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Month: April 2007

MySpace China – Democratic Censorship?

Posted on April 29, 2007 by davesgonechina

Slashdot has been jumpin’ about a line in the MySpace China Terms and Conditions that says users can “click a button” to report inappropriate conduct. Inappropriate content includes, in China’s case, “undermining national unity”, “cult and feudal superstition”, or “undermines social stability” I mentioned previously. It’s not exactly a button that you click – what the terms refer to is the contact link at the bottom of every page, and to select the “report inappropriate content” choice for your subject heading. It’s practically identical to the “report inappropriate content” feature in MySpace.com. The difference here, of course, is the legalese in the Terms and Conditions that refers to “undermining social stability” and all that.

What’s interesting is that you can report international pages as well, so it’s not simply asking Chinese users to report dissidents or pornographers on MySpace.cn, but those anywhere on the global MySpace network. If I file a complaint about an American users MySpace.com page, it is sent to MySpace.cn (when I’m logged into MySpace.cn). It will be interesting to see if how Chinese users will respond to this. Assuming the Chinese government does not impose a list of their own of MySpace pages they don’t like, it will be up to Chinese consumers to report sites that have politically incorrect speech.

If the Chinese government does impose a list, then there’s still nothing to stop dissenting MySpace users abroad from creating new pages. One could imagine “MySpacebombing” becoming a form of protest speech.

Of course, the real question is, what will you see when you visit a banned international page on MySpace.cn? Will you see the “Profile Undergoing Maintainance” message, or will they be more forthright about why it’s not there?

MySpace China – Democratic Censorship?

Posted on April 29, 2007 by davesgonechina

Slashdot has been jumpin’ about a line in the MySpace China Terms and Conditions that says users can “click a button” to report inappropriate conduct. Inappropriate content includes, in China’s case, “undermining national unity”, “cult and feudal superstition”, or “undermines social stability” I mentioned previously. It’s not exactly a button that you click – what the terms refer to is the contact link at the bottom of every page, and to select the “report inappropriate content” choice for your subject heading. It’s practically identical to the “report inappropriate content” feature in MySpace.com. The difference here, of course, is the legalese in the Terms and Conditions that refers to “undermining social stability” and all that.

What’s interesting is that you can report international pages as well, so it’s not simply asking Chinese users to report dissidents or pornographers on MySpace.cn, but those anywhere on the global MySpace network. If I file a complaint about an American users MySpace.com page, it is sent to MySpace.cn (when I’m logged into MySpace.cn). It will be interesting to see if how Chinese users will respond to this. Assuming the Chinese government does not impose a list of their own of MySpace pages they don’t like, it will be up to Chinese consumers to report sites that have politically incorrect speech.

If the Chinese government does impose a list, then there’s still nothing to stop dissenting MySpace users abroad from creating new pages. One could imagine “MySpacebombing” becoming a form of protest speech.

Of course, the real question is, what will you see when you visit a banned international page on MySpace.cn? Will you see the “Profile Undergoing Maintainance” message, or will they be more forthright about why it’s not there?

Huseyin Celil: Human Political Football

Posted on April 29, 2007 by davesgonechina

I’ve been tardy with posting on the case of Huseyin Celil, a Uyghur-Canadian man recently convicted to life in prison in Urumqi, Xinjiang. Considering I used to live and blog in Urumqi, I feel like I’ve been remiss.

Background: According to the Globe and Mail (courtesy Opposite End), Huseyin was an imam at a small mosque in Kashgar who chafed at government restrictions (e.g. no call to prayer using a loudspeaker) in the 1990s, when the government ratched up the “Strike Hard” campaign on separatist activity. He was harassed by the police and spent time in jail, then fled on a fake passport to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan in 1996. In 1998, the Kyrgyz arrested and jailed him for ““creating hatred among the people,” a charge related to his religious sermons.” After release, he fled to Uzbekistan, then Turkey via Syria, marrying an Uzbek girl on the way. When he received Canadian asylum in 2001, it was the first legit passport he’d ever had. Somewhere between 1999 and 2001, he allegedly returned to Bishkek and murdered a man, which his lawyer says ““It’s just not realistic for this guy to have done that,” said Chris MacLeod. “He would have forsaken his UNHCR status, left his disabled kid and wife, forged documents, made it there and back — it’s just not doable.”” In 2006, he and his family left Hamilton, Ontario, to visit his wife’s sick mother in Uzbekistan. That’s when the Uzbek police picked him up, saying he was listed on the “Interpol National Central Bureau in Uzbekistan” wanted list. They never saw him again, or even heard about him until the Chinese government told their version of the Story of Celil…

According to the court documents, Celil joined the East Turkistan Liberation Organization (ETLO), a listed terrorist group active in central Asia, in November 1997 and was appointed as a senior instructor in Kyrgyzstan.

While there, Celil allegedly recruited several people to the ETLO and sent them to terrorist training camps in the Pakistan-controled Kashmir, the documents said.

Celil was also active in another listed terrorist organization, the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), for which he helped raise funds, recruit members and organize training, the documents said.

The documents said that in 1997, Celil met ETIM’s former head Hasan Mahsum, who was shot dead by the Pakistan army in 2003, and worked directly under Mahsum’s command.

Celil was a key member pushing for the alliance of the ETIM and ETLO in 1998, the documents said.

The government said “East Turkistan” terrorists had close links with Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, and were responsible for a series of murder, bombs, hijacking and arson in Xinjiang.

The documents said Huseyin Celil, with the intention of overthrowing the people’s republic and the socialist system, in 1997 provided 80,000 yuan (US$10,256) for the establishment of a new terrorist group, named “Hizbollah”, in the southern Guangdong Province.

The money was used for to purchase guns and provide terrorist training, the documents said.

Wait… back up, what was that?

the establishment of a new terrorist group, named “Hizbollah”, in the southern Guangdong Province.

Hizbollah? Let’s see, here’s a Chinese version of the same thing (more or less)… ah, here it is: 真主党. That is “Hizbollah”… which means Party of Allah, which is awfully generic. There was once a similarly named group (“东突伊斯兰真主党”), allegedly, involved in the Yining Riots of 1997. But in Guangdong??? Considering the Chinese government still hasn’t proven most of their previous assertions about Uyghur terrorism, this comes off as jumping the shark. And it’s just so… convenient that Celil is the missing link between the ETIM and ETLO, both not seen in years. Just a little too convenient if you ask me.

So the Chinese and Canadian governments aren’t exactly seeing eye to eye on this. The poor Canadians. As John Kennedy has pointed out at Global Voices Online, they’re already getting flack for this on the bulletin boards. But consider this: lately, Canadian citizens just ain’t getting their back covered abroad. The US sends Maher Arer off to Syria for torture and bans a psychotherapist for writing about LSD use – now this? I suggest American backpackers reconsider having a Canadian flag stitched to their bag. It could backfire.

