So a bunch of dictators express support for another dictator experiencing domestic rebellion?

How does that lend credibility to the regime in Bejing?

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"It isn't what you do, it's what you are" definition of a writer, C. Hitchens, Conversations with History interview, April 25th 2002

Good afternoon,
Do you mind to elaborate on the person you insist being "another dictator"? I'm not sure to grasp if you're talking about China's President, its Prime minister or perhaps his Holy Holyness the reincarnated DL in exile?
Thank you.
命

Anti-Germany！

First of all, I appreciate the fact that we have a new Chinese poster here who engages in this debate in a civil and good way.

I quoted a part from your post that I want to comment on. I can't remember having read or heard about "peaceful protesters". While some media might not stress Tibetian violence so much, I have missed so far those who openly neglect it.

In my eyes its not a peaceful protest, its an ethnic conflict. A deep routed ethnic conflict caused by the attempt of marginalizing the local culture and ethnicity. This ethnic conflict can be surpressed by raw state power, but thats just cosmetics.

Of course China is not doing anything brand new. In the recent European history one can quote dozens of such attempts, some were even successful, and I am not talking here about those examples of ethnic cleansing but those of planned marginalisation of local cultures. (not necessarily by doing physical harm to the local population)

I don't cheer to those rioters in Tibet, but I do not cheer to the Chinese government either. One point that shows how dishonest China plays here is the fact that they banned all reporters and cut off as many information routes as they could from the regions in question. Of course its easy to insult the western media to send only rumors from those regions, but its China itself that took care of the fact that nothing else than rumors leave those regions. Rumors, and the official propaganda. Serious independent news coverage does not take place because China did its best to prevent it from taking place. Hence the Chinese criticism on western media sounds hollow to me. (Even though I see that some western media were highly unprofessional in some specific cases, but thats just the usual amount of inability in a media world that looks too much on revenue and too little on quality, I can't see a grand conspiracy that some Chinese nationalists seem to see)

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"Every country gets the cuisine it deserves"

I don't believe that's altogether accurate. The Chinese government put out propaganda stories - for example that security forces were not carrying weapons, and the close focus on the "alleged" Han and Hui deaths while ignoring Tibetan deaths. As for the "alleged" dead Tibetans, well who knows? Since the Chniese authorities chased journalists out of the region we've nothing to go on but rumours from the Tibetans-in-exile and the Chinese government. And personally I've zero confidence in the Chniese government's ability to record Tibetan deaths and arrests accurately. In that environment, yes, the alleged 100+ deaths are going to get reported as a distinct possibility.

I'm aware the "West" is not free from guilt too, either in the quality and bias of reporting here, nor in the wider issues of human rights abuses and government honesty.

As for the wider issue of Tibetan independence, well I agree it's a complicated issue. There's much in Chinese rule that's good for Tibet, and much in the old Lama rule that was bad. But it seems to me that the best judges of what's good for the Tibetan people is the Tibetan people themselves. If the CCP were willing to allow a free and open debate about independence then we'd know what Tibetans really want. Of course, the CCP doesn't allow this free and open debate, and I'm thinking the reason for this is that the CCP suspects the Tibetans will not provide the answer it wants...

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No Fear No Hate No Pain No Broken Hearts

lol Sounds like it, only worse. The US did have many first world nations behind it's ill advised invasion of Iraq, but that still doesn't make it legit. I think though they need to step up thier propaganda skills if they want to try to convince anyone to agree with them though,lol

Chinese government has never been famous for its transparency towards media as we all know it, and I don’t think the expelling of foreign journalists this time was such a good idea either. That being said, I disagree with your statement of “we've got nothing to go on but rumors from the Tibetans-in-exile and the Chinese government”. For example, there are plenty of videos, pictures and stories posted by foreign tourists present in Lhasa, and I cannot imagine that they were all bought out by the Chinese government. From what I read in Chinese media, the central government placed a strict order of not using anti-personnel weapons towards protesters in Lhasa, probably because of the upcoming Olympic game. This was also confirmed by many tourists, as well as Economist’s James Miles. Occasionally they have heard shots fired, but likely due to the tear gas canisters firing. In addition, well over 100 police officers were injured, many seriously, and one died. If they were carrying live weapons and shot into the crowd, I wouldn’t think that the mob would attack them so easily.

