I laughed and asked back, living under gunpoint day and night, being followed by snipers even when going to the temple to pray, how can there be any sense of happiness?

A few days later, this absolutely absurd news was released: CCTV’s financial channel, ‘CCTV Economic Life Survey’ announced the results of a happiness measuring survey in which Lhasa won the first prize and was awarded the “2010 City With the Happiest People”. I remembered that it was not the first time that Lhasa was considered the “happiest”. I did a quick search on the internet and found that this was a survey carried out by China’s largest media corporation and had been running for the fifth year in a row; Lhasa had been called the  “happiest” for the fourth time in a row, it had always been the first out of a hundred Chinese cities. The only one time when Lhasa did not come in first, it was still rated third and wasn’t this one time in 2008? As everyone knows, in March 2008 the protests that erupted and spread over the whole of Tibet started in Lhasa, so if Lhasa people were all this “happy”, why would they protest?

Beijing Review provided a more general look at the survey, including the relationship between income and happiness:

According to the survey, income may be a double-edged sword. At lower income levels, more income corresponds to greater happiness. However, at higher income levels this relationship breaks down.

The positive effect of income on happiness is obvious in families with income less than 20,000 yuan ($3,000) per year, which represents about half of all families in China. For high-income families, however, the relationship of income to happiness is less clear. For example, the percentages of “very happy” and “very unhappy” people in high-income families are both higher than the average.

This has some resonance with findings in, for example, the United States. From the Wall Street Journal:

It turns out there is a specific dollar number, or income plateau, after which more money has no measurable effect on day-to-day contentment.

The magic income: $75,000 a year. As people earn more money, their day-to-day happiness rises. Until you hit $75,000. After that, it is just more stuff, with no gain in happiness.

That doesn’t mean wealthy and ultrawealthy are equally happy. More money does boost people’s life assessment, all the way up the income ladder. People who earned $160,000 a year, for instance, reported more overall satisfaction than people earning $120,000, and so on.

“Giving people more income beyond 75K is not going to do much for their daily mood … but it is going to make them feel they have a better life,” Mr. Deaton told the Associated Press.

He added that, “As an economist I tend to think money is good for you, and am pleased to find some evidence for that.”

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Post tags: government propaganda, Lhasa riots, Lhasa unrest, Tibet
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The report, released on Wednesday night, said security officers, mostly ethnic Han members of the People’s Armed Police, a paramilitary branch charged with domestic security, used disproportionate force in trying to control Tibetans, including against women, teenagers, monks and nuns.

In at least three cases, security officers fired live ammunition into crowds and killed people, the report said, citing witness accounts. In several protests, security forces used batons or other weapons to beat unarmed protesters until they were bloody and motionless, the report said. Hundreds of detainees remain missing.

The report also traced the origins of the deadly ethnic rioting in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, to brutal attempts by security forces to suppress a peaceful protest by monks on March 10, four days before the riots broke out.

In a faxed statement to the Washington Post, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Qin Gang refutes a number of the claims made in the HRW report:

In response, China’s foreign ministry spokesman, Qin Gang, in a statement faxed to The Washington Post in Beijing, said Human Rights Watch “always has prejudice toward China.”

“It was absolutely not so-called ‘peaceful protest’ or ‘non violence’ behavior, but severe violent crimes, which caused serious loss to the lives and property of the local people and destroyed the order of the local society seriously,” Qin said.

Qin said the security forces in Tibet acted “in accordance with the law and in a civilized manner from the beginning to the end.” He added, “The judicial rights of the defendants were fully guaranteed, as well as their ethnic customs and personal dignity. This is the fact.”

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Post tags: human rights watch, Lhasa riots
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It was the much the same as on March 28, 2008, when the monk, Norgye, and dozens of fellow monks barged into a temple chamber where foreign journalists were being escorted around by Chinese government officials. The monks had then cried out, “Tibet is not free.” This time, on Tuesday, Norgye had a different message: he had been punished through patriotic re-education, and he had repented.