Anyway, one Chinese commenter said: “The Canadian Prime Minister says his government “believes” there to be no evidence proving the accused’s guilt, so it seems this makes everything they say and do excusable. What a joke! Since you haven’t seen the evidence, what exactly are you “believing”?”

And so true! There hasn’t been any evidence shown to the public, or the Canadian Prime Minister either. But that hasn’t stopped the Times of India or the Counterterrorism Blog from taking advantage of the situation:

BEIJING: In a major blow to Pakistan’s counter-terrorism credentials, China has for the first time publicly acknowledged the existence of terrorist camps within the territory of its “all-weather” ally.

What? You mean it doesn’t count when in 2004 Xinhua, as reprinted on the webpage of the PRC Permanent Mission to the UN Geneva, said that East Turkestan terrorists had crossed from Afghanistan into Pakistan to establish bases the Pakistanis couldn’t find? In which they also were concerned about them sneaking into, ahem, India as well based on a – wait a minute – Times of India story claiming Uyghur terrorist camps were identified in Pakistan?

I think I have your number, Times of India.

The damning confirmation came in a court document in the trial of 37-year-old Huseyin Celil, a China-born Uygur-Canadian, who was today sentenced to life imprisonment by a Chinese court in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, for “taking part in terrorist activities and plotting to split the country.”

Oh, I see: China confirmed (not in anyway aimed at Pakistan) that they had some evidence that no one else gets to see? I still haven’t seen photos or identities of the 17 terrorists allegedly captured in that raid back in January, though I have read that President Musharraf gave a speech in 2004 about killing an alleged Uyghur terrorist leader in Pakistan (does that count as “confirmation”?), but let’s not let that stand in the way of a breathless, inaccurate article slamming the Pakistanis.

Speaking of taking advantage of the situation to plug your own thing, there’s also the Huseyin Celil homepage. I dunno if this guy is innocent or not (he’s certainly, at least, not proven guilty to anyone except Chinese authorities), but I don’t think getting your photos of torture from the FLG is the best PR move. First, the Chinese government is going to think you’ve joined a massive conspiracy, which I don’t think will move them to the negotiating table quicker. Second, FLG allegations have not been substantiated by anyone except attorney David Matas, whose investigative techniques appeared to be asking FLG members if they phoned real doctors in China who admitted to harvesting FLG organs, the members said “yes”, and Matas turned around and said “the evidence is overwhelming!”. (I blogged about this on the old blog, it’s gone now) Third, it’s hard to take seriously a group that claims millions have resigned the CCP through a website they maintain where I can type in “Steven Seagal” and VOILA, Steven Seagal has resigned from the CCP. So consider some new friends, poor Mrs. Celil.

The other thing is the translation of Celil’s testimony at his murder trial in Bishkek. Is this really what you want for the defense?

Eastern Turkistan has a role of defensive city wall and bastion between China and the Central Asian Republics, and this could limit the Chinese invaders to spread to the Central Asia. But now, since there is no such a wall to push back the Chinese, the Chinese invaders have been expanding towards the Central Asia very fast!

The Yellow Peril defense! Excellent!

Today, considering our interrogation like an enemy as the Kyrgyzstan state seem to benefit as political factors and diplomacy may seem to be reasonable in respect to its relations to China. It is not controversial that China is providing with some little benefits today. But, have our brothers thought of tomorrow? How far can they understand the Communist China? How much do they understand about the threatening national psychology of the Chinese? With this opportunity, we caution our brothers to be deeply aware of Chinese Evil.

Evil with a capital E! And, well, there’s more of that. Most Chinese citizens won’t have alot of sympathy for this sort of thing, though I can tell you there are plenty of Uyghurs who feel this way but don’t go around starting Guangdong Hezbollahs. But this just seems counterproductive. Oh, and the whole thing about “I made a videocassette about Jihad but I didn’t give it to anybody” argument he gives? Won’t play well in Peoria.

Huseyin Celil: Human Political Football

Posted on April 29, 2007 by davesgonechina

I’ve been tardy with posting on the case of Huseyin Celil, a Uyghur-Canadian man recently convicted to life in prison in Urumqi, Xinjiang. Considering I used to live and blog in Urumqi, I feel like I’ve been remiss.

Background: According to the Globe and Mail (courtesy Opposite End), Huseyin was an imam at a small mosque in Kashgar who chafed at government restrictions (e.g. no call to prayer using a loudspeaker) in the 1990s, when the government ratched up the “Strike Hard” campaign on separatist activity. He was harassed by the police and spent time in jail, then fled on a fake passport to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan in 1996. In 1998, the Kyrgyz arrested and jailed him for ““creating hatred among the people,” a charge related to his religious sermons.” After release, he fled to Uzbekistan, then Turkey via Syria, marrying an Uzbek girl on the way. When he received Canadian asylum in 2001, it was the first legit passport he’d ever had. Somewhere between 1999 and 2001, he allegedly returned to Bishkek and murdered a man, which his lawyer says ““It’s just not realistic for this guy to have done that,” said Chris MacLeod. “He would have forsaken his UNHCR status, left his disabled kid and wife, forged documents, made it there and back — it’s just not doable.”” In 2006, he and his family left Hamilton, Ontario, to visit his wife’s sick mother in Uzbekistan. That’s when the Uzbek police picked him up, saying he was listed on the “Interpol National Central Bureau in Uzbekistan” wanted list. They never saw him again, or even heard about him until the Chinese government told their version of the Story of Celil…

According to the court documents, Celil joined the East Turkistan Liberation Organization (ETLO), a listed terrorist group active in central Asia, in November 1997 and was appointed as a senior instructor in Kyrgyzstan.

While there, Celil allegedly recruited several people to the ETLO and sent them to terrorist training camps in the Pakistan-controled Kashmir, the documents said.

Celil was also active in another listed terrorist organization, the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), for which he helped raise funds, recruit members and organize training, the documents said.

The documents said that in 1997, Celil met ETIM’s former head Hasan Mahsum, who was shot dead by the Pakistan army in 2003, and worked directly under Mahsum’s command.

Celil was a key member pushing for the alliance of the ETIM and ETLO in 1998, the documents said.

The government said “East Turkistan” terrorists had close links with Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, and were responsible for a series of murder, bombs, hijacking and arson in Xinjiang.

The documents said Huseyin Celil, with the intention of overthrowing the people’s republic and the socialist system, in 1997 provided 80,000 yuan (US$10,256) for the establishment of a new terrorist group, named “Hizbollah”, in the southern Guangdong Province.

The money was used for to purchase guns and provide terrorist training, the documents said.

Wait… back up, what was that?

the establishment of a new terrorist group, named “Hizbollah”, in the southern Guangdong Province.

Hizbollah? Let’s see, here’s a Chinese version of the same thing (more or less)… ah, here it is: 真主党. That is “Hizbollah”… which means Party of Allah, which is awfully generic. There was once a similarly named group (“东突伊斯兰真主党”), allegedly, involved in the Yining Riots of 1997. But in Guangdong??? Considering the Chinese government still hasn’t proven most of their previous assertions about Uyghur terrorism, this comes off as jumping the shark. And it’s just so… convenient that Celil is the missing link between the ETIM and ETLO, both not seen in years. Just a little too convenient if you ask me.

