[...]As long as China remains stable as a whole, the specific problems in the border areas can be kept under control. We should have faith in this.

We should also avoid being impatient. It is not us, but people like the aging Dalai Lama who should worry.

As long as we accept the reality that some incidents are inevitable in parts of Chinese society, including Tibet and Xinjiang, much of the air attached to the Dalai Lama’s political power will be squeezed out.

[...]The unrest that the world usually sees hides the firm foundation of stability in Chinese society.

About 80 percent of urban households own their houses, and the social security system is expanding to rural areas. All these are foundations for national stability.

Regardless of the Global Times article’s tranquil tone and characterization of “minor unrest” as inevitable, state-owned media has been pointing fingers in the usual direction to explain the situation. AFP offers summary and commentary on a recent China Daily report:

China has blamed “trained separatists” for a wave of unrest in Tibetan-inhabited areas last week that left at least two people dead and dozens injured, state press reported Wednesday.

[...]“Initial evidence showed that the riots and assaults were well planned beforehand and instigated by trained separatists against the country,” the official China Daily newspaper said, citing the Sichuan government.

It said protesters attacked police stations with stones and molotov cocktails, prompting the police to take action and “defend themselves”.

[...]Tibetans have long chafed under Chinese rule, saying they suffer religious repression and government surveillance, and that their culture is gradually being eroded by an influx of majority Han Chinese into the areas they live in.

Beijing, though, insists that Tibetans enjoy freedom of religious belief and says their lives have been made better by huge ongoing investment into Tibetan-inhabited areas.

An editorial in China Daily accuses the Tibetan Government-in-Exile and the West for exaggerating recent incidents in Sichuan, and suggests that the West should shoulder some of the blame for the unrest:

It is not uncommon for some Western governments and the so-called Tibetan government-in-exile to play up and distort incidents, such as the one last week between the law enforcement forces and local residents in Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province.

[...]“Overseas forces promoting ‘independence for Tibet’ have always fabricated rumors and distorted the truth to discredit the Chinese government with issues involving Tibet,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei.

[...]It is always easier to destroy than to maintain order and build. In today’s world, a handful of extremists have the ability to cause havoc to a region or even a country, never mind the Dalai Lama clique, which cloaks its real agenda behind religion and which is financed and supported by some Western governments and media with their own agenda against China. It is obvious that they are capable of causing trouble now and then in the Tibetan-inhabited regions.

Also see coverage of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile’s response to the unrest in Tibet, and of a school in Qinghai province working to preserve Tibetan language and culture, both via CDT.

© josh rudolph for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
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The Dalai Lama, 69, has lived in exile in China since a failed uprising against the Chinese government in Tibet in 1959. Mexico said it welcomed the Buddhist leader as a religious leader, not a political one, in keeping with its tradition of political neutrality and hopes of expanding trade with China.

The Dalai Lama met with presidents of several countries, including Costa Rica, El Salvador and Guatemala, but will not meet with Mexican president Vicente Fox.

Bejing responded to the visit with an angry letter, and China’s Mexican ambassador said Mexico should not allow the Nobel Peace laureate to spread revolutionary messages on Mexican soil.

© Jenn Buck for China Digital Times (CDT), 2004. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
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© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2004. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
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Two blog service probiders Blogcn and Blogbus, remain offline with a message apologizing to their users. Two others, Blogdriver and ChinaNewsman have reopened after deleting all blog entries on the topic.

From a purely business point of view, said the executive, the recent shakeup may not be a bad thing. It at least attracts more attention, including that of international venture capitalists, to the emerging blog scene in China and adds to the service providers’ bargain leverage when negotiating with potential investors.

© Wang Feng for China Digital Times (CDT), 2004. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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“According to information, because of long-term overwork, vice mayor Wang Lijun is highly stressed and in poor health. He is now accepting vacation-style treatment,” Chongqing’s information office posted in a message on its microblog account on Wednesday.

Statements of that kind are extremely rare in China. This one – retweeted tens of thousands of times by microblog users – came hours after large numbers of police surrounded the US consulate in Chengdu on Tuesday evening, blocking off roads around the building.

