China Digital Times

China news tagged with: Tibet (369)

• Tibetan Monks Tell Tale of Escape From China

  

  The New York Times follows up with monks who staged a public protest during a visit to their monastery by foreign journalists in April 2008, following widespread protests throughout Tibetan areas:

  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.

  » Read more
  • June 20, 2009 7:28 PM

• Tibet Drought Worst In 30 Years: Chinese State Media

  

  From AFP:

  A drought in Tibet has intensified into the region’s worst in three decades, leaving thousands of hectares parched and killing more than 13,000 head of cattle, China’s state media said Saturday.

  The report by Xinhua news agency follows a warning by China’s top weather official last month that the Himalayan region faced a growing threat of drought and floods as global warming melts its glaciers.

  Drought conditions have hit five of Tibet’s six prefectures since last year, affecting 15.3 percent of the remote plateau, Xinhua said, quoting the regional drought relief and flood control headquarters.

  » Read more
  • June 20, 2009 2:52 AM

• Impasse With China Erodes Dalai Lama’s Patience

  

  From Christian Science Monitor:

  China’s ramped up criticism of Europe’s embrace of the Dalai Lama hasn’t effectively blunted popular support here for the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader. And European politicians are still giving him a platform.

  During a visit to Europe that ended in Paris Monday, the Tibetan offered a new and more urgent plea for help as well as a break with decades of a “turn the other cheek” policy. The change comes amid a Chinese crackdown in Tibet that began last year over broad dissatisfaction among Tibetans with Chinese policy, and an uprising among monks. [Editor's note: The original version misstated the timing of the visit.]

  The Dalai Lama may not be welcome in Tibet’s capital of Lhasa. But several European cities have made him an honorary citizen. Rome and Venice gave him the title in February. He is expected to be given the keys to the City of Warsaw in July. On Sunday, he became an honorary citizen of Paris.

  » Read more
  • June 10, 2009 11:29 PM

• Failed Government Policies Sparked Tibet Riots

  

  Austin Ramzy reports from Beijing, for Time Magazine:

  A new report from a group of Chinese scholars has for the first time challenged China’s official explanation that the deadly riots that broke out across Tibet in March, 2008, were inspired by “overseas forces” — namely the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government-in-exile. (Read “One Year After Protests, an Enforced Silence on Tibet.”)

  The report, which was recently published on a Chinese website, blames the riots not on outsiders but on Beijing’s policy toward Tibet, claiming the central government has backed incompetent local officials, created an economy that provides few options for young people, and deprived Tibetans of access to equal justice under the law. (See pictures of last year’s uprising in Tibet.)

  While international human rights groups have said the rioting, in which at least 19 died, was a predictable response to the repression many Tibetans experience under Chinese rule, domestic criticism of the government on the politically charged subject of Tibet is rare in China.

  » Read more
  • May 26, 2009 2:32 PM

• Chinese Think Tank Investigation Report of 3.14 Incident in Tibet

  

  From foolsmountain blog:

  Chinese think-tank (公盟法律研究中心/Beijing Gongmeng Consulting Co., Ltd. ) established by Beijing University law professors, and joined by several Beijing economics professors. Following the unrest and demonstrations in Tibet which started Mach 10th, 2009, they decided to see for themselves what was really happening in Tibet by visiting Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, and Labrang, outside Tibet Autonomous Region.

  Their findings are astonishing. They find that a new Tibetan aristocracy has taken over power. This aristocracy is even worse than the old Tibetan aristocracy. In the old system the aristocracy was reliant on some sort of accord and agreement with the people, since they were dependent on the people to pay taxes. The new aristocracy get all their funding directly for Beijing (Central government) due to “stability” reasons, and thus they do not have any incentive to care about the well-being of Tibetans.

  They show how the new aristocracy cover up their own shortcomings in governance and lack of qualifications by pointing fingers at foreign forces and the Dalai Lama. This new aristocracy came to power in the cultural revolution. In other parts of China, this type of unqualified leadership was purged in the 80s, but in Tibet (due to their absolute loyality to Beijing), they were kept in power, up untill today.

  They point to specific educational policy problems and find that the younger generation of Tibetans who grew up in a “liberated” Tibet has stronger Tibetan national identity than the elder generation.

  The report can be found here (in Chinese).

  » Read more
  • May 20, 2009 10:12 PM

• Podcast: Can the Internet Bring Democracy to China?

  

  From the Council on Foreign Relations:

  Xiao Qiang, director of the China Internet Project and an adjunct professor at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, says the Chinese Communist Party seems increasingly inclined to try to use the Internet as a tool to gauge public opinion on local issues. At the same time, he says, it seems bent on strongly policing online dialogue to keep a handle on public opinion.

