Category: China

Highlight the text below. This is an experiment created with highlite, via BoingBoing. Poem here. More on Hu Jia here.

Presently as I confront prison walls, Now I write this poem for you, my Love, my
 Lady, my Wife. Even tonight, the stars glitter in the cold sky of apparent isol
ation. Glowworms yet appear and disappear among the shrubs.  Please explain to o
ur child why I did not have a chance to bid her farewell. I was compelled to emb
ark on a long journey away from home. And so, everyday before our daughter goes
to bed, And when she awakes in the morning, I will entrust to you, my Lady, my L
ove, my Wife: I entrust to you, my warm kisses on our daughter’s cheeks.  Please
 let our child touch the herbs beneath the stockade. In the morning on a beautif
ul sunlit day, If she notices the dew on the leaves, She will experience my deep
 love for her.  Please play the Fisherman’s Song every time you water the cloves
. I should be able to hear the song, my love. Please take good care of our silen
t but happy goldfish. Hidden in their silence are memories of my glamourous and
turbulent youth.  I tread a rugged road, But let me reassure you: I have never s
topped singing, my Love. The leaves of the roadside willow tree have gradually c
hanged colour. Some noises of melting snow approach from afar.  Noises are engul
fed in silence. This is just a very simple night. When you think of me, please d
o not sigh, my Love. The torrents of my agonies have merged with the torrents of
 my happiness. Both rivers now run through my mortal corpse.  Before the drizzle
 halts, I would have returned to your side, my Lady. I cannot dry your tears whi
le I am drenched in rain; I can do so only with a redeemed soul after these time
s of testing.Presently as I confront prison walls, Now I write this poem for you
, my Love, my Lady, my Wife. Even tonight, the stars glitter in the cold sky of
apparent isolation. Glowworms yet appear and disappear among the shrubs.  Please
 explain to our child why I did not have a chance to bid her farewell. I was com
pelled to embark on a long journey away from home. And so, everyday before our d
aughter goes to bed, And when she awakes in the morning, I will entrust to you,
my Lady, my Love, my Wife: I entrust to you, my warm kisses on our daughter’s ch
eeks.  Please let our child touch the herbs beneath the stockade. In the morning
 on a beautiful sunlit day, If she notices the dew on the leaves, She will exper<
ience my deep love for her.  Please play the Fisherman’s Song every time you wat

You walk into the room
With your pencil in your hand
You see somebody naked
And you say, “Who is that man?”
You try so hard
But you don’t understand
Just what you’ll say
When you get home

Because something is happening here
But you don’t know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?

– Ballad of a Thin Man, Bob Dylan

I lived in Xinjiang for three years. The yawning chasm between Uyghurs and Hans I saw on a daily basis in Xinjiang was disturbing, and I’m not even talking about divisions in economic opportunities or political power. I taught at a university in Urumqi, where large swaths of my Han students, though they ate Uyghur food and had lived there all their lives, didn’t know any of the dishes names in Uyghur. This struck me as being the equivalent of living in Southern California and not knowing the word “burrito”. On the eve of the Iraq war, administrators at another school told six of us, 3 Americans, 2 Australians and 1 Canadian, all Caucasian, not to leave campus after Bushs deadline, because “Uyghurs are Muslims, Iraq is Muslim”, and we would be targets of resentment and hostility. We laughed, because every Uyghur we knew hoped, not very secretly, for the US to liberate them from the Han*. Much later, at the university, I had beer with a colleague in the Foreign Languages Department. He asked if I was ever worried living amongst so many Muslims. The beer made me blunt “They don’t hate me. They hate you.” He was speechless. A Singaporean friend who was with us later said “You shouldn’t have said that. You’re right, but he can’t handle that and you know it.” I was frustrated, though. Vast numbers of Uyghurs would confess to any foreigner readily their worldview, which certainly didn’t match what Han Chinese believed. But between Uyghurs and Han, there was silence. As the Wall Street Journal reports, “One Uighur man working in Shanghai, when asked how Uighurs feel about government policy, said: “I can’t tell you the truth. It would be illegal.””