Chinese microblog users began to circulate pictures of the scene and rumours of a high-profile attempted defection. They claimed a car with what appeared to be official number plates was seen outside the building but was subsequently removed by Chinese police.

Both the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and local Chengdu officials declined to comment on the events at the consulate, but the situation reinforces recent speculation that Wang had fallen out of favor with Bo. Last week, the Chongqing government announced that it had moved Wang from his public security post to take charge of certain economic, political and other affairs. Netizens jeered at the official statement on Sina Weibo today and speculated that Wang had faced a corruption probe, according to Reuters, a situation which could potentially embarrass Bo Xilai and threaten his political aspirations:

“This will be a big blow to Bo Xilai, because Wang was instrumental in his anti-organized crime campaign, and that was instrumental in building Bo’s appeal in public opinion and even among officials,” said Chen Ziming, an independent scholar who studies party politics.

“Now the hero of that campaign has turned into a scandal, so at the least that’s a blow to Bo’s public prestige,” said Chen, a former political prisoner who lives in Beijing.

ChinaGeeks’ Charles Custer wrote that Sina has been censoring searches for “Wang Lijun” on and off today, adding later that some versions of the story claim Wang “may have divulged significant amounts of privileged information to US diplomats,” and discussed the political implications of the situation:

On the international side, the implications of a high-level official defecting or attempting to defect just before soon-to-be-president Xi Jinping makes his visit to the US could be huge. If the US were to grant Wang asylum, that would be….well, awkward probably doesn’t even begin to cover it.

On the domestic side, with China’s leadership transition fast approaching and Wang being high in Bo Xilai’s Chongqing administration, a defection or even just a rumored defection on Wang’s part could seriously damage Bo’s position. Certainly, there are forces within the Party who are very opposed to Bo’s rise, and it’s hard to think of what better ammunition they could have against him than something like this. On Twitter, @niubi theorized that Sina could be allowing some of the posts about Wang Lijun to go through on purpose to damage Bo Xilai’s reputation, and that certainly seems possible.

Assessing the likelihood that any of this (beyond the facts) is real is very difficult. On the one hand, the US generally doesn’t grant asylum from in-country embassies, precisely because those embassies are easy to surround with police. A year or so ago, I was asked by a Chinese friend to research this process, and found that generally speaking, it’s much easier to be granted political asylum if you’re outside the country you want asylum from. It strikes me that if Wang Lijun really did flee to the Chengdu embassy to request asylum, he must have been in a rather desperate situation. Otherwise, presumably, he could have waited for an opportunity to travel abroad and had a much greater chance of success.

See also previous CDT coverage of Wang Lijun’s role in Bo Xilai’s 2009 anti-corruption campaign, including reports late last year on the possibility of a new mafia movie based on Wang’s story.

Update: Shanghaiist has posted pictures from Sina Weibo of police surrounding the U.S. consulate in Chengdu last night, adding that the unsubstantiated rumors of Wang’s defection were largely spread by overseas Chinese news site Boxun. The Wednesday morning post on Chongqing’s official microblog quickly attracted a wave of comments about the “vacation-style treatment” (休假式治疗) it prescribed for Wang, according to The Wall Street Journal:

As if often the case when rumors about top officials begin to circulate, Sina’s censors went a bit schizophrenic with the Wang case. Mr. Wang’s name was blocked and then unblocked in searches on the site and appeared briefly on Sina Weibo’s list of trending topics before disappearing. Likewise, the original Chongqing government announcement of Mr. Wang’s vacation was taken down and then reposted in the early afternoon, erasing all comments that had amassed to that point.

Still, the Chinese Internet meme machine powered on. Among those rolling with the vacation theme Wednesday afternoon was the automotive section of the Chengdu Business Daily newspaper, which asked Weibo users which car they would choose if forced to take treatment similar to Mr. Wang’s.

“I’d take a Lamborghini,” responded one reader. “That way if you crash and die at least you die with face.”