So the Chinese and Canadian governments aren’t exactly seeing eye to eye on this. The poor Canadians. As John Kennedy has pointed out at Global Voices Online, they’re already getting flack for this on the bulletin boards. But consider this: lately, Canadian citizens just ain’t getting their back covered abroad. The US sends Maher Arer off to Syria for torture and bans a psychotherapist for writing about LSD use – now this? I suggest American backpackers reconsider having a Canadian flag stitched to their bag. It could backfire.

Anyway, one Chinese commenter said: “The Canadian Prime Minister says his government “believes” there to be no evidence proving the accused’s guilt, so it seems this makes everything they say and do excusable. What a joke! Since you haven’t seen the evidence, what exactly are you “believing”?”

And so true! There hasn’t been any evidence shown to the public, or the Canadian Prime Minister either. But that hasn’t stopped the Times of India or the Counterterrorism Blog from taking advantage of the situation:

BEIJING: In a major blow to Pakistan’s counter-terrorism credentials, China has for the first time publicly acknowledged the existence of terrorist camps within the territory of its “all-weather” ally.

What? You mean it doesn’t count when in 2004 Xinhua, as reprinted on the webpage of the PRC Permanent Mission to the UN Geneva, said that East Turkestan terrorists had crossed from Afghanistan into Pakistan to establish bases the Pakistanis couldn’t find? In which they also were concerned about them sneaking into, ahem, India as well based on a – wait a minute – Times of India story claiming Uyghur terrorist camps were identified in Pakistan?

I think I have your number, Times of India.

The damning confirmation came in a court document in the trial of 37-year-old Huseyin Celil, a China-born Uygur-Canadian, who was today sentenced to life imprisonment by a Chinese court in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, for “taking part in terrorist activities and plotting to split the country.”

Oh, I see: China confirmed (not in anyway aimed at Pakistan) that they had some evidence that no one else gets to see? I still haven’t seen photos or identities of the 17 terrorists allegedly captured in that raid back in January, though I have read that President Musharraf gave a speech in 2004 about killing an alleged Uyghur terrorist leader in Pakistan (does that count as “confirmation”?), but let’s not let that stand in the way of a breathless, inaccurate article slamming the Pakistanis.

Speaking of taking advantage of the situation to plug your own thing, there’s also the Huseyin Celil homepage. I dunno if this guy is innocent or not (he’s certainly, at least, not proven guilty to anyone except Chinese authorities), but I don’t think getting your photos of torture from the FLG is the best PR move. First, the Chinese government is going to think you’ve joined a massive conspiracy, which I don’t think will move them to the negotiating table quicker. Second, FLG allegations have not been substantiated by anyone except attorney David Matas, whose investigative techniques appeared to be asking FLG members if they phoned real doctors in China who admitted to harvesting FLG organs, the members said “yes”, and Matas turned around and said “the evidence is overwhelming!”. (I blogged about this on the old blog, it’s gone now) Third, it’s hard to take seriously a group that claims millions have resigned the CCP through a website they maintain where I can type in “Steven Seagal” and VOILA, Steven Seagal has resigned from the CCP. So consider some new friends, poor Mrs. Celil.

The other thing is the translation of Celil’s testimony at his murder trial in Bishkek. Is this really what you want for the defense?

Eastern Turkistan has a role of defensive city wall and bastion between China and the Central Asian Republics, and this could limit the Chinese invaders to spread to the Central Asia. But now, since there is no such a wall to push back the Chinese, the Chinese invaders have been expanding towards the Central Asia very fast!

The Yellow Peril defense! Excellent!

Today, considering our interrogation like an enemy as the Kyrgyzstan state seem to benefit as political factors and diplomacy may seem to be reasonable in respect to its relations to China. It is not controversial that China is providing with some little benefits today. But, have our brothers thought of tomorrow? How far can they understand the Communist China? How much do they understand about the threatening national psychology of the Chinese? With this opportunity, we caution our brothers to be deeply aware of Chinese Evil.

Evil with a capital E! And, well, there’s more of that. Most Chinese citizens won’t have alot of sympathy for this sort of thing, though I can tell you there are plenty of Uyghurs who feel this way but don’t go around starting Guangdong Hezbollahs. But this just seems counterproductive. Oh, and the whole thing about “I made a videocassette about Jihad but I didn’t give it to anybody” argument he gives? Won’t play well in Peoria.

Engaging Chinese People: A Quick and Dirty Primer

Posted on April 27, 2007 by davesgonechina

There has been a repeated rejoinder to my post Free Advice to the Free Tibet Crowd, that has been phrased as such: “It’s one thing to argue that Tibetans should take their case to the Chinese people; it is quite another to actually do it. How would you go about it?” and “A valid point in general, but engaging the Chinese population when such strict information controls, particularly political information, exist is easier said than done. Perhaps an answer to this question could elevate your argument.”Fair enough, and so I give you…

A Quick and Dirty Primer to Directly Involving the Chinese People
in Tibetan Causes
(or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Chinese)

Step One: Recognizing Chinese People are Involved Already

Chinese people constitute some 98% (or some other ridiculous majority I can’t be bothered to look up) of the People’s Republic of China, which Tibet is a part of whether you like it or not. I am not talking about the government. I’m talking about individuals. If democracy is important to you, perhaps popular opinion is as well.

“Initiative must come from individuals. Unless each individual develops a sense of responsibility, the whole community cannot move. So therefore it is very essential that we should not feel that individual effort is meaningless. The movement of the society, community or group of people means joining individuals. Society means a collection of individuals… the ultimate agreement or solution must be found by the Chinese and Tibetans themselves. For that we need support from the Chinese side, I mean from the Chinese people’s side; that is very essential.” – The Dalai Lama

“I think you should keep in mind compassion with wisdom. It is very important to utilize one’s faculty of intelligence to judge the long-term and short-term consequences of one’s actions.” – The Dalai Lama

Step Two: Learn to Communicate with Chinese People

Learn Chinese.

“Nonviolence, on the other hand, means dialogue, it means using language to communicate.” – The Dalai Lama

Step Three: Understand That Chinese People Form Their Own Beliefs and Have Self-Respect

Chinese people are not programmed robots. They actually form their own opinions, and they don’t believe they are stupid. It is not enough to learn the language; you must listen to their perspective and respect them as fully formed human beings who believe it sincerely. If all you do is harass them about being genocidal maniacs and mindless Communist zombies, they won’t listen to it. Because you’re being a jerk, and they don’t deserve personal blame for the actions of their government. Just like it’s not my personal fault as an American that thousands of Iraqis are dead, and if some Chinese guy starts telling me it is, I don’t listen to him either.