Now, the number of Tibetan deaths is a mystery to date. It is definitely to the best interest of the government to downplay this. After all, would you want to instigate further violence by reporting the killing of Tibetans by the police? Eventually we would get a better estimate, but for now, I think the most important thing is to calm the situation down to avoid further loss of lives.

For the record, I am not proud of my government’s tightly controlled media either, and the main purpose of my early response wasn’t to praise their propaganda in case you missed it. I mainly would like to comment on the consequences of the “media gate”. When I was a college student, I often listened to VOA (voice of America) during the morning jog (yes, we could receive it, even at Beijing, back then, at least). I was fascinated and thought that was the voice of just and unbiased journalism. Many years have passed since I came to this country, and that image was long shattered (not necessarily from reports related to China, but just in general, biased journalism is everywhere).

I don’t think I would be able to address the issue of Tibet Independence in a short response here. You have to be aware that Tibet has two meanings: the political Tibet (the TAR) and the ethnographic Tibet (the Great Tibet). The independence that the pro-independence groups were seeking is for the later, which includes a much wider region than the former. Some of these regions were settled by Han Chinese and other minority groups as early as in circa 50 A.D., well over 600 hundred years before the first Tibetan came there. Furthermore, many of these regions have not been under Tibetan’s control for centuries, well before the communists came. Even Dalai Lama himself acknowledged this fact in his letter to Britain in 1949:
The Chinese Communist troops have invaded the Chinese Provinces of Lanchow, Chinghai and Sinkiang; and as these Provinces are situated on the border of Tibet…

Chinghai (Qinghai in Chinese) is also known as Amdo in Tibetan, and you can see from The Official Website of the Central Tibetan Administration that they wanted most of the Qinghai (and many other areas from other Chinese provinces) to be part of Tibet. A lot of non-Tibetan people have lived in these regions for centuries, and made a home there long before the communists came, what would you expect them to do? If there should be a referendum on independence of Tibet, would they have a say? If so, I can tell you that the Tibetan population in the great Tibet is less than the non-Tibetan population, not simply because of the marginalization as some have suggested (I will find the census number later).

Finally, if you think CCP does not allow Tibetans to vote for independence solely because of their concern of losing Tibet, you have not considered the full picture. First of all, there are currently over 4 million Tibetans living in China, 450,000 in Lhasa alone. How many of these near half million resident in Lhasa were engaged in the riots? Honestly, I would be curious to learn the result from such referendum, and I don’t think the result would necessarily be against the CCP’s will. But more importantly, China is a multi-ethnic country with 56 ethnic groups residing there, and Tibet is not the only region of concern. The CCP simply cannot allow Tibet to set a precedent. Even if the result is in their favor, there will be a Domino effect to other hotbeds.

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What we've got here is... failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach. --CHL

As I don’t have much time before I am too sleepy to write anything, I will try to make this short, and I must admit that discussing politics in English is not my strength since I am just a research scientist in medical school raised and educated in China.

I didn’t mean that the riots were portrayed by some media as peaceful protests, as that would not be called unprofessional, but simply lies. Without doing any online search, I could recall seeing statements such as this in some western media shortly after the riot broke out (the exact phrasing may vary):

Peaceful protest by Tibetans erupted into riots as the Chinese police started crackdown... as many as 13 people were reported dead…

Notice the careful choices of words. Who were dead? The report clearly said civilian Han Chinese, why ignore it? If I didn’t learn this from some Chinese news sites first, I would be under the impression that 13 Tibetan protesters were dead, wouldn’t you?

The other important thing to point out is that what led to the violence? Is it the police crackdown? From what I read, some within the protesting crowds started telling stories that some Lamas were killed by police (unconfirmed), which led to anger and riots. Has that been reported?

I don’t see a conspiracy either, but you should know that there were plenty of evidences pointing towards the CIA’s involvement in Tibet after the 1959 uprising (just google “CIA in Tibet”, or youtube it). Like I said, the mistrust will take years to go away.