The New York Times has more on the rumors surfacing about Wang’s fate:

A Chinese reporter with the newspaper Southern Metropolis said that he had learned from police sources that Mr. Wang had tried to enter the consulate, but had been arrested and that he had since been flown to Beijing for questioning. The post was later deleted from the Sina Weibo microblog.

…

Given the secretive nature of Chinese politics, the fact that the rumors were so widespread suggested that something was amiss. Because Chinese leaders put such a priority on presenting a united front, at least in public, the rumors are seen as hurting Mr. Bo.

“For Bo Xilai it’s not good news,” said Jin Zhong, chief editor of the China-watching magazine Kaifang in Hong Kong. “The Communist Party has always had a lot of internal factions. We don’t know what most of them are but when things like this come up to the top it shows that something is going on.”

ChinaGeeks’ Charles Custer relayed a report from the Oriental Daily News which claims that rumors of Wang’s attempt at asylum are true. He also notes that McClatchy Newspapers’ Tom Lasseter is in Chengdu and Tweeting that “there’s nothing apparently out of the ordinary in front of the Consulate.” Lasseter reported from Chengdu on Wednesday:

Interviews with shopkeepers in the area suggested the police presence there Tuesday evening might have been less overwhelming than presented by Internet reports. A clerk at a nearby drug store, who did not want her name published because it wasn’t clear what had happened, said that while there were police cars parked on the street outside the consulate, the road was not closed to traffic.

A saleswoman at a clothing shop a few doors down gave a similar account.

It wasn’t possible to verify their version of events, however.

Translation: The building sign says: American Consulate, Chengdu
Sign with arrow pointing left says, “Vacation-style Treatment Center”
The figure on the left (Wang Lijun) says: “Boss, my stress is too great!”
The figure on the right (Bo Xilai): “Bastard! Let the leaders escape first!”

Update 3: The United States has confirmed that Wang Lijun visited the U.S. consulate in Chengdu, but did not speak to rumors that he requested asylum, according to Voice of America:

A spokeswoman for the State Department, Victoria Nuland, told reporters Wednesday that Deputy Mayor of Chongqing Wang Lijun had a scheduled meeting at the U.S. consulate in the city of Chengdu. She said the meeting probably took place Monday and that Wang left the consulate of his own volition.

She did not provide information on what the meeting was about.

“Well, I think you’re referring to reports about the vice mayor of Chongqing – right – City. So his name is Wang Lijun. Wang Lijun did request a meeting at the U.S. Consulate General in Chengdu earlier this week in his capacity as vice mayor. The meeting was scheduled, our folks met with him, he did visit the consulate and he later left the consulate of his own volition. So – and obviously, we don’t talk about issues having to do with refugee status, asylum, et cetera.”

See also a video of Wednesday’s State Department Press Briefing (beginning at 3:22), in which Nuland addresses questions about Wang Lijun. China’s Vice Foreign Minister called Wang’s visit to the consulate an “isolated incident” and said it would not affect Xi Jinping’s upcoming visit to the United States next week, according to Reuters. But the Sydney Morning Herald’s John Garnaut writes that several of Wang Lijun’s close associates in Dalian have also been taken into custody, according to Chongqing sources, and adds fuel to the rumor mill surrounding a potential corruption probe against Chongqing’s leadership:

Speculation was swirling last night that Mr Bo himself was a target of the central investigation, after he had unsettled senior figures in the Party, and that Mr Wang sought refuge in the US consulate after turning witness against him.

…

Two close political watchers, with connections with Party and military investigators respectively, speculated that the Chongqing corruption probe might involve a degree of payback from a separate probe initiated by Mr Bo’s close friend and “princeling” ally, Liu Yuan, inside the People’s Liberation Army.

On January 19 the Herald/Age first reported that General Liu Yuan had staked his career on a “do-or-die” corruption campaign.

He told officers he would pursue his investigation to the end regardless of “how high one’s position is or how powerful the background”.

