Lhasa’s Jokhang temple, a sacred Tibetan Buddhist site dating back in parts to the seventh century, caught fire on Saturday:
Devastating news from Lhasa of the Jokhang temple on fire. pic.twitter.com/LXiIlvc7V5
— Robert Barnett (@RobbieBarnett) February 17, 2018
As news of the fire spread, so did reports of heavy censorship on Chinese social media. Posts archived by Free Weibo indicate censorship even of seemingly innocuous content such as prayers for the temple, calls for people to keep the area clear so as not to obstruct firefighters, and dry historical detail. Meanwhile, official media offered little of the detail Tibetans sought for reassurance. Amid continuing uncertainty on Sunday, The Guardian’s Tom Phillips spoke to Barnett about the negative effects of the information controls:
China’s Communist party-controlled news agency, Xinhua, said the blaze started early on Saturday evening “and was soon put out”.
However, Robert Barnett, a London-based expert on contemporary Tibet, said Beijing’s “almost total suppression of information” about the incident meant many Tibetans feared “the heart of Tibetan Buddhism” had suffered significant damage.
[…] “It’s devastating for people seeing this … [At first] it looked like it was impossible anything would survive … Now there is this uncertainty,” Barnett said. “Nobody knows quite what to believe … It could be less dramatic than people feared, but there is a big information vacuum about what has happened.”
China’s efforts to control the narrative surrounding the fire underscores the Jokhang temple’s huge political as well as religious significance. In recent decades the 2.5-hectare (6.2-acre) complex has been the site of repeated protests against Chinese rule, including one “astonishing act of defiance” witnessed by foreign journalists during a rare 2008 propaganda tour. [Source]
The temple previously suffered serious damage during the Cultural Revolution, when it was, according to the Central Tibetan Administration or Government in Exile, "plundered, destroyed and desecrated beyond repair." Last year, High Peaks Pure Earth translated a former Red Guard’s account of the temple’s sacking as originally told to Tibetan author Woeser, in which he was dismissive of the government’s claimed role in later restoration.
Even without the exceptional political and religious sensitivity of the Jokhang temple, news of accidents is often subject to intense censorship as part of efforts to "maintain stability" in their wake. Simon Fraser University’s Jeremy Brown explained in an interview posted by CDT last August that "the Party’s definition of túfāshìjiàn 突发事件 [or "sudden incidents"] includes three things: accidents, natural disasters, and protests, or political disturbances. The Party has decided to put these three things together. […] There’s an automatic assumption by putting those things together that these are threats to the stability of the Communist Party, and so they need to be handled in the same way. Instead of being transparent, […] the impulse is to cover it up. [… Y]ou keep people from protesting, you keep them from linking up and organizing, and if you successfully do that, then that’s ‘good handling’ of an accident. The word ‘handling,’ chǔlǐ 处理, is what is done after an accident …. It’s a stand-in for ‘make it go away,’ basically."
In a later thread on Twitter, though, Barnett explained how censorship, opacity, and mistrust had spread anxiety, confusion, and rumor following the Jokhang incident:
1/23 This thread gives a very approximate timeline of the "drip-feed" management by the PRC of news about the #Jokhang fire emerged. It indicates how effective disinformation, or sometimes just misunderstandings, can be, and how little we know so far about the #Jokhang fire.
— Robert Barnett (@RobbieBarnett) February 19, 2018
2/ The 7th century Jokhang temple in Lhasa is the most sacred shrine in the Tibetan Buddhist world. Its main chapel houses a statue known as the “”Jowo,” said to show the Buddha as a 12-year old, and regarded by Tibetan Buddhists as the most sacred of all statues of the Buddha.
— Robert Barnett (@RobbieBarnett) February 19, 2018
3/ The fire started at 18:40 local time on Saturday Feb 17, according to the authorities. Videos show that it was still raging after sunset at 19:46. Tibetans in Tibet immediately circulated videos of the fire on social media.
— Robert Barnett (@RobbieBarnett) February 19, 2018
4/ One video clearly showed flames tens of feet high from the “gyapip” or golden roof of the main chapel of the Jokhang https://t.co/LW8yaOMSeu. Some reports claimed that personal, non-approved posts from within Tibet about the fire were being censored https://t.co/lP1UywXv9k.
