Month: April 2007

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 Tibetanshave 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, aboard 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 anymore meetings with human rights groups and ethical investors, and it needn’t continue pretending that its neutered existence in China is making adifference 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.

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.

Strange Maps has uncovered this awesome Time Magazine map from 1952 showing the Communist wave emanating from Irkutsk out into Asia. Interesting to note it uses the old name for Urumqi, Tihwa. It’s interesting to see that the American public was being told that Mongolia was incorporated into China in 1952, even though both countries recognized one another’s legitimacy in 1949. Mongolia was a Soviet satellite, not a Chinese one, but considering the maps perspective declares China one as well, I guess that’s not such a big matter. Just eight years later the Sino-Soviet split, slowly building during the late 50s, would become a public spat, and in 1962 the Soviets would support India against China and Mao would call Khrushchev a wussy for backing down in Cuba. In 1969, the USSR and China would fight border skirmishes while the Cultural Revolution condemned the Soviets.

Meanwhile, “Domino Theory” continued to be popular in successive White House administrations. This map would not have been out of place in 1969 if Time had chosen to rerun it.

I always check WeirdAsiaNews for new ideas for stories. Since they rarely link to original Chinese language articles, it usually sends me out searching for the source and I find some other goodies along the way. Take this picture they posted recently of policeman in Chongqing:

Yup, he and one hundred of his comrades are sporting cameras on their heads for “evidence collection”. The article even even makes reference to cameras being used for what is apparently a Chongqing TV version of COPS called 《110在现场》, or 110 on the Scene.

Finding this, though, sent me through a Baidu search that uncovered another article saying that Guangdong PSB and security bureaus have 800,000 security cameras, or electronic eyes, and will have 1,000,000 by next year (imagine how many nationwide, though Guangdong is probably one of the leading provinces considering its wealth). And Guangzhou has this high tech looking 5 million RMB command center:

Another story says that in neighboring Guangzhou, there’s been some sort of arrangement where private companies install and maintain highway surveillance cameras, and then collect a percentage of traffic fines as a return on investment – and you thought just the department having to make quota was bad, think how many tickets you have to issue to bulk up Li Highway Surveillance Holdings’ bottom line? The Guangdong government has said this ain’t proper.

Meanwhile, in the Shenzhen district of Longgang, a 50,000 camera network nicknamed, apparently with unintended irony, “SkyNet” (天网) has caught jewel thieves and the murderers of a second-hand cell phone salesman.

(Updated below)

So it’s turned out the shooter in the grisly and appalling Virginia Tech murders was not a Chinese exchange student, though there was some unfounded speculation that the student was Chinese, or Chinese (Taiwanese?) descent VT student Wayne Chiang was the shooter based on his Livejournal musings about “obsessive love, movie downloads, and oh, the futility of life.” Oh, and guns:

“i put the cx4 [semiautomatic carbine] on the market cause i got bored with it,” he writes in one entry, accompanied by this photo. “personally, i don’t find it effective as a efficient manslaughtering tool, which definitely does not fit my needs.”

Sounds like a fun guy (actually, looking at his blog, he does seem like a cool guy, and the above quote seems more and more likely to be dark ironic wit – which I approve of heartily). Turns out the shooter was Korean, as if that makes any difference in the world. Homicidal rage is not determined by ethnicity. That apparently is lost on alot of people, especially some commenters over at fellow Asia blogger The Marmot Hole, and conservative blogger and occasional TV “expert” Debbie Schlussel jumped immediately to the possibility that Asian meant “Jihadist” “Paki”.

Xinhua I guess technically had the scoop that the shooter was not Chinese with its article No Chinese Students Found Among Victims in U.S. Campus Shooting, although one could no doubt hedge on the definition of “victims”. This was reported before the identity of the shooter was known thanks to a board member of the university’s Chinese Association of Students and Scholars, who was basing this simply on the fact that the association members to whom he had spoken didn’t mention any Chinese victims. It seems rather impolite to emphasize that none of your own citizens have died – I realize other nations press do the same, but I don’t remember seeing any headlines like “No Americans Dead in Plane Crash” – though I’m sure somebody did it somewhere before. I think current style dictates (or ought to) you mention your own nationals in the headline if they did die, otherwise you make the headline about those foreigners who did. You don’t lead with a relieved-sounding negative that implies “Relax, It Was Just Some Furriners”. Or at least I wouldn’t.

What struck me was that this comes only four months after the Sundance Festival premiere of Dark Matter, a film by Chinese American Chen Shizheng based on the true story Gang Lu, a physics Ph.D. from China who shot and killed five people, wounding another, at the University of Iowa in 1991. I don’t know what sort of distribution the film has picked up, and after this I wonder if it ever will. Variety seemed to think it wasn’t all that good anyway, despite having Meryl Streep.

Beijing Newspeak, who works for Xinhua, reports that the false report that the shooter was Chinese led to ringing “alarm bells” in the international news department and anxiety over how to describe the gunman. A Chinese CCTV reporter blogged, according to Danwei, that the story was scrapped once they heard the gunman might be Chinese. This sort of evasiveness, of course, feeds into the whole idea that the ethnicity of the killer mattered at all in the first place. Meanwhile, Dark Matter has been widely reported in the Chinese media according to a Baidu search, I guess since 16 years is long enough to avoid being “problematic for propaganda”.

UPDATE: Sadly No has the ultimate round up of reactions to the VT Massacre:

Shorter Everbody on the Internet:

The senseless massacre at Virginia Tech basically confirms everything I’ve been saying all along.

So true.

2nd UPDATE: Blogger-journalist Josie Liu points out some Chinese media did report the rumors that the shooter was Chinese, and has more reactions from the Chinese BBSverse:

Upon receiving such information, people in China started to post comments expressing feelings like “very sad” and “ashamed.” Some even tried to assess the reasons for such “extreme behaviors” of Chinese students in the US, such as pressure to excel and the disparity between their high self-esteem and humble reality.