“And dialogue means compromise: listening to others’ views, and respecting others’ rights, in a spirit of reconciliation.” – The Dalai Lama

Step Four: Some Chinese People Use the Internet

… they read alot more Western stuff than you might imagine, and they even make their own proxies. Or why don’t you try making some MySpace friends*? Or how about diverting all that money for lobbying on Capitol Hill to some communications initiatives? How about bridge blogging? Hey, there are some Chinese people who read this blog, and I’m not even smart enough to blog in Chinese. I would if I could, though. I’d recommend the Handbook for Cyber-Dissidents, but unfortunately that only teaches those living in restricted societies – not how to speak to those people from outside and find common ground and friendship, which is a skill for which there ought to be a handbook (paging Rebecca MacKinnon, book idea). It’s difficult work demanding the empathy, wisdom and patience of… how do I put this… a bodhisattva.

At the very least, for crying out loud, make some decent Chinese banners and Chinese versions of your websites. At the very, very least.

*Act fast before supplies run out.

Shorter Primer: Try paying attention to what Buddhism and the Dalai Lama actually say before embarking on some arrogant self-righteous crusade – that’s been going nowhere fast for a long, long time.

Engaging Chinese People: A Quick and Dirty Primer

Posted on April 27, 2007 by davesgonechina

There has been a repeated rejoinder to my post Free Advice to the Free Tibet Crowd, that has been phrased as such: “It’s one thing to argue that Tibetans should take their case to the Chinese people; it is quite another to actually do it. How would you go about it?” and “A valid point in general, but engaging the Chinese population when such strict information controls, particularly political information, exist is easier said than done. Perhaps an answer to this question could elevate your argument.”Fair enough, and so I give you…

A Quick and Dirty Primer to Directly Involving the Chinese People
in Tibetan Causes
(or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Chinese)

Step One: Recognizing Chinese People are Involved Already

Chinese people constitute some 98% (or some other ridiculous majority I can’t be bothered to look up) of the People’s Republic of China, which Tibet is a part of whether you like it or not. I am not talking about the government. I’m talking about individuals. If democracy is important to you, perhaps popular opinion is as well.

“Initiative must come from individuals. Unless each individual develops a sense of responsibility, the whole community cannot move. So therefore it is very essential that we should not feel that individual effort is meaningless. The movement of the society, community or group of people means joining individuals. Society means a collection of individuals… the ultimate agreement or solution must be found by the Chinese and Tibetans themselves. For that we need support from the Chinese side, I mean from the Chinese people’s side; that is very essential.” – The Dalai Lama

“I think you should keep in mind compassion with wisdom. It is very important to utilize one’s faculty of intelligence to judge the long-term and short-term consequences of one’s actions.” – The Dalai Lama

Step Two: Learn to Communicate with Chinese People

Learn Chinese.

“Nonviolence, on the other hand, means dialogue, it means using language to communicate.” – The Dalai Lama

Step Three: Understand That Chinese People Form Their Own Beliefs and Have Self-Respect

Chinese people are not programmed robots. They actually form their own opinions, and they don’t believe they are stupid. It is not enough to learn the language; you must listen to their perspective and respect them as fully formed human beings who believe it sincerely. If all you do is harass them about being genocidal maniacs and mindless Communist zombies, they won’t listen to it. Because you’re being a jerk, and they don’t deserve personal blame for the actions of their government. Just like it’s not my personal fault as an American that thousands of Iraqis are dead, and if some Chinese guy starts telling me it is, I don’t listen to him either.

“And dialogue means compromise: listening to others’ views, and respecting others’ rights, in a spirit of reconciliation.” – The Dalai Lama

Step Four: Some Chinese People Use the Internet

… they read alot more Western stuff than you might imagine, and they even make their own proxies. Or why don’t you try making some MySpace friends*? Or how about diverting all that money for lobbying on Capitol Hill to some communications initiatives? How about bridge blogging? Hey, there are some Chinese people who read this blog, and I’m not even smart enough to blog in Chinese. I would if I could, though. I’d recommend the Handbook for Cyber-Dissidents, but unfortunately that only teaches those living in restricted societies – not how to speak to those people from outside and find common ground and friendship, which is a skill for which there ought to be a handbook (paging Rebecca MacKinnon, book idea). It’s difficult work demanding the empathy, wisdom and patience of… how do I put this… a bodhisattva.

At the very least, for crying out loud, make some decent Chinese banners and Chinese versions of your websites. At the very, very least.

*Act fast before supplies run out.

Shorter Primer: Try paying attention to what Buddhism and the Dalai Lama actually say before embarking on some arrogant self-righteous crusade – that’s been going nowhere fast for a long, long time.

“Splittists” to Rupert Murdoch: Thanks for the Addy!

Posted on April 27, 2007 by davesgonechina


I’ve had a MySpace profile for a while, that I never use and the friends I was supposed to use it to keep in touch with never hear from me on it and send me sarcastic messages I read 9 months later. I decided the new MySpace China launch was a good excuse to go in and add a bit of Chinese (but not talk to my friends – I’d feel like a tease).

First interesting thing was it was a pain in the ass to enter character content into fields through MySpace.com. All I got was a string of question marks, despite switching around character encodings. So that is annoying. So I edited the URL for my profile editing page from “.com” to “.cn” and lo and behold, I got the above terms and privacy agreement. I then tried making a dummie account on MySpace to see how I triggered this – I’m still not clear, because instead of giving me the interstitial agreement, it just gives me the .cn frontpage asking for a login. All the same, there is a migration system of some sort. The terms of use and privacy agreements seem more or less identical to the English ones, except the Chinese terms of use have added lines about following the State Secrets Law, impugning the “honor and interests” of the PRC and avoiding “cults and feudal superstition”.

Migrating my webpage to MySpace.cn results in two pages, but it’s not clear to what degree they are the same page. If I log into MySpace.com, I am not automatically logged into MySpace.cn. But if I make a profile change to MySpace.com, then it automatically appears in my MySpace.cn profile as well,and vice versa. Meanwhile, friends webpages, when viewed via MySpace.cn, have their profile categories in Chinese (女 instead of female). Now, my friends didn’t sign any terms of use agreements with .Cn. If one of them decides to post something that would normally be “cult activity” (use your imagination), do I lose a friend on MySpace.cn? Do they disappear? Is MySpace.cn going to virtually kidnap my overseas friends??? How precisely are they going to juggle this thing?

Let’s see what happens. I’ll add “Free Tibet” in Dallas to my .com list and see if she shows up on the Chinese side. Uh huh… yes, I really do… click… oh crap, she has to add me back before she appears on my site. I forgot. I have no time to wait for this nice lady. I don’t really have any such people as friends already… ugh, now I’ll have to delete her and she’ll get mad… I hate social networking.