  Qiang says strong Internet voices are emerging in favor of democratic reforms in China. He notes that this strain of opinion can at time conflict with nationalistic voices in the country, such as those that emerged in response to last year’s pro-Tibet rallies, which have also been amplified by the Internet. But Qiang says nationalistic and reform-oriented voices also overlap. “The same people who are very nationalistic” on issues like Tibet can be “very vocal to support political reform,” he says. Qiang says the “jury is still out” on what China’s experience with the Internet says about the medium as a democratizing factor. He stresses, however, that the Internet has proved to be a liberal force for the Chinese society, and could, in the long run, lead to a less repressive government in the country.

  Please click here to listen to the interview.

  Image source: Daihua’s Art Space.

  » Read more
  • May 18, 2009 4:28 PM

• Will Obama Meet With China’s Nemesis, Dalai Lama?

  

  U.S. President Barack Obama’s possible meeting with the Dalai Lama is a question on many people’s minds. From Foster Klug of the Associated Press:

  A closely watched visit is set to take place in October, when a frail, 74-year-old Buddhist monk seeks an audience with President Barack Obama.

  Obama must make a delicate calculation as he considers a meeting with the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibet’s Buddhists, seen by his supporters as a symbol of peace but vilified by China as a “wolf in monk’s robes” who seeks to split Tibet from the rest of China.

  Whatever Obama decides about the visit will spark anger.

  Meeting with the Dalai Lama, as every president since George H.W. Bush has done, would infuriate China, whose help the United States sees as crucial to global economic recovery efforts and dealing with nuclear standoffs in North Korea and Iran.

  » Read more
  • April 21, 2009 9:52 PM

• John Duffell: China’s Latest PR Campaign… in Malawi

  

  As has been widely reported, the Chinese government is launching a massive “external propaganda” mission by providing substantial funding to create media that will be broadcast and distributed overseas. Apparently, this effort includes Malawi, where a blogger noticed a 12-page supplement in his daily paper extolling the virtues of China’s policies in Tibet. From Letters from Namitembo:

  I have been told by the paper’s Advertising Manager that the Chinese Embassy in Malawi is responsible for the ad. I managed to contact the Managing Editor of the paper as well, and I asked him why they printed an advertisement designed to disguise itself as editorial content, and why, instead of clarifying that it was indeed advertising, the paper thought it necessary to incorporate their own logo into the layout of the advertising spread - thereby giving the impression that this advertising content was, in fact, approved by the Daily Times of being “worthy” of its brand. The managing editor insisted that the text reading “ADVERTISING” in the corner of each page provided all the necessary clarification.

  When asked whether anyone who wanted could write up a news story - no matter its truth or falsehood - and run it in his paper as advertising, the Managing Editor told me no - there are standards in place, and each advertisement is carefully screened to see if it is worthy of being printed in The Daily Times. The Chinese Embassy’s advertisement, he said, passed this test.

  At this point, he began to make some accusations. He accused me of trying to get him sacked from his job, of hating the Chinese, and of being from Tibet myself (though I speak with an American accent) - or being a covert agent of Tibet.

  The blogger has scanned all 12 pages of the “advertorial” and posted the images on Flickr.

  » Read more
  • April 7, 2009 10:02 AM

• China Will Reopen Tibet to Tourists (Updated)

  

  According to the head of Tibet’s tourism industry, the region is now “harmonious and safe” for foreign tourists. More from The New York Times:

  The Chinese government will reopen Tibet to foreign tourists on April 5 after a nearly six-week ban, according to the state-run news agency Xinhua.

  Foreign tourists were barred from visiting Tibet in late February before the 50th anniversary of a failed rebellion against Chinese rule. Security was stepped up in the Tibet Autonomous Region and border areas. The anniversary passed on Saturday without serious unrest.

  Update: The Dalai Lama has called on the Chinese government to open Tibet to tourists and journalists. From Bloomberg:

  At a press conference in New Delhi on the 50th anniversary of his arrival in India as a refugee, Tibet’s Buddhist spiritual leader accused China of covering up violent oppression of its 6 million Tibetans. He criticized its suppression of a video this month that his government in exile says shows Chinese policemen beating a Tibetan, who died last year from his injuries.

  China accused the exile government of fabricating the video and blocked the YouTube Web site, which posted it. The Dalai Lama, whose aides reaffirmed the video’s authenticity, said family members of the dead man, a China Mobile Limited employee named Tendar, have disappeared.