I’ve never been to Tibet, but I hear echoes of the same problems from Lhasa. I have no problem believing that Tibetans targeted violence at Han and Hui in Lhasa, for much the same reasons they are disliked in private by Uyghurs. In ESWN’s translation of a Han girls experiences How Can I Forget March 14, Lhasa?, the writer says the following:

I thought that I would be the same way with my Tibetan friends as before and not changed as a result of March 14. But as I sat in the Tibetan sweet tea house, I realized that everything has changed. The Tibetan service workers ignored the Han people completely and they only chatted with their Tibetan friends. Even worse, the Tibetans were swapping rumors and lies that completely distorted the facts. It was absurd that anyone can believe these bare-faced lies and regard them as the truth.

The reason why they believe that these were the facts is very simply that the tellers were Tibetans! They said, If you can’t trust a Tibetan, who can you trust? In any case, as long as it is a Tibetan, they you must help him no matter what the rights or wrongs of the matter are! Among their beliefs, there are no rights or wrongs and there is only ethnicity! There was no way for us to communicate!

The girl believes that what changed after March 14 were the Tibetans. I don’t think so. I think what changed is that she got a glimpse of what Tibetans have often said in private, and now dared to speak publicly. She says she “cannot forgive those criminals for destroying our homes, for destroying our lives, for destroying the brotherhood of Han and Tibetan, for destroying our trust…” I truly doubt that trust was there. Instead there was an uneasy peace maintained by silence. There was no communication of Tibetan grievances because they were suppressed.

Richard Spencer points out that much of this is because “those dependent on what the government has to say saw only soft-focus pictures of smiling folk dancers and peasants improving their lives through money funnelled from Beijing. That many Tibetans resented the Chinese would have seemed at best incomprehensible and at worst racist to an audience brought up on an ideologically correct vision of China’s ethnic minorities living in harmony.”

Shenzhen Fieldnotes had a timely post about the visit of teachers from Xishuangbanna, an ethnic enclave in Yunnan, to her elementary school. The minority teachers “arrived in “native” costumes which they wore the entire week. as far as i could tell, they weren’t wearing traditional clothing, but actual costumes that one would wear on stage to perform one of china’s 56 ethnic groups. these costumes included christmas garland and plastic flowers to adorn the women’s hair. Nevertheless, several of the han teachers told me that this is how ethnics dress, even when working in the fields. when i expressed sceptism, it was as if i had challenged something fundamental about being Chinese.”

She did challenge something fundamental about being Chinese. It’s in this context that academics say like this:

“The Communist Party has used nationalism as an ideology to keep China together,” said [Dibyesh] Anand, a reader in international relations at Westminster University in London. He said many Chinese regard the Tibetan protests “as an attack on their core identity.”

“It’s not only an attack on the state,” he said, “but an attack on what it means to be Chinese. Even if minorities don’t feel like part of China, they are part of China’s nationality.”

The Han official that accompanied them tells that he always urges them to maintain their traditions (with plastic flowers, apparently) in the face of modernization, which is curious since Han Chinese otherwise so often intensely pursue modernization otherwise, and look on less modern things with disdain. Academics such as Dru Gladney and Louisa Schein have written about how minorities in China have been commodified as exotic others, in the language of Edward Said, on which the Han can project their own modernity.

I just received a comment from a (presumably) Han Chinese person stating that Tibetans have received free medical, education and religous subsidies, and ends by saying “All Chinese People fully understand and support the policies of our government there; we should take care of Tibetan and their feelings.” Chris O’Brien at Beijing Newspeak had the perfect response to a Chinese media report arguing precisely the same thing, and which renders that final bit about Tibetans feelings incredibly ironic:

This commentary sums up perfectly the reasons why it will be a long, long time before the Chinese government gets the Tibetans on board. There is no attempt at understanding anything about what Tibetans are thinking. The argument is based purely on money and statistics. The door to discussions is closed.

