In a way that incident was perhaps the straw that broke the camel's back. After suffering half a century of oppression, Tibetans finally lost their patience with the Chinese and began to riot. This took the Chinese government by surprise since Tibet was peaceful for so many years, so in a way the CCP probably thought that the Tibetans were docile like sheep.
After a few news reports got out into the western media, China began a full blown damage control operation by clamping down mainly on reporters. As articles criticizing China over Tibet began to appear in the international media, China clamped down even tighter on Tibet and the surrounding areas, sending in thousands of armed soldiers. By then, the Chinese government had perfect control over the flow of information out of Tibet
In a bid to rebut criticism over Tibet, China then attempted to take the moral high ground by allowing Xinhua (a Chinese media group) to broadcast media reports on the Tibet situation. This was done because Xinhua is the mouthpeice for the Chinese government- thus it's broadcasts are massively skewed towards the CCP. By releasing selected footage and information regarding Tibet, the Chinese government then attempted to repaint Tibet in a new light.
The Tibetans were shown as brutal rioters, while the Chinese police and military were shown as heros that protected ordinary civilians from the Tibtans. For example, Chinese police "rescued" (by force) groups of tourists from Lhasa in order to insure the tourists' safety. More like they wanted to maintain a tight grip on information regarding the developments in Tibet in my view.
Now let's review what we know so far...
- Tibetans rioted after a peaceful demostration was broken up.
- Ascess to Tibet was off limits to most forigners and reporters.
- There was almost no information regarding the developments in Tibet for many days.
- After the long silence from Tibet, official news reports were released by Xinhua.
- Xinhua news agency is the official press agency of China.
- All of the reports by Xinhua had a very negative view point towards the Tibtans.
- Much of the footage were inflantory and negatively pictured the Tibtans- images such as a group of Tibtans beating a Chinese man.
- Foreign/independent sources have not been allowed into Tibet to independently verify the situation.
Given these facts, and if we do some very basic critical thinking, all of that points to the fact that the Chinese government is trying to fight a propaganda war against the people that criticize it over the Tibet situation.
Funny thing is, many overseas Chinese have come out in the past few weeks and voiced their support for the Chinese occupation of Tibet. Here's a short article regarding a pro-China rally in Toronto by Chinese there.
The Taipei Times ran a longer article on the pro-China rallies today. Although this is a very serious affair, I couldn't help but chuckle at some of the quotes in it by the overseas Chinese students. Here's a quote that I just found really ironic.
"Imagine everyday you open the news and it's all saying bad and biased words
towards your motherland: crackdown, killing, burning," Liu Yang, a graduate
student in biology at the University of Chicago, said in an e-mail.
"I don't understand, they struggle for press freedom and fairness, but why would they lose their conscience now?" she wrote. "Isn't the media independent, instead of
being a mouthpiece?"
Wow. Indeed Miss Liu. I really loved her last line though- "isn't the media independent, instead of being a mouthpiece?" Sure, so I guess Xinhua isn't the CCP's official media agency then? So if Xinhua is reporting the truth, then it must mean that all the western/independent media are lying to us! Ah, I knew it- it's a conspiracy!
Moving on, the article contians another interesting (but less funny) quote.
Yao, 22, is a Chinese-born computer engineering student at Canada's Simon Fraser
University. He has lived in the US and Canada since age 10, but says his loyalties lie with China.
He plans to return after his graduation.
Picture this- someone raised in a generally democratic society says that his loyalties lies with a dictorial regime. People like Yao are a danger to the nation's that they are living in. In the last few years, the Chinese have been gathering intelligence through the use of "guan-xi," or relations. If Yao was in a position of power, he would easily and willingly transfer secrets to the Chinese. And I'm not just talking about government/military secrets. This also applies to industrial secrets, corporation secrets and such.
Anyways, it's amazing to see how Chinese students, who are supposedly more educated and thus more open and critical of China, to come out an express that they feel that China is right to interfere in Tibet. Sigh. China will never change.