“I wasn’t beaten or tortured,” he said. “We had to learn more about the law. Through education about the law, I realized what we had done in the past was wrong and was against the law.”

Norgye, 29, who like many Tibetans goes by one name, was speaking in the ancient inner sanctum of Lhasa’s Jokhang Temple, the holiest shrine in Tibetan Buddhism. During the 10-minute interview, he was watched carefully by government employees from Beijing and Lhasa, as well as by Laba, an older monk who was the director of the temple’s administrative office. They were the escorts for a group of foreign journalists who were on a tightly scripted, five-day government tour of the Tibet Autonomous Region, which is usually closed to foreign journalists.

The manner in which the interview was monitored, with Laba interrupting several times as Norgye spoke, reflected the Chinese government’s anxiety about anything in Tibet that contradicts the official line.

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Post tags: Lhasa riots, Tibet
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Their presence is so common that people in Lhasa were startled last week when the uniformed patrols seemingly disappeared. In their place, fit young men with military crewcuts — some wearing yellow and black track suits — marched in groups. The reason: a rare visit to the tense Tibetan capital by foreign reporters arranged by the government.

“Walking in the streets of the Barkhor and other parts of Lhasa, I realized all the army people had become plain-clothed overnight. Only today I learned that it was because the journalists were visiting,” said a Tibetan woman who declined to give her name for fear of official retribution.

This week opens an always edgy time in Lhasa: two weeks of anniversaries marking a Tibetan revolt in 1959 that failed, led Tibet’s theocratic ruler the Dalai Lama to flee into exile and brought the long-isolated, Himalayan region under Beijing’s direct control. In 2008, demonstrations that sputtered for days flared into a riot on March 14. Sympathy protests spread to Tibetan communities across a quarter of west China — the widest uprising against Chinese rule in a half-century.

Many Tibetan areas have lived under smothering security ever since and are unsteadily struggling to find normalcy amid the intrusive policing and a mix of government threats and economic incentives to toe the line.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2010. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Lhasa riots, Tibet
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A foreign ministry spokesman, Ma Zhaoxu, said two men had been put to death, and declined to provide further details. Overseas Tibetan groups have identified the dead as Lobsang Gyaltsen and Loyak.

Lobsang Gyaltsen was sentenced to death this year for an arson attack that killed a shop owner in Lhasa, according to a report at the time by Xinhua news agency. Loyak was handed the same penalty for starting a blaze at a motorcycle shop that killed five people, the agency said.

The US-funded Radio Free Asia said Lobsang Gyaltsen was allowed a visit by his mother before he was executed. “I have nothing to say, except please take good care of my child and send him to school,” he was quoted as telling her.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: death penalty, Lhasa riots, Tibet
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There is a story that the Chinese government likes to tell: that China is the world’s oldest continuous, unchanging civilization (the dates vary, according to the exuberance of the moment, from 2,000 to a mythical 5,000 years). This unique history, the story continues, will determine China’s future. In this narrative of Chinese exceptionalism, the leadership remains immune to demands for democracy or any resemblance to other developed countries. The government hopes that this story will prove persuasive enough for the Communist Party to keep the Mandate of Heaven and avoid challenges to its exclusive right to rule for the foreseeable future.

It’s a curious story for a Communist Party and very different to the earlier myths of origin. Where once it promoted class struggle and revolution, today’s party invokes history and tradition in support of its right to rule. In its latest identification with the imperial orders of the past, the regime is even restoring Confucianism as the core state narrative.