I have yet to see any prominent Chinese media reports or rejoinders feature a Tibetan voice or representative, much less a Chinese Tibetan at the forefront of response to international media. But minorities in China have generally seemed to be seen and not heard.

It’s not simply the Chinese government doing this, however, but Han individuals as well. It’s not simply a top-down ideology impressed upon the masses, though the Party has certainly promulgated these sorts of ideas. The origins of this sort of thinking, where the Tibetans and others are lumped under the umbrella of “Chinese” without asking them for their honest opinion goes back before 1949. In 1927, while Tibet was essentially a de facto independent state, Sun Yat-sen discussed his Three Principles of the People, according to Frank Dikotter’s The Discourse of Race in Modern China, saying:

Considering the law of survival of ancient and modern races, if we want to save China and to preserve the Chinese race, we must certainly promote Nationalism. To make this principle luminous for China’s salvation, we must first understand it clearly. The Chinese race totals four hundred million people; of mingled races there are only a few million Mongolians, a million or so Manchus, a few million Tibetans, and over a million Mohammedan Turks. These alien races do not number altogether more than ten million, so that, for the most part, the Chinese people are of the Han or Chinese race with common blood, common language, common religion and common customs – a single, pure race.

Let’s dispense, for the moment, with the mental and semantic acrobatics that seem necessary to reconcile the words “alien”, “pure” and “mingled”. Let’s consider the fact that Sun Yat-sen was pushing a form of racial nationalism, Han nationalism, in order to “save China”. That the “alien races” are mentioned at all seems to imply that they didn’t get the privilege of pursuing their own racial nationalism. They were coming along for the ride to rescue China whether they liked it or not. And this narrative of the Chinese race faces the specter of extinction was not a new one, either. As I’ve previously written, it’s been around since the Qing Dynasty. From the late 19th century until now, it has always been a mix of racial nationalism (the resurgence of the once great Chinese, which too easily is thought of as Han), and the borders of the Qing Dynasty. The Tibetans and Uyghurs, rather sharing the sense of shame that Han Chinese have sometimes known as the “Century of Humilation” (1840-1949), in fact cherish that time as the one they wish to reclaim.

One can find the entanglement of minority and Han identity in the bestseller Wolf Totem, just released in English translation. The book centers on a young Han man who comes under the tutelage of an old Mongol herder when he’s rusticated to Inner Mongolia during the Cultural Revolution. The author Jiang Rong makes explicit analogies comparing nomads and Han to wolves and sheep, respectively, while also making the Han the bringers of thoughtless destruction via modernization. The ethnic minority, in this case the Mongols, are used as a contrast to comment on the inadequacies of the Han people. As Time Magazine’s Simon Elegant points out:

…its pleasant pastoral passages are sooner or later interrupted by jarring expositions that wouldn’t look out of place in a 19th century manual of eugenics. Here’s one from the novel’s main character, Chen Zhen:

“The way I see it, most advanced people today are the descendants of nomadic races. They drink milk, eat cheese and steak, weave clothing from wool, lay sod, raise dogs, fight bulls, race horses, and compete in athletics. They cherish freedom and popular elections, and they have respect for their women, all traditions and habits passed down by their nomadic ancestors.”

This sort of language is hardly out of place with Sun Yat-sen’s seventy five years before it, or Liang Qichao’s over a century ago.

It’s interesting to consider Wolf Totem’s condemnation of the Han as sheep when so many Han Chinese are saying themselves that the Han are still weak, weak-minded, and not capable of independent thought in response to criticism and media coverage of the Lhasa events. Clearly Jiang Rong has the pulse of the zeitgeist, and given the historical background I’ve just described, one can see how he may have gotten there.

But perhaps the most fascinating part of Wolf Totem, in this case, is what happens when Chen Zhen, obsessed with learning the secrets of the wolves, traps a cub. The Mongol community is angered at this transgression, and it also heralds the arrival of thousands of Han migrants who devastate the ecology in the name of modernization. By trapping the wolf, one really traps oneself.