The official Chongqing Daily ran a front page article heralding “Peaceful Chongqing” on Thursday, though China Media Project’s David Bandurski writes that “all is not well on Chongqing’s political scene” ahead of this year’s CCP leadership transition:

In light of the breaking Wang Lijun story, the front-page article in Chongqing Daily looks like a concerted effort — even possibly a desperate one — to burnish and defend Bo Xilai’s legacy. Chongqing’s fight against crime from 2008 to 2010 is probably the most important feather in Bo Xilai’s cap as he pushes ahead with his bid for promotion to the Politburo Standing Committee.

Given Wang Lijun’s status as a crime-busting bigshot, his name nearly synonymous with Chongqing’s anti-vice campaign, questions that encircle Wang are questions that encircle Bo Xilai.

Update 4: ChinaGeeks’ Charles Custer has the latest on the censorship – or lack thereof – of certain discussions about Wang Lijun and his “vacation-style medical treatment” on Sina Weibo as of early Thursday evening:

At the moment, Wang is back on the Sina Weibo trending topics list twice. “王力军” (an intentional mistyping of his name is #2 on the trending topics list, and the phrase “vacation-style medical treatment” is #7. Searches for “Wang Lijun” (typed correctly) remain uncensored. It’s quite clear that Sina is not trying to suppress this story at all, which begs the question: is someone at Sina trying to damage Bo Xilai?

Meanwhile, Reuters reported on Thursday that any conclusions about the fate of Bo Xilai may be premature:

“I think Bo Xilai is a bit like the Chinese version of Newt Gingrich — he’s so battle-scarred that does this really add or take away from a guy who is controversial?” said Kerry Brown, head of the Asia Programme at Chatham House, a London foreign policy institute, referring to the Republican aspirant to the White House.

“If he’s known for being a controversial character, I don’t think these things have a big impact,” Brown said of Bo. “It may just as well work to his advantage.”

…

Chinese citizens can’t vote for their leaders. But an informal poll on the city’s steep streets suggested it was too early to count out Bo, whose ill-concealed ambition and privileged background have attracted naysayers.

“From almost every perspective, Chongqing is better since Bo came,” said Wu Jun, 25, when asked about Bo, a previous mayor of Dalian, a port city in eastern China.

“Look at Dalian too. When Bo was there, they also were developing well. So there is something to the man. I think a lot of people my age like him because he seems real,” he said, adding that he wasn’t concerned about the rumors swirling around Wang.

Update 4 (Feb. 9, 1:30 PST):

Through a brief Xinhua dispatch, the Chinese government today acknowledged that Wang had spent time at the U.S. Consulate and said he was under investigation. From the Guardian:

The terse, one-line statement about Wang Lijun from official news agency Xinhua – issued at around 11pm Beijing time on Thursday– came one day after the announcement that he was receiving “vacation-style treatment” owing to stress.

The fall from grace of Chongqing’s vice-mayor and former police boss has triggered intense speculation of a political struggle because of his close ties to the city’s ambitious party secretary, Bo Xilai, who had been tipped for promotion when a new generation of leaders takes power this year.

Wang’s transfer to non-police duties last week led to suggestions that the two men had fallen out amid a possible corruption investigation.

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Bo Xilai, CCP 5th generation, censorship, Chengdu, Chongqing, corruption, defection, microblog, netizens, online public opinion, Politburo, sina weibo, u.s.-china relations, Wang Lijun, Xi Jinping
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@Journalist Li Guosheng: Hunan Provincial Discipline and Inspection Commission Order to Detain Petitioner: Li Xiang is from Kaifu District in Changsha. In 2006, her village land was reclaimed and her house was demolished.  She then began to petition.  In July of 2011, she once again petitioned the Hunan Provincial Discipline and Inspection Commission.  Shockingly, the provincial Discipline and Inspection Commission’s petitioning office sent the following letter to the Kaifu District Discipline and Inspection Commission: “If she goes to Beijing to petition, you may detain her.”  After this news got on the web, the head of the petitioning office found Li Xiang and implored her to delete the post, saying, “I’m begging you.”¹

¹ Literally “I’m calling you Grandma and Grandpa.” To be a “grandchild” is to humble yourself before your elder. It implies kneeling to someone in supplication.