Let’s try searching MySpace.cn for the Falun Gong. Right, that didn’t work. GFWed. OK, “Free Tibet”. That’ll never… sweet Avalokitesvara! Identical results in both .com and .cn?? This ain’t gonna last past beta, people. Of course, I hasten to point out, as I have in previous posts, that none of the “Free Tibet” pages appear to have any Chinese written on them. Way to be prepared guys. Let’s try some more prepared propagandists. “Nine commentaries”… 457 results! Let’s see, I can see this one, and this one… oh, oh, wait, I’ve gotten some kind of warning! Oh… it’s the maintenance warning. To be fair, I’ve seen that on the .com site the last few days (and not when viewing dastardly splittist cult MySpace pages). Oh god, I can see /RepublicofChina’s page discussing the nine commentaries?

Uh, Rupert and Wendi? Good frackin’ luck. This will just burn either way guys.

“Splittists” to Rupert Murdoch: Thanks for the Addy!

Posted on April 27, 2007 by davesgonechina


I’ve had a MySpace profile for a while, that I never use and the friends I was supposed to use it to keep in touch with never hear from me on it and send me sarcastic messages I read 9 months later. I decided the new MySpace China launch was a good excuse to go in and add a bit of Chinese (but not talk to my friends – I’d feel like a tease).

First interesting thing was it was a pain in the ass to enter character content into fields through MySpace.com. All I got was a string of question marks, despite switching around character encodings. So that is annoying. So I edited the URL for my profile editing page from “.com” to “.cn” and lo and behold, I got the above terms and privacy agreement. I then tried making a dummie account on MySpace to see how I triggered this – I’m still not clear, because instead of giving me the interstitial agreement, it just gives me the .cn frontpage asking for a login. All the same, there is a migration system of some sort. The terms of use and privacy agreements seem more or less identical to the English ones, except the Chinese terms of use have added lines about following the State Secrets Law, impugning the “honor and interests” of the PRC and avoiding “cults and feudal superstition”.

Migrating my webpage to MySpace.cn results in two pages, but it’s not clear to what degree they are the same page. If I log into MySpace.com, I am not automatically logged into MySpace.cn. But if I make a profile change to MySpace.com, then it automatically appears in my MySpace.cn profile as well,and vice versa. Meanwhile, friends webpages, when viewed via MySpace.cn, have their profile categories in Chinese (女 instead of female). Now, my friends didn’t sign any terms of use agreements with .Cn. If one of them decides to post something that would normally be “cult activity” (use your imagination), do I lose a friend on MySpace.cn? Do they disappear? Is MySpace.cn going to virtually kidnap my overseas friends??? How precisely are they going to juggle this thing?

Let’s see what happens. I’ll add “Free Tibet” in Dallas to my .com list and see if she shows up on the Chinese side. Uh huh… yes, I really do… click… oh crap, she has to add me back before she appears on my site. I forgot. I have no time to wait for this nice lady. I don’t really have any such people as friends already… ugh, now I’ll have to delete her and she’ll get mad… I hate social networking.

Let’s try searching MySpace.cn for the Falun Gong. Right, that didn’t work. GFWed. OK, “Free Tibet”. That’ll never… sweet Avalokitesvara! Identical results in both .com and .cn?? This ain’t gonna last past beta, people. Of course, I hasten to point out, as I have in previous posts, that none of the “Free Tibet” pages appear to have any Chinese written on them. Way to be prepared guys. Let’s try some more prepared propagandists. “Nine commentaries”… 457 results! Let’s see, I can see this one, and this one… oh, oh, wait, I’ve gotten some kind of warning! Oh… it’s the maintenance warning. To be fair, I’ve seen that on the .com site the last few days (and not when viewing dastardly splittist cult MySpace pages). Oh god, I can see /RepublicofChina’s page discussing the nine commentaries?

Uh, Rupert and Wendi? Good frackin’ luck. This will just burn either way guys.

An Open Letter to Oxblood Ruffin (and BoingBoing)

Posted on April 26, 2007 by davesgonechina


Xeni Jardin at BoingBoing recently linked to an opinion piece by one Oxblood Ruffin, a Canadian hacktivist and member of the Cult of the Dead Cow hacker collective. The piece is entitled “Google, China and Genocide”. I thoroughly enjoy BoingBoing, not only for “adorable cyclops kittens” but also for Cory Doctorow’s copyfight links and Xeni’s trips to places like Guatemala. But material in China at BoingBoing always drives me nuts, since there’s an almost exclusive focus on two issues: censorship and Tibet. The BoingBoing view of China is summed up pretty well by the image above, made by Students for a Free Tibet, that they’ve embraced; they’re welcome to it, but I find it far too oversimplistic and counterproductive, as I do Oxblood Ruffin’s position in his article. This week Ruffin will speak on a panel sponsored in part by Harvard Law School about campaigning for human rights at the Beijing Olympics, as part of their Human Rights and Media project. I wish I could attend, but here are my thoughts on his piece. I’m reprinting it with my comments since CDC is blocked here in China.

When content filtering targets a race of people for purely political
reasons, and an American company provides the technology to enable that
filtering, then it's time to shame the enablers. To date, Google has been
criticized solely for providing China with the means to censor the Internet.
But a tragic consequence of Google's collaboration -- and one that has been
entirely overlooked -- is its contribution to the cultural genocide of the
Tibetan people.

For starters, let me just say that I think Google has generally mucked everything up in its China approach. From the establishment of Google.cn servers on the Mainland, to its “New Coke” renaming gaff as Guge, its pinyin IP scandal, Google seems pretty lost in China. But to claim Google has been “providing China with the means to censor the Internet” is just wrong. One can point fingers at Cisco for the training and expertise it provides to the People’s Security Bureau, but China already has the means for censorship. It has for a while.

Cultural genocide is a scandalous charge.  But what exactly does it
mean? Raphael Lemkin, a legal scholar, was the first to use this term
in 1933. Mr. Lemkin had some expertise on the topic both as an intellectual
and as a Holocaust witness. According to Lemkin, the term means the
"deliberate destruction of the cultural heritage of a people or nation for
political or military reasons." Since no recognized academics dispute that
"historic Tibet" has been subject to government-sponsored population
relocation programs, creative map-drawing, and wholesale destruction of its
cultural institutions, then by definition cultural genocide has taken place.

Yup, that’s a scandalous charge alright. I won’t argue that Tibet has been subject to relocation programs and the like, but reiterate what I said in the previous post, people of all ethnic persuasions across China have suffered these crimes. Han Chinese traditions and customs have also suffered tremendously in the past fifty years, but the Free Tibet community seems to precious little time to consider that this is not limited to only one ethnic group. Uyghurs, Mongols and other minorities have faced the same degradation as well, but somehow they never are worth mentioning in the Tibetan activist community, except briefly in passing. The goals of activists such as yourself rarely if ever address the rights of these other peoples. Every single crime listed in the UN Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigeneous Peoples could conceivably applied to Chinese citizens of every ethnic group.

