But it doesn’t prevent “the mouth that bite the hand that feed her” Woesser from going to Tibet and do her “investigation” until she start take photos which is forbidden in China

Last time I check she is still free to spread her lie and even give interview to foreign correspondent

Caller: “Hello, may I speak to Mekar?”
Response: [Crackle, beep, beep...click]

I think there’s a very different dynamic at work in Tibet than in other places under Beijing’s rule. Unless a story really crosses a line into sensitivity elsewhere (such as in the case of the Dongzhou or Taishi Village incidents), you can usually follow up on it. And the Chinese practice of sending reporters to other provinces (away from where their papers are based) to carry out investigative journalism is still very much alive, despite new regulations.

But in Tibet you basically don’t have domestic investigative journalism. There is nothing vaguely analogous to the “Southern Metropolis Daily” in Lhasa–or even anything like the rowdy right-wing Global Times. Why? Because Tibet is essentially run like an occupation–regardless of what you think of China’s right to be there, this much must be admitted.

So, things can be made up. The same happens in occupations around the world. Ever hear of Jessica Lynch? Her story was basically created out of thin air by the Pentagon.

Therefore, Tashi, along with his mother and three doctors and nurses, was transferred Thursday to the West China Hospital under the Sichuan University in the provincial capital of Chengdu, one of the best hospitals in Sichuan.

http://www.rfa.org/english/news/tibet/new-year-03052009135920.html

http://www.rfa.org/english/multimedia/SlideshowChineseForcesSwarmTibet-03032009165833.html

Tibet Proper is CLOSED to all foreigners and journalists. Look at just a few of the many pictures available that show hundreds of Chinese armed guards, SS, Police, etc all over Kham and Amdo. The PRC knows the obvious. NO Tibetan wants to be governed by the Chinese, or by any acting Tibetan Chinese-puppet. Dont get it complicated with all the tactical complexities that CCTV, China Daily, Xinhua tries to throw in the pot. It’s very simple..Tibetans just want to live as Tibetans (Period). And since the PRC colonialists will not allow this basic human right…then YES, Tibetans will want Independence or at least a true Autonomy.

The report itself give enough details like his mother name. Hell if you have relative in Tibet maybe you can confirm it by telephone look for Mekar

“From the bottom of my heart, I very much appreciate the doctors, nurses and the government officials in Aba,” Tashi’s mother, 44-year-old Mekar, told Xinhua Thursday.”
http://www.china.org.cn/china/news/2009-03/05/content_17384798.htm

Xinhua (and the state media generally) have made it a policy to be much more prompt about reporting “sensitive” stories and to report them in more detail. But this change has mainly been driven by a desire to control the way stories develop, as I understand it.

It is worth noting that Xinhua wouldn’t have responded at all to this incident if it wasn’t first reported elsewhere. And Xinhua rarely “discovers” that a situation is worse than than it was initially reported—they tend to try to balance things out, make a tragedy seem mundane, insinuate foreign interference, etc.

Activist groups reported police shot the monk when he protested in the flashpoint area of Aba in southwest China’s Sichuan province last week, and residents there contacted by AFP confirmed that they had heard guns fired.

But the Xinhua news agency issued a report on Thursday saying another monk had confessed to making up allegations about the police shooting, and cited residents saying they heard no firing.

“Jangkor, a monk at the Kirti Monastery in Aba County… said that he lied to ‘create greater disturbances so as to attract attention from overseas’,” Xinhua said, citing local police.

It also said the monk who tried to set himself alight, 24-year-old Tashi, had no bullet wounds and was recovering at a hospital in the provincial capital Chengdu.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090306/wl_afp/chinaunresttibetrightspolice_20090306081859

But the article by Shimatsu is a good example of twisted facts and cover-up by the PRC and her puppets. These Tibetans were shouting “Free Tibet” (Bhor Rangzen) as they road their horses to the government buildings and REPLACED THE CHINESE FLAG WITH THE TIBETAN NATIONAL FLAG!!! How could you possibly make a bigger statement!! There is no Tibetan who wants to be under the rule of foreign powers. Come on George it’s obvious. Stop fleecing your eyes. With the additional point of this article: the Tibetan monk shot by Chinese police as he was burning alive!

I still think you are being overly reductive by boiling down India and China’s differences to merely their different political systems, democracy and authoritarianism. As I said (and you never addressed), the most democratic states in India like Kerala are the best managed and the most developed by many measures–and they were democratic first, developed later.

So, my hunch is that there are other factors at work. The fact that India was essentially a bunch of local fiefdoms with only fitful central rule before the British took over may be one. The form that British rule took, with its emergency powers for the center and bureaucracy at the local level, may be another factor. India’s constant diversion of conflicts with Pakistan and Kashmir (India’s Tibet, in a way) are others.

Perhaps democracy, too, has been a problem for India, but I need more proof than just the fact that India has a parliamentary system and China doesn’t. India has the Ganges and China doesn’t. What does it prove? You have to map out the link.

The Kuznets curve idea is interesting, but it’s not a universal phenomenon. Taiwan, for example, stayed at more or less the same level of income inequality as it grew. The same was true for India, incidentally, too. Mind you, I’m not commenting on how much they grew, but just that as they grew they did not see a Kuznets curve. Some countries, though, have indeed seen greater inequality accompany growth and then greater equality again after a certain point. It’s not a hard and fast rule, in other words.

In general, I think you and I just have different philosophies. You are essentially right wing in outlook: reading stuff from conservative think tanks like AEI, praising military governments and fascists in places like South Korea and Chile, and speaking approvingly of tough measures against the “drecks of society.” Fine, there’s a long tradition of you guys. I, on the other hand, am on the left: skeptical of some people getting rich first (and Kuznets), inclined toward social democratic and democratic socialist government’s like Scandinavia’s or Allende’s, and sympathetic to the weak taking tough measures themselves. I like the drecks of society!

If we’re basically at ideological loggerheads, there’s not much further this conversation can go. I was hoping we could get out of the bind by focusing on practical matters in Tibet, but you didn’t take me up on it. Well, so be it.

http://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=A0oGkwtq.q9JsgwA7qNXNyoA?p=+shimatsu+tibet&y=Search&fr=yfp-t-501