© fionasmith for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
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The Toronto Star reported that Chinese assistant foreign minister promised the North Korean refugees would be treated “in accordance with international and domestic laws and in the spirit of humanitarianism,” but declined to provide specifics.

China seems eager to remain on good terms with North Korea as it tries to persuade the country to participate in upcoming six-country nuclear disarmament talks in Washington.

Asylum-seekers have used this method in the past, illegally entering China from North Korea and then sneaking onto a foreign embassy’s grounds, thereby securing passage to South Korea. China by law deports North Koreans captured on Chinese soil back to their home country.

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Tensions have been high in Tibet and Tibetan regions of Sichuan with numerous self-immolations by Tibetans protesting Beijing’s policies and an ongoing crackdown by security forces. Students for a Free Tibet have obtained an audio file that is reportedly a final statement by Lama Soepa, a spiritual teacher and community leader from Golok in the Kham region of Tibet, who died after setting himself on fire on January 8. Listen to the recording here. From SFFT’s translation:

This is the twenty-first century, and this is the year in which so many Tibetan heroes have died. I am sacrificing my body both to stand in solidarity with them in flesh and blood, and to seek repentance through this highest tantric honor of offering one’s body. This is not to seek personal fame or glory.



I am giving away my body as an offering of light to chase away the darkness, to free all beings from suffering, and to lead them – each of whom has been our mother in the past and yet has been led by ignorance to commit immoral acts – to the Amitabha, the Buddha of infinite light. My offering of light is for all living beings, even as insignificant as lice and nits, to dispel their pain and to guide them to the state of enlightenment. I offer this sacrifice as a token of long-life offering to our root guru His Holiness the Dalai Lama and all other spiritual teachers and lamas.



Meanwhile the official Global Times has said in an editorial that there is “no need to sweat over minor unrest” while other official media reports have condemned Western media for “distorting” recent incidents. China Media Project reports that officials have undertaken a “thankfulness education campaign” in Tibet during which local households are provided posters of Communist Party leaders.

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Against a backdrop of rapid socio-economic change and modernization, China continues to be an authoritarian one-party state that imposes sharp curbs on freedom of expression, association, and religion; openly rejects judicial independence and press freedom; and arbitrarily restricts and suppresses human rights defenders and organizations, often through extra-judicial measures.

The government also censors the internet; maintains highly repressive policies in ethnic minority areas such as Tibet, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia; systematically condones—with rare exceptions—abuses of power in the name of “social stability” ; and rejects domestic and international scrutiny of its human rights record as attempts to destabilize and impose “Western values” on the country. The security apparatus—hostile to liberalization and legal reform—seems to have steadily increased its power since the 2008 Beijing Olympics. China’s “social stability maintenance” expenses are now larger than its defense budget.

At the same time Chinese citizens are increasingly rights-conscious and challenging the authorities over livelihood issues, land seizures, forced evictions, abuses of power by corrupt cadres, discrimination, and economic inequalities. Official and scholarly statistics estimate that 250-500 protests occur per day; participants number from ten to tens of thousands. Internet users and reform-oriented media are aggressively pushing the boundaries of censorship, despite the risks of doing so, by advocating for the rule of law and transparency, exposing official wrong-doing, and calling for reforms.

China’s state media has responded to the report with a flurry of indignation, as HRW’s Nicholas Bequelin noted:

此地无银三百两： People’s Daily and China Daily have published a total of 10 (!) articles on Human Rights Watch (@hrw) in one week.

— Nicholas Bequelin 林伟 (@Bequelin) January 31, 2012

(“此地无银三百两”: “No 300 taels of silver here”; to draw attention to something by denying it.)

People’s Daily, for example, suggested that criticism of China’s rights record arose from Western insecurity:

It seems that some Western countries and NGOs have set out to attack China over its human rights issues. They first assume that human rights are being ignored, then seek evidence from rumors, and make speculations to blindly accuse China of violating human rights with the real purpose of distorting China’s international image ….