———————————————
*I previously wrote about this incident, and the discrimination and ethnic tension in everyday life in Xinjiang for the Asia Sentinel.

Since the Chinese government has begun not only saying that the Dalai Clique organized the violence in Lhasa, but that he’s done it with the help of the Xinjiang terrorist group the East Turkestan Independence Movement. They’ve tied the Dalai Lama to Chen Shuibian in Taiwan in the past, as well, and there’s a tendency to see some conspiracy amongst people who are perceived as “anti-China”. It all reminds me of Saturday morning cartoon supervillains, and the Dalai Lama seems a dead ringer for Lex Luthor, so let’s just imagine… China’s Legion of Doom!

I’ve been busy getting this site up and fixing it so the old blog redirects here (there will be some problems with links from Google for a little while, unfortunately, because I redid my permalinks after the spider was here). Besides that, I’ve been suffering from TFS, or Tibet Fatigue Syndrome, severe enough to find it difficult as many have to know what to say next. It’s hard to find the right words in this situation, especially since I believe that in order to move forward we all have to choose our words carefully, and even then we’re clearly not working with the same definitions. And I’m not talking about photos of Nepalese cops being attached to articles about Tibet. I mean the sort of schizophrenic dissonance we see with binaries like independence vs. separatist, demonstrator vs. rioter, or occupation vs. unity. But not just that. Basic words like “nation”, “country”, “people” (as in “a people”), and at heart the very names “China” and “Chinese”. The way they are commonly used by both Chinese and Non-Chinese are separated by a yawning chasm of history and identity. And not a 5000 year one, as some people on both sides are rather hasty to assume. More like a 150 year one, going back to the Opium War. China’s encounter with modernity, and with it the modern system of nation-states and national identity, was a wrenching one that to this day casts an enormous shadow over the meaning of the very words “China” and “Chinese” unlike many countries around the world, particularly Western ones. These are highly emotional issues for China, and in my opinion they are not simply the product of the government’s propaganda or ideology. Though those factors intensify the problem, they are more products of those issues rather than producers.

So I’m hoping to try and find a way to explain how these issues and Chinese perspectives inform the process of engaging in dialogue with Chinese netizens in coming posts, but while I’ve been hesitant to post, I’ve kept reading piles of material. So I’ve made a working list of some articles that I think are relevant and categorizing them to try and break it all down into bite sized pieces for myself. You can view the list, which will be updated again soon, on this site, or mirrored on Google Docs here. Now, to outline the categories. All the links below are to previous things I’ve written, so its also a way to get reacquainted with this blog. I’ve linked to each section of the document along the way. Feel free to suggest more reading materials.

Continue reading “SchizOlympics: Words Fail Us”

UPDATE: Rick Martin at Pandapassport and CNET’s Little Red Blog found a Youtube tutorial on Fanfou.

I’ve argued, citing the words of the Dalai Lama himself, that if you

1) Believe in democratic principles and free speech
2) You believe the Internet is a tool for unfettered global communication
3) There’s something in China (or any other country) that bothers you

Then you ought to put some energy into communicating directly with Chinese netizens about the problem. For years now I’ve seen alot of Chinese netizens discussions be completely ignored or simply missed by English-speaking netizens, who too often think that Chinese netizens are all completely brainwashed. Well, guess what? Some of them think you are too. Instead of dismissing each other as fools, how about we try to talk? So I say, Tweet Back! Tweet in English, alot of Chinese people know some. If you know Chinese… what are you waiting for? I’ve been translating alot of Chinese tweets on Tibet this weekend, and alot of them break the stereotype of the frothing nationalist Chinese blogger. These are Chinese people who adopt alot of Web 2.0 applications alot of the time, they aren’t just blowhards in chat rooms. Some are journalists, professionals and students.