  China’s official news agency, Xinhua, has said Tendar was beaten after attacking a policeman with a knife and died of an unidentified disease, rather than his injuries.

  “If conditions in Tibet are really good, there is no reason to expel all the foreigners, all the tourists, all the media people,” the Dalai Lama said. China has barred or detained at least 10 reporters for foreign news organizations who tried to visit ethnic Tibetan regions, the Foreign Correspondents Club of China said this month.

  » Read more
  • March 30, 2009 4:06 PM

• Analysts Dismiss ‘Cyber Spy’ Claims

  

  Yesterday, Chinese analysts weighed in on allegations that China is the base of a large cyber spy system. From China Daily:

  China was accused of using malicious software to infiltrate and take control of almost 1,300 computers in 103 countries, including those used in several foreign ministries, embassies and the private office of the exiled Tibetan politician.

  “This is purely another political issue that the West is trying to exaggerate,” said Song Xiaojun, a Beijing-based strategy and military analyst. “As China grows, some in the West are trying every opportunity to manufacture fears over China’s threat.”

  The claims were made in The Snooping Dragon: Social Malware Surveillance of the Tibetan Movement, a report released by the Information Warfare Monitor, which is made up of researchers from an Ottawa-based think tank and the University of Toronto, reported the New York Times.

  » Read more
  • March 30, 2009 2:47 PM

• Vast Spy System Loots Computers in 103 Countries (Updated)

  

  From The New York Times:

  A vast electronic spying operation has infiltrated computers and has stolen documents from hundreds of government and private offices around the world, including those of the Dalai Lama, Canadian researchers have concluded.

  In a report to be issued this weekend, the researchers said that the system was being controlled from computers based almost exclusively in China, but that they could not say conclusively that the Chinese government was involved.

  The researchers, who are based at the Munk Center for International Studies at the University of Toronto, had been asked by the office of the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan leader whom China regularly denounces, to examine its computers for signs of malicious software, or malware.

  Their sleuthing opened a window into a broader operation that, in less than two years, has infiltrated at least 1,295 computers in 103 countries, including many belonging to embassies, foreign ministries and other government offices, as well as the Dalai Lama’s Tibetan exile centers in India, Brussels, London and New York.

  Update: Spy chiefs fear Chinese cyber attack from the Times Online:

  INTELLIGENCE chiefs have warned that China may have gained the capability to shut down Britain by crippling its telecoms and utilities.

  They have told ministers of their fears that equipment installed by Huawei, the Chinese telecoms giant, in BT’s new communications network could be used to halt critical services such as power, food and water supplies.
  The warnings coincide with growing cyberwarfare attacks on Britain by foreign governments, particularly Russia and China.

  A confidential document circulating in Whitehall says that while BT has taken steps to reduce the risk of attacks by hackers or organised crime, “we believe that the mitigating measures are not effective against deliberate attack by China”.

  » Read more
  • March 28, 2009 4:17 PM

• Elliot Sperling: Tibet as ‘Hell on Earth’

  

  Elliot Sperling, professor at Indiana University, writes for the Far Eastern Economic Review about Chinese government propaganda about Tibet:

  There’s no doubt that Tibet’s traditional society was hierarchical and backwards, replete with aristocratic estates and a bound peasantry. And there’s no doubt that Tibetans, whether in exile or in Tibet voice no desire to restore such a society. Many Tibetans will readily admit that the social structure was highly inegalitarian. But it was hardly the cartoonish, cruel “Hell-on-Earth” that Chinese propaganda has portrayed it to be. Lost in most discussions is an understanding that Tibet’s demographic circumstances (a small population in a relatively large land area) served to mitigate the extent of exploitation. The situation was quite the reverse of China’s in the early 20th century, where far too little land for the large population allowed for severe exploitation by landowners. China’s categorization of Tibetan society as feudal (technically, a problematic characterization) obscures the fact that this socially backwards society, lacking the population pressures found elsewhere, simply didn’t break down as it ought to have and continued functioning smoothly into the 20th century. Inegalitarian? Yes. Sometimes harsh? Yes. But Hell-on-Earth for the vast majority of Tibetans? No. Traditional Tibetan society was not without its cruelties (the punishments visited on some political victims were indeed brutal), but seen proportionally, they paled in comparison to what transpired in China in the same period. In modern times mass flight from Tibet actually only happened after Tibet’s annexation to the People’s Republic of China.