Why does the West still hold a prejudice against China’s human rights? The only reason is that the Cold War mentality and ideological hegemony still prevails. As long as China is a socialist country, the West will insist on distorting its image and see China as a threat to the Western system.

Since the end of the Cold War, the West has been too boastful of its political system, believing it is the only system that has universal value in the world.

China’s significant economic progress has stirred Western anxieties. Distorting China’s human rights becomes the only political choice.

Elsewhere, People’s Daily also criticised the report for failing to acknowledge China’s progress in legal reform. From Xinhua:

The World Report “gave no word on the great progress in terms of China’s judicial reforms that have been demonstrated in the Criminal Procedural Law draft amendment,” the article said.

Legal experts say the draft amendment will help improve the protection of criminal suspects’ human rights, by preventing judges from accepting confessions from tortured suspects and giving these suspects more defense options.

In fact, the report does acknowledge the amendment, but reiterates concern at the prospect of legalised enforced disappearances:

In August 2011, in an effort to … improve the administration of justice, the government published new rules to eliminate unlawfully obtained evidence and strengthened the procedural rights of the defense in its draft revisions to the Criminal Procedure Law. It is likely it will be adopted in March 2012.

However, the draft revisions also introduced an alarming provision that would effectively legalize enforced disappearances by allowing police to secretly detain suspects for up to six months at a location of their choice in “state security, terrorism and major corruption cases.” The measure would put suspects at great risk of torture while giving the government justification for the “disappearance” of dissidents and activists in the future. Adoption of this measure—which is hotly criticized in Chinese media by human rights lawyers, activists, and part of the legal community—would significantly deviate from China’s previous stance of gradual convergence with international norms on administering justice, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which China signed in 1997 but has yet to ratify.

See more on CDT.

People’s Daily also objected to the report’s claim that “the government continues to build a ‘new socialist countryside’ [in Tibet] by relocating and rehousing up to 80 percent of the TAR population, including all pastoralists and nomads.” From Xinhua:

The People’s Daily article, jointly published by two Tibet experts, said the HRW’s conclusion was groundless and contradictory to basic facts.

The two authors, Zhang Ming, or Lorong Dramadul, with the China Tibetology Research Center, and Professor Yang Minghong with Sichuan University, hoped that their experiences and observations from over 20 years of field research in Tibet could help clarify the misunderstandings.

They cited official statistics and said that in 2011, 1.85 million Tibetans, or 61 percent of the total population, had settled in permanent residences.

“No more than 150,000 people, or less than 5 percent of the Tibetan population, had left their original residence,” the experts wrote.

Chinese Academy of Social Sciences researcher Pan Xizhe’s op-ed at China Daily accused Human Rights Watch of sloppy methodology and political motivations:

At first glance, Human Rights Watch appears to be keen on the protection of international human rights. But it actually carries out its work with double standards and bias. Its observations lack political neutrality and its research methods are questionable. The organization’s employment of unqualified workers has also hurt the credibility of its report. Human Rights Watch should reflect inward before passing on judgment to others.

The media and international observers have long criticized Human Rights Watch for passing judgment of human rights conditions of a country or region through tinted lens. It turns a blind eye to human rights issues in some countries while criticizing others vehemently. The Sunday Times quoted a human rights insider in the United States as saying that the organization caters its reports to the US government, which greatly affects its objectivity ….

In the China portion of its report, Human Rights Watch used expressions such as “estimate”, “possibly”, and “probably”. It criticized China’s judiciary system, religious institutions, regional autonomy by ethnic groups, family planning policy as well as foreign and economic policies.

The US section of the report, which criticises the Obama White House’s failure to pursue Bush administration officials for approving the use of torture and decries America’s “abusive” counterterrorism policies, growing poverty and world-leading prison population, can be read here.

