but the incident nevertheless damaged the department’s reputation.

On Thursday morning, several downtown merchants were shoveling shards of glass outside their damaged storefronts and juggling mixed emotions. Thuyen Tran, 24, whose family runs a small nail salon whose front window had been shattered, said he was upset that his family’s business had been damaged but also understood the anger of the protesters.

“It doesn’t make sense, using brutal force,” said Mr. Tran, who is of Vietnamese descent. “It doesn’t feel good, because No. 1, I’m a minority, and No. 2, I’m a young kid.”

Several civic leaders said on Thursday that the violence reflected anger among young people — and particularly young black men — who feel that they are unfair targets of the police.

“The murder of Oscar Grant III was a tragedy and not the first tragedy suffered on the streets of Oakland,” said Jakada Imani, executive director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, who called the protests a tipping point “for a community that has been struggling and suffering for decades.”

On Wednesday, several protesters lay prone in front of police, hands behind their backs, saying, “I am Oscar Grant.” Mr. Grant’s name has already begun to be graffitied along highways.

On Thursday, Mr. Grant’s family and friends spoke publicly to condemn the violence.

“I am begging the citizens not to use violent tactics, not to be angry,” said Wanda Johnson, Mr. Grant’s mother. “You’re hurting people that have nothing to do with the situation. Please stop it, just please stop.”

Pictures from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Game

Isn’t it beautiful?

Better, But Still a Lot to Improve

Today’s New York Times has a report about China’s human rights improvements. The name of the report is Despite Flaws, Rights in China Have Expanded. Among numerous reports from the western media covering the human rights issues in China, I find few like this one – it admits that there are many improvements in China with regards to the western defined human rights in the past decades. But, the western media still have a long long way to go in order to achieve their self-labeled objectiveness – just like the Chinese government needs to improve its human rights records.

First of all, one can never claim that the western defined human rights is a universal value. At least before modernization or even the 20th century, many concepts of modern human rights did not exist at all. And I am pretty confident that in the future, many of our current human rights definitions will become obsolete. It took years to formalize these ideas and make them being accepted by the societies. Expecting a country as complicated as China to be like the western countries in a night or even in several decades is simply unrealistic. It took the western world hundreds of years to polish their human rights issues, why wouldn’t they give China a bit of more time? I do not know other western countries. But I do know that in US, few teachers in school would harshly criticize their students almost everyday. So please think about this for a second before blaming China’s human rights problems.

Plus, China has its own values. In fact, from the view point of ancient China, in thousands of years the western world had never achieved the same values and level of civilization as of China. I guess if at that moment we had the same level of information exchange as today’s, the western world would find themselves in a similar awkward position as today’s China in terms of human rights and civilization. So, before criticizing China’s human rights record, the western media better back off a little bit and first take a look at its own history and record.

As an employee of a company, I know that concrete suggestions are more important than empty words in my work. Most western news reports about China’s human rights only looked at the problems, and few took a little deeper thought about the cause of these problems and hinted detailed steps leading to possible solutions. For example, in today’s NYTimes report, the author first blamed that “the (Chinese) government relies on unwritten laws: …state stability trumps nascent notions of human rights”. Then he quoted a riot happened recently in Guizhou Province caused by “rumors of police malfeasance and a cover-up spread widely on the Internet”. Does the journalist realize that his quotation of the riot actually supports the Chinese government’s “unwritten laws”? Even with these “unwritten laws” in place, some rumors on the Internet already could cause riot. Without those “unwritten laws”, wouldn’t China because as chaos as today’s Iraq or Darfur? At least in China, people there are secure enough to keep their lives and improve their economy and political situations steadily. In Iraq or Darfur, who knows how long he/she can even survive?!!