[...] In a globalized world, China’s troubles are everybody’s troubles and the U.S. has little interest in seeing them grow. But China’s solutions, to date, are unlikely to help. The revolt of the minorities is only a symptom of a wider political malaise. Even taken together, their numbers, compared to the overwhelming majority of Han Chinese, are small. But the indignation and resentment that burst into view in Xinjiang in Tibet are also visible, for a wide variety of reasons, in the Han population. As Xu Zhiyong, one of the founders of the OCI put it in a withering public statement of protest at the centre’s closure:

“It’s not us causing trouble, and the tens of thousands of mass incidents every year aren’t caused by us …. On the contrary, we strive to bring into line the contradictions caused by corrupt officials, we advocate absolute nonviolence and we hope we can ameliorate some of the endless hate and conflicts in our society… do not let this country once more be dragged by those in power to a place where we are dead but not buried…”

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Post tags: ethnic tensions, Imperialism, Lhasa riots, social unrest, Xinjiang protests 2009
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Dui Hua has obtained and produced English translations of the indictment and verdict (original documents in PDF) for a previously unknown case of a Tibetan sentenced to three years in prison for “inciting splittism” after the March 14 riots in Lhasa. The case against Gonpo Tserang (贡保才让), a well-respected expedition guide who has trekked with foreign celebrities and participated in high-profile mountain rescue efforts, involved a series of emails and text messages sent over three days to acquaintances outside of China. These messages, which prosecutors claim “distorted the facts and true situation regarding social stability in the Tibetan area following the ‘March 14 incident” were considered by the court to be deserving of severe punishment.

This case is significant in a number of respects. First, it is the only case Dui Hua is aware of in which a Tibetan in Yunnan Province has been convicted of a state security crime following the Tibetan protests of 2008. Second, it is not at all apparent that the charge of “inciting splittism” was properly applied. The content of the messages is never specified, and it is questionable whether individuals who are not located in China are even capable of carrying out acts that would “split the nation or undermine national unity.” An argument could thus be made that, never imagining that his messages could “incite splittism,” Gonpo Tserang did not intend to do so. This is perhaps an argument that an attorney could have raised in his defense. Unfortunately, it appears that, at least for his appeal, Gonpo Tserang was not represented by counsel—very likely a result of the reluctance of most lawyers to take on criminal defense work in political cases and the threats made warning of serious consequences for lawyers who volunteered to defend Tibetans.

Below is an excerpt of Gongbo Tserang’s indictment and verdict, translated by Dui Hua:

Defendant Gonpo Tserang, male, born December 13, 1976, identification number: 523232197612131519, from Ruoergai [Dzoege] County, Aba [Ngaba] Prefecture, Sichuan Province, understands Tibetan and English and [is employed as a] guide in the expeditions department of the Xianggelila Travel Service. Prior to arrest, resided at 3-1-2 Old Civil Aviation Development, Jiantang Town, Xianggelila County. Placed under criminal detention by the Diqing Prefecture Public Security Bureau on March 23, 2008, on suspicion of inciting splittism. On April 26 of the same year, after approval from our procuratorate, he was arrested by the Diqing Prefecture Public Security Bureau in accordance with the law. He is now in custody and has no prior criminal record.

The Diqing Prefecture Public Security Bureau completed its investigation and sent the case of Gonpo Tserang, suspected of the crime of inciting splittism, to our procuratorate on June 25, 2008, for review and prosecution. After receiving the case, we notified the defendant of his right to retain defense counsel, questioned the defendant in accordance with the law, and reviewed all of the case materials. On July 31, 2008, the case was sent back to the Diqing Prefecture Public Security Bureau for additional investigation, and on August 29 the bureau concluded its investigation and reported [its findings] back to our procuratorate.

Following investigation in accordance with the law, it was ascertained that from March 16 to 18, 2008, defendant Gonpo Tserang used the Internet and a mobile telephone to send inflammatory emails and messages that distorted the facts and true situation regarding social stability in the Tibetan area following the “March 14 incident” to Daiwei, Jimu, and Pan Feilaici, [who were all] outside the country.

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Post tags: courts, judiciary, legal system, Lhasa riots, Tibet, Translation
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That daring protest, in April 2008, was transmitted around the world by the journalists on the government tour, putting a dramatic face on Tibetan defiance. Chinese officials had brought the journalists to the sprawling Labrang Monastery, in the town of Xiahe to show that Tibetans were content under Chinese rule, despite the widespread Tibetan uprising the previous month. The enraged monks, about 15 in all, punctured the official narrative.