No Tibetans were consulted when the United Kingdom and China signed a
series of imperial documents agreeing to divvy up Tibet according to their own
interests. According to the People's Republic of China, suzerainty trumped
sovereignty, especially when the occupied territory [Tibet] was weaker and its
location was strategic in relation to one of China's historic adversaries
[India]. It was also convenient that Tibet was rich in natural resources and
had enough vacant real estate to absorb millions of migrant Chinese nationals.
And so began the physical genocide.  In 1950, the People's Liberation
Army "peacefully liberated" Tibet, something akin to saying that Adolf Hitler
was a good friend of European Jewry. From 1950 to date, 1.2 million Tibetans
have died as a result of mass slaughter, imprisonment, or starvation;
7.5 million Han Chinese have migrated into historic Tibet, now appended to
Sichuan, Yunan, and Gansu provinces, and the more recently chartered province
of Qinhai; over three thousand Buddhist monasteries have been razed and their
cultural properties destroyed or plundered; and iconic religious leaders --
the recognized figureheads of traditional Tibetan culture -- have been forced
into exile, imprisoned, executed, or kidnapped.

And so were thousands of monasteries, churches and mosques destroyed, as well as religious leaders, and various other peoples exiled, imprisoned, executed or kidnapped. But as John Powers has pointed out, the Tibetan activist community tries very hard to distinguish Tibet as being completely unrelated to the rest of China. The identical problems that millions of other ethnic groups, including Han, have faced apparently take a backseat to the importance of Tibetans. Have you considered how this approach might make Han Chinese people feel about your message?

Cultural genocide is subtler than physical genocide -- its tools are
less obvious. So now China can extend its dilution of Tibetan culture into
cyberspace with expert assistance. Google has agreed to filter out every
aspect of Tibetan life that the Chinese government finds offensive, leaving
only propaganda, misrepresentations, and outright lies about Tibet and
Tibetans. It's amazing. The Tibetan people spent thousands of years
developing their history and culture, and Google managed to make it disappear
in little more than a year with only a few algorithms.

Let’s be clear – Google.cn filters out the Tibetan exile community. Google.com/intl/zh-cn does not, nor do the various other languages of Google. These are all accessible in China (at least on my connection, and the people in China that I know). Google.cn is, as a result, a fig leaf of sorts. I think it’s a pathetic kowtow to the Chinese government, but the only thing stopping someone in China from finding this material is not Google’s website – it’s the firewall, along with Google’s willingness to create a red herring bizarro website with a .cn domain. And Tibetan culture, I should hope, does not solely exist online.

Ever since Google announced that it would deploy its emasculated server
farms into Mainland China, the search giant's collaboration with Chinese
censors has been widely criticized by the human rights community, free speech
advocates, and the United States Congress. Although Google claims to have
consulted with many nameless NGOs before deciding to export its censorship
technology to China, it failed to take anyone's advice not to proceed. Google
apparently knew better than its critics. Google even took the step of hiring
someone from the Council on Foreign Relations to improve its public image with
respect to corporate responsibility and geo-strategy. Regardless, Google's
arguments for continuing to capitulate to Chinese demands are misplaced,
self-serving, and uninformed. They are also a threat to Western security
interests.

I fail to see the threat to Western security interests. Perhaps you’re alluding to the uncontrollable “nationalist impulses” you mention below?

Google repeatedly argues two points in favor of its appeasement
policies. First, Google claims that it must obey Chinese law in order to do
business in the country. Second, Google claims that it is better to provide
expurgated search-related information to the Chinese people than none, the
cultural genocide of the Tibetan people notwithstanding.
To Google's point of complying with the law, this argument is both
specious and spurious. Because something is legal in one country does not
mean that it should be countenanced elsewhere. In some countries, it is legal
to have sex with children. Fortunately there are domestic and international
laws on the books that encourage more normative behavior. Hiding behind a
"when in Rome" way of doing business is unacceptable.

I agree this is specious and spurious, but not for the reasons you state. I think its meaningless considering the existence of google.com/intl/zh-cn.

Likewise, Google's claim that it is better to provide some information
than none is illogical and dangerous. In a country that has the fastest
growing Internet user-base in the world, in which bandwidth is subsidized and
the government is facilitating access for all, most of the population is not
even trying to avoid censorship. Given that the Chinese government uses the
Internet as a propaganda tool and that nationalist impulses among Chinese
citizens can't always be controlled, a censored Internet is not only a danger
to the Tibetan people but a threat to international stability as well --
although Google doesn't seem to be very concerned about this.

There is more to the Chinese internet than simply propaganda and foaming nationalists, mind you. I agree that Google’s policy of some is better than none is a poor excuse, again because of the google.com site, but also because Google is not the power in China that it is abroad. 80% of the search market is still dominated by Baidu in China. If what you say is true, should Google unilaterally withdraw from the Chinese search market, most of the country would not even notice since, as you say, they aren’t even trying to avoid censorship or learn the things that you would have them learn. Even if Google was unfettered in China, I again refer to my last post where I point out that none of the Tibetan activist websites have any material in Chinese. What, pray tell, would you have these people read? Moreover, have you ever considered that you may have to respect, no matter how distasteful you find them, Chinese nationalist feelings if you are to ever engage them in dialogue and convince them otherwise? Does not the Dalai Lama himself consider empathy and direct engagement to be the key hallmarks of cultivating genuine compassion? Where, Sir, is your attempt to understand those you would convert?

Even if the Chinese public is the unpredictable nationalist swarm you claim, one that would endanger international stability, what is to be gained by simply chastising Google into withdrawing? Do you think nationalist emotions would calm in the face of a foreign company lecturing China on its backwardness?

Google's argument for "engagement" has been around since the days of
Apartheid. During the Reagan years, corporations began banging the
"constructive engagement" drum. The beat went something like this: "Sure, we
don't like what's going on with these poor black folks, but if we set up shop
here, then they'll make money, and there will be political reform, and
eventually Apartheid will crumble." No one but predatory capitalists
supported the concept of constructive engagement. Nelson Mandela certainly
didn't support it, nor did other mainstream South African leaders. It did,
however, dawn on one American business leader that Western companies could
make a difference in South Africa along other lines. Rev. Leon Sullivan, a
board member with General Motors, drafted the "Sullivan Principles," a code of
conduct for human rights and equal opportunity for companies operating in
South Africa.

For one thing, Google, along with Microsoft, Yahoo! and Vodaphone, has committed to a set of principles very much like the Sullivan principles. Whether anything concrete will emerge from the process can’t be said yet, but it involves a whole host of NGOs as part of the process (including Human Rights in China – you could ask your fellow panelist Sharon Kang Hom about it this Saturday). But I’m more interested in your South Africa analogy, because there are many reasons I think it’s a poor analogy.