  » Read more
  • March 27, 2009 9:49 PM

• Austin Ramzy: Why China’s Block on YouTube Is Backfiring

  

  Austin Ramzy explains why blocking YouTube undermines the Chinese government’s claim that the video of Chinese policemen beating Tibetan detainees after the March 2008 Lhasa riots is faked.  From The China Blog at Time.com:

  [...]the nature of the Internet has changed. The importance of photo, video and blog hosting sites has grown dramatically. While we in the mainstream media like to consider ourselves indispensable, the fact is that we are ultimately just news. Blocking YouTube, Flickr or WordPress not only restricts access to videos, photos and blog posts related to specific news events, it also impedes people trying to view the latest Kanye West video, pictures of their friend’s ski trip or their favorite blog on Korean pop stars. In other words, it screws with a whole bunch of folks’ programs.

  And lastly, what’s blocked/what’s not is an easily reported story for people writing from China. You don’t have to leave your desk or even pick up the phone. It’s all there on your computer screen. The censors rarely explain their motivation, leaving everyone free to hypothesize. That’s all fat on the fryer.

  But I sense this shift in how people cover the Internet in China may be lost on the government. Last weekend individual YouTube pages carrying the Tibet video were blocked here, which wasn’t a much of a story. Now the entire site is blocked, and the censorship and the Tibet video itself have all become subjects of international interest. Beijing says the video is faked and that it’s not afraid of the Internet. But blocking YouTube makes the very opposite statement. If Beijing has proof the video is fake, then detailing that would be far more devastating to the overseas Tibetans’ assertions than blocking YouTube. But for now it’s relying on equally fuzzy claims, further ensuring this story won’t go away.

  See also CDT’s previous post on Voice of America’s graphic video which claims to show Chinese police beating bound Tibetan protestors last March.

  » Read more
  • March 26, 2009 2:46 PM

• Jian Junbo : Sino-EU ties hijacked by Tibet issue

  

  From the Asia Times Online:

  This month, the European Union (EU) parliament passed a resolution on the Tibet issue, urging the Chinese government to resume dialogue with the Tibetan spiritual leader in exile, the Dalai Lama, for “real autonomy for Tibet”. However, a Chinese government spokesperson immediately rejected this, saying the call was interference in China’s “internal affairs”.

  Not only the EU, but also all of its member states acknowledge that the Tibet Autonomous Region is a part of China, and they all adhere to the “one-China” policy, at least according to their laws and official statements.

  » Read more
  • March 26, 2009 1:02 PM

• Woeser: “The Snow-Lion Roaring in the Year of the Mouse: A Chronicle of the Events in Tibet of 2008″

  

  Tibetan writer Woeser has published a new book in Chinese titled “The Snow-Lion Roaring in the Year of the Mouse: A Chronicle of the Events in Tibet of 2008″. The preface to the book, which was published in Taiwan, has been translated into English and can be found at the High Peaks Pure Earth blog:

  On the night of the “Incident of March 14”, a young man who was there in Lhasa and experienced it in person (he was later taken innocently into custody for more than 50 days), whereas I was in Beijing, said to me: “in fact, we are very weak, although we always say “nation” and “Tibet”, we are only paying lip service. When disasters happen, it’s the ordinary people who are braver than us and are always going ahead regardless of anything.” Yes, the situation was often like this - when many people shouted out loud their accumulated rancour that they had kept inside for so long, more people hid aside to keep their silence. Me too, I was silent, and silent for so many days. The reasons were not the everyday risks, for instance, the imminent danger appeared clearly on one afternoon when a policeman said kindly to me that I was prohibited to go outside; not because I feared him, his working unit, this state apparatus, absolutely not. The real reason was because there were too many feelings suffocating my throat, stuffing my brain full and making my hands stiff as I hit the keys on the keyboard.

  I told a Chinese friend who sent his regards to me from the US: “During these days…tremendous suffering, and some feelings of disillusion…I cannot speak out…just like a singer suddenly loses his voice…I don’t know how to express…huge grief and indignation as well as the struggle…” Just as a singer loses his voice because of disillusion and the struggle in his heart. The disillusion stems from this country where we are living, and moreover from the people in this country we have to get along with. However, disillusion doesn’t mean being tired of life, and doesn’t mean that the courage of resistance arises so there is still some struggle from the inside. After a few months, I often heard a voice which came from an idol from my youth whom I had gradually forgotten, an Italian lady called Oriana Fallaci, who, after the events of September 11, wrote: “at this moment, if we keep silent, it’s a mistake, to speak out will be an obligation.” As a reporter and a writer she has written and spoken many words but only these words have tortured my heart.

  Yes, to speak out is my obligation.

  Also from Woeser’s Invisible Tibet blog: A Terrible Picture: Chinese Military and Police Beating Tibetans to Death (March 21, 2009)

  » Read more
  • March 26, 2009 9:24 AM

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