“If we monks hadn’t seized the opportunity to express our feelings, which are feelings in all Tibetan monks, then we would have missed a chance to tell the world,” said Lobsang, 24, a squat man with a thin goatee who now lives in India. Following Tibetan custom, he goes by his given name.

The journalists left later that afternoon without knowing the names or the fates of the protesters. Some would be arrested and beaten, Lobsang said. For him and two other monks, it was the start of a harrowing year of flight from the Chinese authorities that ended only last month, when they arrived in this Himalayan hill town where the Dalai Lama lives in exile.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2009. | Permalink | 18 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Labrang Monastery, Lhasa riots, Tibet
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A Chinese court has decided at the last minute to postpone judgment on a Tibetan living Buddha who faces 15 years in jail on charges of possessing illegal weapons and illegally seizing government land.

[...]Legal experts said that such a move was rare for a Chinese court and could indicate that the unusually spirited defence presented in court and the international publicity the case has attracted could have prompted unexpected debate among judicial officials over the sentence.

[...]The monk, the fifth incarnation of a revered Buddhist teacher, known by the title of Burongma, was arrested on March 18 last year, four days after nuns from two religious houses over which he presides took to the streets in demonstrations just as deadly rioting erupted in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa.

[...]Phurbu Rinpoche denies possession of the weapon [found in his home] and says that he signed a confession under police duress.

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Post tags: arrests, Ganzi, Lhasa riots, Phurbu Rinpoche, Tibet protests
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According to the Xinhua news agency, Lobsang Gyaltsen will be executed for arson attacks on two garment shops in central Lhasa on 14 March that killed a shop owner. The same sentence was handed down to Loyak for torching a motorcycle dealership in Deqen Township, which left five people dead, it said.

Suspended death penalties were passed on an accomplice, Kangtsuk, and on Tenzin Phuntsok who reportedly confessed to starting a separate lethal fire. A fifth defendant is still being tried.

“The three arson cases are among the crimes that led to the worst consequences in the 14 March riot,” the court spokeseman was quoted by Xinhua as saying. “Their crimes incurred great losses to people’s lives and property and severely undermine the social order, security and stability.”

Christian Science Monitor correspondent Peter Ford writes on his blog that the news was officially released by Xinhua in English before it was reported in the domestic media:

Bizarrely, the news first appeared Wednesday evening on the English-language service of the state-run Xinhua news agency. But nowhere was it to be found on the Chinese language service for another 24 hours.

That meant that, while the world knew, not a single paper in China ran a story Thursday about the first death sentences known to have been passed on Tibetans for last year’s riots, on individuals identified as Losang Gyaltse and Loyar – except the government-run “Tibetan Daily,” published in Lhasa, Tibet’s capital.

They put it in their hard-copy edition, but for some reason it was not findable on their website until Thursday afternoon. Only then did a handful of news portals elsewhere on the Chinese Web pick the story up.

Meanwhile, the Guardian reports that negotiations between Beijing and the TIbetan government-in-exile have stalled:

Speaking in London today, Kelsang Gyaltsen, the Dalai Lama’s envoy and chief negotiator, said the Tibetan leader remained committed to dialogue but he admitted the talks process was at a halt and that no new meetings were planned. The Dalai Lama was waiting for a sign from Beijing that it was serious about resolving Tibet’s myriad problems, he said. Meanwhile Tibetans wanted a “strong and clear” position by the international community to step up pressure on China.

Gyaltsen said China had imposed “undeclared martial law” in Tibet in recent months and had greatly increased its military presence to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the first Tibetan uprising. Chinese forces had penetrated even the remotest areas and were building barracks in preparation for a long occupation, he said. Officials said repressive measures, including torture, remain in widespread use. A massive Chinese propaganda effort to “whitewash their subjugation of the Tibetan people” was underway at home and abroad in parallel with the continued banning of independent foreign media.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2009. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Lhasa riots, Tibet coverage, Tibet Dialogue
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