The Sullivan Principles were adopted by hundreds of corporations doing
business with South Africa. Some companies threatened to leave South Africa
while others did in fact leave. These acts of corporate responsibility,
bolstered by public opinion and Congressional prodding finally caused
Apartheid to crumble. The specifics of South African Apartheid and censorship
in China are not alike in every way, yet the fundamentals are similar. And
even though Google is accused of collaborating with the Chinese government on
cultural genocide, there will never be justice for Tibetans without a shared
improvement in human rights for the Chinese people. Censorship harms both,
although one more than the other.

The Sullivan Principles may have contributed to the end of Apartheid, but I think you overstate the case. No less a figure than FW DeKlerk, speaking from the inside of the NP government looking out, feels sanctions did not contribute that much. As he put it in an address, delivered by a proxy, at the Institut Choiseul in 2004:

I must also compliment the Institut for wishing to find out what the experience of sanctions is from the point of view of those – like the former South African government – who have been on the receiving end of international action. One can never really understand the nature of the hunt if one interviews only the hounds. The hare will be able to provide a very special and different perspective about the process – because, as the old saying goes, the hounds are running for their dinner and while the hare is running for his life!

DeKlerk outlined, sanctions had “ironic and unintended consequences”. I think the first is quite applicable to China’s reaction to such sanctions, though I encourage you to read the entire article.

• The National Party used the threat of sanctions and international pressure to rally voters to it cause in election after election. Sanctions, if anything, strengthened its hold on electoral power.

You must understand that should a Western company give ethical lectures to the Chinese government, especially while no one is attempting to find common dialogue with the Chinese public on the issue, will simply give the government one more nationalist card to play to the Chinese government. These principles could easily increase, not diminish, the strength of and support for the Communist Party which directly administers Tibet.

There are other differences that I think are even more important. South Africa had a 78% black majority – Tibetans, on the other hand, constitute a tiny fraction of the population of China. While your average white South African would have regular contact with blacks and ample opportunities to see the injustices of apartheid (and there were a substantial number of whites who opposed it), your average Chinese person has never seen a Tibetan in their life. You may as well be talking to them about Ghanaians. Also, the ANC, the Black Consciousness Movement and others maintained constant pressure, violently and non-violently, on the government. The effective political opposition that lasted within the country was of critical importance – ultimately South Africans saved themselves, they were not saved by American do-gooders. If you wish to follow a South African model, you must gain the sympathy and outrage of Han Chinese people, since Tibetans will never enjoy the outright majority that black South Africans did. Another critical difference is that apartheid had tremendous economic costs due to the very nature of the system, not outward pressure. In contrast, the Tibetan economy, such as it is, does not constitute a significant drag on the Chinese economy, nor does is discrimination institutionalized in the same way as it was in South Africa. Yes, there are education laws that hinder Tibetan language and culture, yes there are discriminatory hiring practices – but this has no comparison to apartheid. Finally, there is the grim fact that the final killing blow to apartheid was not the Sullivan principles, but the fall of the Soviet Union. South Africa was no longer an important satellite in the US battle against the Soviets, and they outlived their usefulness. China’s survival is, conversely, quite critical to US interests today, sad as that may be to hear.

Google has made a horrible mistake in judgment.  It has sold out the
Tibetan people, censored the Internet, made a mockery of free speech, and
placed Western security interests at risk. Google can continue its maudlin
tap dance of regret, or it can stand up and do the right thing. The right
thing would be for Google.cn to suspend operations. Google doesn't need any
more meetings with human rights groups and ethical investors, and it needn't
continue pretending that its neutered existence in China is making a
difference to anyone other than its own shareholders. Any short-term loss to
the company's profits would be more than made up for in an internationally
reinvigorated Google brand. And it could always re-enter the Chinese market if
the government agreed to meet Google at least half way.

Google has certainly made some bad judgments, and I have no problem with calling for Google.cn to shutdown. I’m not entirely convinced, however, that Google would lose profits simply because I’m not sure Google.cn is making any. But I don’t believe that it would have the impact you claim.

It would only take one prestigious IT company to put the government of
China on notice and create a chain reaction that could, in time, benefit
Tibetans and Chinese alike. Google has a unique opportunity to match its
technical innovations with ethical leadership. It can respectfully assert its
values to the government of China and curtail some of its operations. In the
long term everyone will be better off, especially China. One would like to
believe that Leon Sullivan would have supported this approach. He knew the
difference between good and evil, and he knew what to do about it.

I simply disagree. One presitigious IT company would not cause such a chain reaction. China has its own IT companies, and I seriously doubt that the Chinese government, whose entire existence rests on ideology, would risk its own suicide over a search engine that Chinese people don’t even use. Google could certainly cut its losses, both financially and ethically, by suspending Google.cn. But it won’t spark a revolution, and I highly doubt it will make any impact on the people of Tibet.

Free Advice for the Free Tibet Crowd

Posted on April 26, 2007 by davesgonechina

For regularly updated translations of Chinese Twitter comments on the ongoing events in Tibet after March 15th, go here and here)

Image from Students for a Free Tibet flickr page, not currently firewalled

Some of you may already heard of the four members of Students for a Free Tibet (SFT) that have been detained for taking photos of themselves holding a banner at Mt. Everest base camp. The Chinese government is getting another taste of what’s to come as the Olympics drawing near: the wrath of Californians (two were from Sausalito, another from Boulder – which any Coloradan will tell you bitterly is full of Californians). Both the IOC Beijing chair Hans Verbruggen (who wants to not “be involved in any political issues”), and Thomas Laird, a journalist who wrote “The Story of Tibet” (in which one Amazon reviewer quips “Laird exhibits the standard Western devotee’s simplistic amazement at having his mind blown by Tibetan philosophy”), agree on one thing: there’s gonna be a whole lot more of these stunts protests.

And I expect everything to more or less continue in the same asanine way it has for nearly five decades. The photo above, to me, says it all: we don’t care about Chinese people. We don’t care what they think, we don’t care what they’ve suffered, we don’t give a damn about them. Sure, we’ll hastily scribble on some Chinese characters (“Oh shit, you mean in China not everybody reads English signs? Get me a magic marker and a dictionary!”), but the only message we care about is the one we get out to the English speaking world. Never mind the hundreds of millions of reasonably intelligent adult Chinese citizens and their opinion – no, the only opinions that matter about the future of Tibet are those of Westerners. It reeks of the condescension of 19th century missionaries and their need to rescue the “Sick Man of Asia”. The numerous Tibet activist websites, not to mention the government-in-exile, don’t have any Chinese language content on their websites, despite the Dalai Lama’s recent claims that he wants to negotiate anytime, anywhere. Of course they’re all behind the GFW, but should any Chinese netizen be intrepid enough to seek these pages out, they won’t find anything there for them. Apparently engaging the sympathies of the Chinese people just doesn’t matter. The misery of other ethnic groups besides Tibetans? That’s their problem. I find it deeply hypocritical that a movement deeply connected to Mahayana Buddhism, in which nobody gets Nirvana until everybody gets Nirvana, should be so narrowly concerned with only the plight of one ethnic group. Han Chinese people are tortured, imprisoned and oppressed for the same reasons as many Tibetans, and had their traditions and cultures abused and destroyed as well. But that’s not really the concern here, is it? Should Tibet ever become an independent nation, there doesn’t seem to have been any consideration for what negative consequences this might have for the rest of the population of the PRC. It’s not unlike the call for the Iraq War; give them freedom, and it will all work itself out. Not bloody likely.