Of course, this isn’t going to be easy. First steps usually don’t work so well. But its time to start trying some things instead of just throwing our hands in the air and dismissing the other side as brainwashed, indoctrinated or oppressed. There’s life out there folks, try making contact. You might be surprised. You might just learn something if you keep an open mind and try to hold a respectful dialogue despite your differences. Move out of your comfort zone, show some patience, and try to listen.

So here’s a quick tutorial to sign up for Fanfou. If you go on twifan.com and search for “Tibet” in English or “西藏”, which is Tibet in Chinese, you’ll find plenty of people to talk to. And you can always Fanfou me. My name there now is 八仙過海 means (Eight Immortals Cross the Sea).

Go to your homepage and its pretty much like Twitter. I realize this isn’t a full tutorial, but I wanna get this started. Also, you can put this link on your Firefox toolbar Zh -> En and when you view a Chinese page, press it to get an instant sloppy Google translation. It ain’t a great solution, but again, its a start, and these are short messages, so you may be able to get the gist.

Special Note: This is the perfect opportunity for Tibet internet activists like Oxblood Ruffin and concerned netizens everywhere to engage Chinese people on the Internet in discussions about what is going on. As I previously outlined in a primer to engage Chinese people, these are channels where one can register a free account and launch dialogues with Chinese individuals about Tibet. Many of the people I’ve included below are neither kneejerk nationalists or xenophobes, and some of them know some English too. It wouldn’t hurt to try. You can respond by clicking on the username link at the beginning of each tweet, sign up, and talk back.

To be updated periodically. Translations are rough and quick, suggestions helpful. (thanks to Feng37)

From Fanfou member 新闻触角:

发生在西藏拉萨的骚乱依然持续。有证据表明，这是达赖“藏独”集团暗中指示和操纵的破坏活动。根据最新获得 的电视画面显示，拉萨市浓烟滚滚火光冲天。不法之徒挥舞榔头、斧头砸毁店铺、银行、政府机关的玻璃和门窗，推翻或砸毁停放在路边的汽车，燃烧轮胎，人群中 有青年、学生和身穿宗教服饰的喇嘛。

[Events in Lhasa continue as before. There is evidence indicating the Dalai Lama “Tibetan Independence” group in secret has directed and controlled this sabotage. According to the latest TV broadcasts, a thick cloud of smoke is visible above Lhasa. Lawlessness is rampant, shops and banks have been trashed, government windows are smashed (or is it shuttered?), cars overturned, tires burning, there are crowds of youth, students and lamas.]

拉萨星期五发生大规模藏人抗议活动，公安部门下午一点左右开始戒严，所有居民不准外出，在拉萨街头已经看见军队车辆穿梭，坦克装甲车进驻群众示威的八角广场，政府派军队包围了拉萨最大的3所寺庙，封锁现场。新华社英文网站报道证实，警察使用了催泪弹，并且朝天鸣枪。

[On Friday there were large scale Tibetan protests in Lhasa, in the afternoon Public Security began to restrict the area, residents told not to go out, in the streets already see military troop transports, tanks and armored cars approach the demonstrators in Bajiao Square, government troops surround Lhasa’s three largest temples, seal off the area. Xinhua English reports confirm police used tear gas, in addition to warning shots being fired.]

带着鲑鱼旅行 我的妈呀，西藏出乱子了。内地新闻单位机构出入必须佩带证件。

[Mama mia, Tibet has gone nuts. Domestic news organizations must have proper credentials to go in and out.]

Wayne 三月十五日，西藏发生了自八九年以来最为严重的骚乱。

[March 15h, Tibet incident most serious incident since ’89]

阿企 @远骋 坚决反对藏独，但要给与藏民适当自治权

[@ YuanCheng (distance runner?) I firmly oppose Tibetan Independence, but want to grant Tibetan’s appropriate autonomous rights]

IQ小子 大多有关西藏的贴吧都被关闭了。

[For the most part Tibet related webpages are all closed.]