I didn’t cite any western marginalization attempt to justify the current event, did I? I don’t believe in two wrongs make a right. Although I also disagree with your statement that the government is currently deliberately engaging in marginalize the Tibetans. I will elaborate at a later time.

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What we've got here is... failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach. --CHL

Before I went to bed, I would like to share with you a short youtube presentation:

I need to point out one error in it: in reality, Dalai Lama switched to nonviolent movement several years before he won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Tibetan Buddhism is not the most peaceful religion in the world. In fact, the Chinese Buddhism is a lot more tolerant than it. I don't think Dalai Lama was as bad as portrayed in that video, and I think he did a remarkable job of leaving out the violent part of the Lamaism, and presented the good part to the western world. The PR campaign of the Chinese government, on the other hand, failed miserably.

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What we've got here is... failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach. --CHL

For that your English skills are still far superior to mine

Its not like I read each day all news about Tibet in all media I have access to, but I can't remember having heard that, even though I can not rule it out that it has been said somewhere either.

Its hard to speculate about a vague phrase, but principally you have only biased news here, from both sides, it would be the best to give both versions the equal time. I know this does not happen enough, but Tibet is nothing special, its happening in domestic news coverage as well, that you see bias.

The media in the west are as good as you want them to be. If you look for credible information, you have good chances to find it. Same can not be said about the Chinese media sphere, as far as I see it. There is only one version in the Chinese media: the own.

I read about a nice example in this regard, how unwanted news simply dont appear in China. It happened during the live coverage from Greece about the olympic torch. Some (or at least one) Tibet activist(s) made it to the center of the ceremony to wave a poster. What did the live coverage show? Meadow, until the police forces could tear him away again. (A matter of seconds). It simply did not take place in the live coverage. You might think this is an unimportant incident, which is quite correct, but if you are accepting the effort to manipulate live coverage for something like that, one gets an idea how trustworthy the stories about subjects that really matter are.


Maybe I should also add what I read in an Austrian newspaper though. It was the best comment I have found so far as it was a collection of what real witnesses have reported and not the 3rd copy of some rumor. To sum it up it said, that the violence is coming from the Tibetans, but on the other side it did not make the impression that the Dalai Lhama has much to do with it. The Chinese actions against those demonstrators seem to be described as at least not inappropriate. (no shooting into the masses etc)
Of course if this is all true, the question remains why China fell back into this completely authoritarian information censorship. Why were all foreigners thrown out of the region also against their will? Thats foreign correspondents, they know the risks, if China wants to say it was for safety reasons.

Not that I can remember. What I can remember and what certainly is also correct is that the basic reason for these riots is the Chinese policies towards the Tibetans which looks pretty much like their planned marginalisation and "hanification" of Tibet.

What I read though just recently is, that the Dalai Lhama looses grip over some parts of the young Tibetans. (In his exile, and therefore very likely in Tibet as well). I read a report where some said that the peaceful way officially supported by the Dalai Lhama is not the best and should think about alternatives (guerilla, attacks...).

China seems to do currently its best to undermine the Dalai Lhama and ultimatively destroy him politically. What they don't consider as it seems is that what comes after the success of this task, will not be nicer for China, rather the contrary.

Can't comment on it as I dont know anything about it, but on google or youtube you can also find 100% proof that the CIA is controlled by aliens as well. Principially I would not deem it impossible though, considering the constellation back then and the fact that what China did, did not look all too legitimated either.

It was not my wish to accuse you of something you did not do. I mentioned it to show that I am not speaking from a level of moral superiority. You know, my home country was just 90 years ago a highly multiethnic conglomerat, where no ethnicity was in the position to be the majority, but the German speakers and the Hungarians effectively ruled the country. If you study the history of my country I think you will find everything from completely voluntary assimilation to ethnic cleansing and systematic mass murder and nearly everything in between. There is indeed an impressive number of possibilities to marginalize minority cultures.

No official will say that of course, but I will be enlightened to hear your perspective on this issue later on.

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"Every country gets the cuisine it deserves"