While the World Report looked back at 2011, at The Diplomat, HRW’s Phelim Kine looks ahead to 2012:

These cases represent more than the Chinese government’s well-documented contempt for freedom of expression explicitly guaranteed in Article 35 of the Constitution. They are also clear efforts to breed fear and sow silence among China’s beleaguered community of human rights defenders and civil society activists. The aim: to ensure that the 12-month senior Communist Party leadership transition this year proceeds without public challenges to the Party’s 61-year monopoly on power. China’s President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao are preparing to step aside for a new generation of leaders, widely touted to be Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang, in a secretive political succession that won’t be complete until in March 2013 ….

The government’s overriding obsession with maintaining its monopoly on power make it likely that these abuses will continue under the leadership of Xi Jinping. Foreign governments could help reverse this trend and give support to Chinese who want a more accountable government by more vigorously engaging the government on such violations. Thirty years since the launch of China’s economic reform and opening, a decade after China entered the World Trade Organization, and five years since the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the deterioration in respect for human rights and rule of law in China should be of serious concern for all countries seeking long-term, sustainable and mutually-beneficial bilateral relations with China.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: censorship, criminal procedure law, disabled, human rights watch, industrial pollution, leadership transition, legal reform, Li Keqiang, migrants, minorities, press freedom, religious freedom, Tibet, women, Xi Jinping
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The banner reads “Tibetans and Han are One Family”. Shanghaiist’s Kenneth Tan points out a satirically photoshopped image of an identical vehicle outside Hong Kong’s Sogo department store in, supposedly, 2015, its banner reading “China and Hong Kong are One Family”.

If a declaration of fraternity hanging from the side of an armoured vehicle isn’t ironic enough, the blog Mountain Phoenix over Tibet notes (in a different context) the historical background of the name “Kangding” 康定. It replaced “Dajianlu” 打箭炉 (based on the Tibetan “Dartsedo”) in the early twentieth century, and is widely held to refer to the stabilisation or pacification of Kham (eastern Tibet).

A friend, who hails from Kardze town, tells me the name is a contraction of the Tibetan karpo (“white”) and dzebo (“graceful”) – actually a rather unlikely and funny name for a macho Khampa place. It sounds more like a name for a Tibetan cosmetics line: “Fair & Lovely”!

The town Kardze, however, is not the capital of the Prefecture Kardze. That privilege goes to Dartse(m)do, a formerly important trading-town on the old Sino-Tibetan border. But in present-day Tibet, folks who hail from Dartsedo would tell you they are from Kangding.

How Dartsedowas can be so brainless and voluntarily use that dreadful Chinese name is a mystery only they are able to penetrate. Doesn’t it mean “subjugation of Kham”? Arrog Khampa, what happened to your famous pride? Linguistics is a political battlefield, if you still haven’t noticed. Why do you shoot yourself in the foot?

The BBC’s Michael Bristow describes the extensive security operation currently in place in the area, following a series of self-immolations:

A BBC team was stopped and held at the roadblock [on the way to Kangding]. “Foreigners are not allowed into Tibetan areas,” said one security man.

We were then escorted back into Ya’an, where we were questioned at government offices by an official, surnamed Ma, who veered from friendly to threatening.

“You need to make a confession and sign a statement saying you will not go back into Tibetan areas,” he barked at one point ….

Robert Barnett, of New York’s Columbia University, said this region of western Sichuan, historically known to Tibetans as Kham, was relatively peaceful until a few years ago.

“We are talking about an area where China had a working relationship with Tibetans,” said Mr Barnett.

But he said trust started to disappear just over a decade ago when the central government began introducing hardline policies that were already in place in Tibet proper.

Kristin Jones at the Committee to Protect Journalists suggests that the policy of denying media access may be counterproductive:

Placing travel restrictions on journalists may have one unintended effect. It means that when it comes to unofficial news from China, activists and advocacy groups play a vital role in collecting and disseminating information.

Chinese authorities are hard on activists–even harder than they are on journalists. But by preventing reporters from doing their jobs, Chinese officials all but guarantee that activists are the ones reporting the news.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: history, language, media conditions, Robert Barnett, Sichuan, Tibet coverage
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