三儿 西藏又暴乱了 真的假的

[Tibet rioted again true or false?]

katly58 @shippo7 嗨 真不知道西藏哪几头家伙一直在作祟 好想灭了他们啊

[Sigh, really don’t know why these Tibetan guys constantly make trouble, best exterminate them]

shippo7 腾讯QQ封锁了有关西藏骚乱的信息，有相关关键字的信息对方收不到

[Tencent QQ shutdown related to Tibet incident messages, can’t receive messages with related keywords]

浪子 [中共] 你能对西藏仁慈点吗？ 2008-03-15 22:51

[Chinese Communist Party] Can you show Tibet a little mercy?

Shadow 西藏真的暴乱鸟，明天就不让说这个话题鸟…… 2008-03-15 20:26

[If Tibet is really rebelling, tomorrow we won’t be allowed to discuss this topic… …]

痛苦的信仰 向自由、民主的西藏斗志们致敬//Less talk and More work 2008-03-15 23:33

[For freedom, Democratic Tibet will fight on// Less talk and More work]

geuro 西藏是不是也成敏感词了 2008-03-16 11:08

[Is Tibet becoming a sensitive topic or not?]

oland 问了德国朋友问题，她怎么看西藏铁路，她说中国政府很聪明，既方便汉族人去西藏玩，又可以更简单的剥削藏族人。如果中国政府能有哪怕一点的人权，尊重他们的宗教，事情可能也许不会那么遭。我的回答是，法国对非洲的政策从来不是以自由民主和平为指导思想的，其他国家的范围可能小一些，但是做法有过之 2008-03-16 11:22

[Asked a German friend how she views the Tibetan railway, she said the Chinese government is really brilliant, they’ve made it convenient for Han to visit Tibet, while at the same time can exploit the Tibetan people. If the Chinese government had granted just one human right, and respected their religion, maybe things wouldn’t have turned out this way. M
y answer is, French policy in Africa was never based on democratic peace, other countries occasionally have(?), but they’ve done it this way before]

璐人甲 美国一朋友问我西藏为什么要暴动 2008-03-16 11:23

[American friend asked me why Tibet is rebelling]

oland 不平衡这个是事实，世界上到处都有不平衡，没人能解决这个问题，如果一个藏族的当地贵族家庭在北京没有收到贵宾待遇而在做些工艺品的小买卖，如果一个汉族的农民在西藏可以把持当地经济命脉，我倒是觉得这个世界有点奇怪的让人炫目。我不知道你归纳出来的，藏人到汉族地区只能做些手工艺品小买卖是一种 2008-03-16 11:33

[Inequality is a fact of life, there’s inequality all over the world, no one can solve this kind of problem. If a Tibetan family in Beijing sells handicrafts instead of getting treated like royalty, or if a Han peasant in Tibet dominates the local economy, I think this indicates the world is sometimes strangely confusing. I don’t see how you reach the conclusion that the only opportunity for Tibetans in Han areas is to sell handicrafts.]

兽兽 @oland 你问了一大圈英国、美国、印度人、IMF、World Bank，你干嘛不问问，由什么人控制经济命脉，西藏当地人怎么想。当地的妇女、僧侣、下层民众怎么想？ 2008-03-16 11:35

[@oland You keep talking about England, America, Indians, the IMF, World Bank, why don’t you ask who controls the economy, how Tibetan locals feel about it, or what women, monks, the lower classes, think about it]

LeafDuo 百度百科的 西 藏 词条被锁定，wiki 的 西藏 词条被半保护 2008-03-16 21:05

[Baidu Baike has locked out the term “Tibet” wiki has partially blocked the term]

GONG youtube访问不能,我想看台山交警事件,西藏事件,入联公投事件的视频啊… 2008-03-16 19:32

[Can’t visit youtube, I wanted to see videos of the Taiwan traffic incident, Tibet incident, the UN referendum (in Taiwan), arggghh]

Gerald 西藏、青海、甘肃等省区的主要官员，目前都在北京出席全国人大会议，他们能否准确掌握藏民示威抗议的诉求、骚乱的形成，将直接影响胡锦涛的最后决策。 2008-03-16 18:40