— Robert Barnett (@RobbieBarnett) February 19, 2018
5/ Within two hours some WeChat posts from supposed eyewitnesses in Lhasa appeared, saying that the fire was not at the Jokhang but at an adjoining temple compound, the Meru Nyingpa. Some posts stated categorically that no part of the Jokhang had been touched by the fire.
— Robert Barnett (@RobbieBarnett) February 19, 2018
6/ The Tibetan exile government accepted these claims and declared that “the Jokhang temple” had not caught fire (https://t.co/JW9LjmNBpu). So did certain foreign experts – despite the videos clearly showing that it had.
— Robert Barnett (@RobbieBarnett) February 19, 2018
7/ About an hour later, a WeChat post from Tibet showed an aerial photograph of the Jokhang. It was marked in Tibetan to show that the east part of the Jokhang temple complex that had caught fire (in red) was not the part that included the main chapel with the Jowo (in yellow). pic.twitter.com/jWcZ81rCqn
— Robert Barnett (@RobbieBarnett) February 19, 2018
8/ Another WeChat post, with a diagram of the groundplan of the Jokhang and notes in Chinese, also showed the main chapel as being situated on the west side of the temple compound. But both the diagram & photo were incorrect: the main chapel is on the east side and was on fire. pic.twitter.com/QhXMxJQkle
— Robert Barnett (@RobbieBarnett) February 19, 2018
9/ The Tibetan government in exile then changed its earlier report, without comment, to say that it was the main Jokhang chapel (as opposed to the temple) that had not caught fire https://t.co/En3HLaO4os.
— Robert Barnett (@RobbieBarnett) February 19, 2018
10/ The main exile Tibetan media website Phayul also reported that the Jokhang temple had not caught fire, but appeared to mean that the main Jokhang chapel had not caught fire https://t.co/Ma7LdYv62f. Its report included the incorrect aerial photo sent out on WeChat.
— Robert Barnett (@RobbieBarnett) February 19, 2018
11/ About 4 hours after the fire started, Chinese media issued a one-sentence that acknowledged that the fire had taken place, but had been "quickly extinguished" with no casualties. https://t.co/cHGpzZzWuH. 拉萨大昭寺局部发生火灾，火灾已迅速扑灭，无人员伤亡周围一切秩序正常，
— Robert Barnett (@RobbieBarnett) February 19, 2018
12/ A version of the statement issued by People's Daily adds there had been "no damage to cultural relics” 无文物损坏 Another statement adds that the fire affected only "part" of the Jokhang temple. (Lianhe Zaobao later summarizes these and later reports https://t.co/L1tjrAJ7Sn).
— Robert Barnett (@RobbieBarnett) February 19, 2018
13/ After the official report appeared stating that no cultural relics had been damaged, Tibetans in Tibet started to post pre-fire pictures of the Jowo statue with the question “Why have no photos of the Jowo been shown?” pic.twitter.com/45BAOEsKyf
— Robert Barnett (@RobbieBarnett) February 19, 2018
14/ Late on Feb 17 evening, messages by phone from Tibet claimed police had issued an order threatening punishment for anyone caught distributing “rumours” about the fire which might assist “foreign hostile forces”. Messages from Tibetans inside Tibet diminished or seem muted.
— Robert Barnett (@RobbieBarnett) February 19, 2018
15/ On Sunday Feb 18 there were no known mentions in official Chinese media of any fire in Lhasa. Instead, China’s main Tibet-news portal issued a one-sentence report titled "Bustling Barkhor Street, Jokhang Temple open"八廓街人来人往，大昭寺对外开放 https://t.co/wwVYt7kgVe.