This happened last summer as well. Tim Johnson of McClatchy newspapers blogged about a banner unfurled above a railway station in Beijing. This too was in English, and Western reporters in Beijing such as Tim were alerted beforehand. As he said at the time,

While the issues touching on Tibet are of interest, what troubled me is that the activists are generally Westerners rather than Tibetans. Their banner was in English, not Chinese or Tibetan, and few people in front of the train station took notice or were able to read the banner. So without complicit Western media to document the event, it would have gone unnoticed.

Of course, the Western media has a hard time ignoring a banner when the people holding it get arrested. It’s not clear what the charges are; it is possible, I suppose, that the protesters entered China without a visa from a Nepalese base camp. Tim Johnson recently crossed from the Chinese base camp to two others, risking a “$200 dollar fine, apparently negotiable down to $50.” That’s when you have a Chinese visa, of course. But the Chinese government plays right into the hands of the protesters by arresting them, getting their names splashed across international media. Otherwise the event would have never moved beyond the SFT webpage and a Youtube video. The Chinese government, besides pursuing thoughtless and brutal approach to Tibet (and the rest of the country), pursues a thoughtless and brutal approach to PR as well. And yet, they don’t get alot of flack for it from the Han majority. No one, however, seems to really consider why – they just assume that Chinese citizens are brainwashed zombies.

It’s not like Chinese citizens don’t notice the tone of cries for minority justice. In Xinjiang, where there’s another ethnic minority facing discrimination and oppression (the Uyghurs – not that the Tibetan exile movement has spent any time in half a century pointing them out), numerous Han Chinese complained bitterly to me about Western attention to minorities in China. “What about what we suffer? Minorities get all sorts of special privileges, like more than one child!”, they’d say. I find it incredibly ironic that they can also complain of Western imperialism and yet not show one iota of empathy for the feelings of Chinese minorities who feel their right to self-determination taken away by a more powerful alien society. Yet tactics like English banners inside the borders of the PRC, which leave the Chinese population out of the conversation, only serve to more deeply entrench this bitterness. Mind you, there a different ways to try and engage the Chinese public, and I don’t recommend the phone spam approach of the Falun Gong/Epoch Times. These are not attempts at peaceful reconciliation or understanding, concepts the Dalai Lama has flogged in countless reams of dead trees – the entire problem is that there is no attempt to engage the other side as human beings, by exiles or the Chinese government. At least the Chinese government, however, makes no pretense at being stalwart defenders of universal human rights or deep spiritual empathy for all human beings.

On the right: Dr. John Powers body checks the movement.

For 50 years, the Tibetan exile movement has fought a propaganda battle with the Chinese government, but never successfully brought that battle to China. Why? Because they’re too busy shouting and congratulating one another for it. And facts, for both sides, are only necessary when they support your side. In History as Propaganda: Tibetan Exiles versus the People’s Republic of China, Powers says (courtesy of ESWN):

Much of the discourse resembles a political rally in which competing factions yell slogans at each other from behind barriers that physically separate them. Our Chinese and Tibetan authors utilize a repertoire of historical simulacra — generally divorced from their context and stripped of the ambiguities that accompany them — that have been accepted by their respective communities as being concordant with the party line, and their conclusions follow from them…

In this situation, it seems impossible that either side could conceivably win its argument; on the other hand, neither can lose. So we are left with a stalemate, in which the two sides shout at each other and accuse their opponents of deliberately obfuscating, while overlooking their own obfuscations. As MacIntyre notes, when two polarized sides of protestors shout at each other, their messages are primarily aimed at those who already share their imaginings, and so each faction is essentially talking to itself or shouting slogans that are ignored or rejected by the other. Thus, each group ends up talking to itself and those who already agree with it.

When I first began this study, my background in Tibetan studies mostly consisted of philosophical and doctrinal studies with refugee Tibetan lamas. During my tenure in graduate school and in subsequent research trips to South Asia, I lived in Tibetan communities and developed friendships with a number of Tibetans. In this situation, my exposure to Tibetan history was heavily conditioned by their perspective, and I implicitly assumed that the authors of Chinese versions of Tibetan history particularly those related to the takeover of Tibet in the 1950s, must be aware that they were lying, distorting, and fabricating and that the Tibetan case for independence was so compelling that anyone with even the slightest exposure to the facts would reach that conclusion. The deplorable human rights situation in Tibet added weight to this conclusion. But in recent years, as a result of speaking with many Chinese, both in China and overseas, and reading a wide variety of publications by Chinese authors (both inside and outside the PRC), my inescapable conclusion is that they do sincerely believe the party line . This is true of most overseas Chinese, as well as residents of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau. Their commitment to its veracity is as strong as that of the Tibetans to their own paradigm, and any problemization of it is generally viewed as dangerous, the crumbling edge of a slippery slope that leads to the destruction of the certainties that sustain the Chinese worldview and the Chinese state.

The certainty with which most Chinese accept their “regime of truth” with regard to Tibet should give pause even to the most passionate Tibet activist. Chinese people commonly assert that they have a valid perspective that has largely been ignored by a world that is either ignorant of the facts or deliberately misrepresents Chinese actions in Tibet. They claims that trying to present their case to pro-Tibet foreigners is like arguing with a brick wall — exactly the experience their opponents have with them. In this situation, it seems likely that both sides will continue to argue at cross-purposes, and it is difficult to imagine a resolution in light of the incommensurability of their respective premises and sources of evidence.

And so the yelling from both sides continues, and both sides can fire their zingers at one another and pat each other on the back. Powers examines the English literature produced by both sides, I believe, for a clear reason: because the battle is really one fought on Capitol Hill, not in China. Tibetan activists continue portraying the Chinese public as a swarm of indistinguishable drones incapable of independent thought or political power, even depicting them as foot soldiers in a massive campaign to dilute Tibet with faceless hordes, an outdated Cold War notion that suggests that all that CIA funding until the 1970s has left them in a time warp. No, the Free Tibet movement sees only the power of Washington D.C. and American corporations as capable of swaying China, though 50 years of a failed approach apparently isn’t enough to convince them they’re beating a dead yak. Meanwhile, the Chinese government must think of them as an annoying pain in the ass, constantly disrupting their diplomatic visits or causing PR headaches like this most recent stunt. But make no mistake, as long as the exile movement continues to ignore the Chinese people and look abroad for action, the PRC will be overjoyed. Go ahead and unfurl your banners in English at the Olympics, shout your slogans, treat Chinese people as brainwashed morons – they’ll love the Party even more. But hey, at least you can feel good about yourself back in Sausalito.

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