— Robert Barnett (@RobbieBarnett) February 19, 2018
16/ The article said Wu Yingjie, Tibet Party Secretary, had visited the Jokhang, which was now open. Between photos of the Party Secretary and a local horse race was a photo showing the top half of the Jowo, undamaged, with the caption "February 18, 11am". No mention of fire. pic.twitter.com/zWOHz6w1zo
— Robert Barnett (@RobbieBarnett) February 19, 2018
17/ A private WeChat video from a pilgrim in Lhasa confirms that the temple is open but shows that only the western part of the Jokhang temple compound (the Kyilkor til) is open. The pilgrim explains that the main chapel remains closed. https://t.co/z7w9bdCFnH
— Robert Barnett (@RobbieBarnett) February 19, 2018
18/ Tibetans outside Tibet, such as Woeser (https://t.co/WTvr3nDkYX), post analyses of the official Feb 18 photo of the Jowo statue, noting that the usual background has been replaced by a flimsy yellow curtain, and that little of the context can be seen.
— Robert Barnett (@RobbieBarnett) February 19, 2018
19/ Late on Feb 18 Chinese media issue a longer version of the report on Wu Yingjie’s visit to the Jokhang https://t.co/AJBWQL4TGr. In it, the photo of the Jowo was replaced by a picture showing a wider view of the Jowo chapel. There is no sign of damage and no mention of fire. pic.twitter.com/MUzRIvAEEt
— Robert Barnett (@RobbieBarnett) February 19, 2018
20/ About this time, 2 Western experts state that there has been no damage to the Jokhang, apart from the roof of the main chapel. They say that they have been told this by friends or experts in China. They don’t say how these sources know this information.
— Robert Barnett (@RobbieBarnett) February 19, 2018
21/ On Feb 19 an unattributed video https://t.co/6TxUNCa85D and a still emerge via social media showing the Jowo without its costuming, with no sign of new damage. The images are assumed to show the Jowo after the fire. However, the video and still show different backgrounds. pic.twitter.com/yjelKSQ6jS
— Robert Barnett (@RobbieBarnett) February 19, 2018
22/ To conclude, this timeline suggests the effectiveness of disinformation and unsourced reports. Once China stopped all mention of the fire or the damage, feeds from social media and unknown sources – some confused, others perhaps deliberately misleading – became influential.
— Robert Barnett (@RobbieBarnett) February 19, 2018
23/ We see hints that the main Jokhang chapel and the Jowo might perhaps have escaped major damage. But why is there no news about the extent of the damage? What about the many chapels on upper floors, like the important Palden Lhamo shrine? So far, all this remains unknown.
— Robert Barnett (@RobbieBarnett) February 19, 2018
Full disclosure: a large part of these notes were based on research and insights that @ChuBailiang shared. Credit where credit's due!
— Robert Barnett (@RobbieBarnett) February 19, 2018
Cameron David Warner, another Tibetologist, has been tweeting more information on the Jowo statue’s background and fears for its current state.
In another showcase of official information controls, The New York Times’ Steven Lee Myers reported that he and photographer Gilles Sabrié endured a 17-hour "soft detention" and escort to Chengdu airport on a recent trip to observe New Year celebrations in a Tibetan region of Sichuan, despite theoretically looser restrictions on journalists there than in the Tibet Autonomous Region.
The monks, dressed in crimson robes and wielding blue plastic swords, were rehearsing a dance they would perform the next day in celebration of the Tibetan New Year. Then a uniformed police officer appeared in the temple and said there were a few questions to answer.
So began nearly 17 hours in police custody for me and a French photographer, Gilles Sabrié, a long though not uncommon experience for foreign correspondents in China. It was hardly an ordeal, to be clear; journalists face far worse threats and abuse in China and elsewhere. It was, rather, a bother.
For the Chinese, though, it was a self-inflicted embarrassment. We had traveled high into the mountains of the Tibetan plateau last week to write about holiday traditions in that part of China. By detaining us, and ultimately expelling us from the region, the authorities succeeded in preventing that. So I am writing this instead.
China is a country that exudes confidence in its rising place on the world stage — and yet its officials belie that confidence with their hypersensitivity to what a foreign correspondent might encounter traveling untethered, and thus uncensored. [Source]
Myers cited the results of a recent survey by the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China, which suggested that "from an already very low baseline, reporting conditions are getting worse." A Foreign Ministry spokesperson’s response to the survey was seen by some as an act of attempted intimidation that only underscored its results.