[Tibet, Qinghai, Gansu provincial leaders, presently all in Beijing attending the NPC meeting, they can’t adequately deal with the Tibetan protests, growing disturbances, will directly influence Hu Jintao’s final decisions]

浪子 历史上的西藏从来和中国都是暧昧着忽近忽远。也没有哪个民族，哪个个体和一个国家的关系就不可分割。还是那句老话：个人的命运个人决定，同样，一个民族的命运由那个民族的大多数来决定 2008-03-16

[Historically Tibet and China have always had a rocky relationship. No ethnic group or individual is inseperable from nations. Hence the old saying: one’s fate is one’s own choice, just as a peoples fate is decided by the majority of the people]

Slashdot visitors, there are newer and relevant posts HOWTO tweet to China, a web map of Beijing lonely Olympics websites, two internet manhunts, and a really bad idea for a Tibet-China dialogue ad campaign. Also, you might want to check out some classics like these flash movies of Chinese internet cops who patrol major websites, dildos advertised on Communist Party websites and debunking BS bad reporting on Chinese hackers.

As news of the turmoil in Tibet reaches Chinese netizens, reactions on Chinese Twitter-clones Fanfou.com and Jiwai.de are mostly of astonishment according to a search on Twifan. Meanwhile, on Twitter, whose users are mostly from other countries, reactions are less surprised, according to Tweet Scan. Again, I’m not a pro translator, so by all means, send corrections. [Thanks wgj, twice, but I’m keeping “underdog” cuz I like it; thx kdobson]

ＴＡＮ 大家现在知道拉萨的新闻吗 [Everybody now know the news on Tibet?]

乱云/Akay 不知道拉萨今天的情况怎样了，哎。[Don’t know how the situation is in Lhasa today, whats going on?]

sprife 拉萨暴动，很担心！[Tibetan rebellion, really worried!]

李清扬cherry 达赖集团在拉萨策划骚乱活动 [Dalai Clique scheme behind Lhasa riots]

effie 拉萨到底怎么了？？？[So what’s the deal with Lhasa???]

kaixintao07 香港流感，西藏骚乱…… [Hong Kong Flu, Tibet riot… …]

虫仔 拉萨·西藏，台北·台湾：中国永远的刀痕。[Lhasa Tibet, Taipei Taiwan: China’s eternal scars.]

zbright 惊愕，西藏出现动乱 [holy crap, Tibet in turmoil]

Zola 支持西藏人民的抗争。[supports Tibetan People to stand up and fight.]

兽兽 拉萨情况不明朗，朋友的弟弟在拉萨旅游仍没有消息。今早BBC请西藏问题学者分析此次骚乱，他不认为是达赖策划的；而且与20年前相比，发生藏人攻击汉人和回人的事件，这还是第一次。他批评了北京谈判策略上的失误：拖延时间，等达赖去世。可是现在除了宗教问题，又出现了种族和发展的新问题。

[Lhasa situation unclear. Still no news from friend’s younger brother in Lhasa on tour. This morning the BBC asked an expert on the Tibet problem to analyze this disturbance, he doesn’t believe its a plot by the Dalai Lama; moreover, unlike the riots 20 years ago, for the first time Han and Hui people have been attacked. He criticized Beijing for poor negotiation tactics: for too long, simply waiting for the Dalai Lama to die. But now besides the religious problem, there emerges new problems related to ethnicity and development.]

vinwolf 西藏 应该定性为恐怖袭击？[Tibet should be classified as a terrorist attack?]

无名 西藏这帮秃驴居然敢在两会期间制造不合谐因素。[Tibet’s bald weasels dare not to conform to a harmonious society during the Two Congresses.]

Qiushi 西藏喇嘛示威咯～给奥运会和两会的礼物 [Tibetan Lama demonstrators give Olympics and Two Congresses a present]

jobirn.com 据拉萨前方(在西藏旅游的朋友)发来的报道: 今天拉萨大暴乱 我刚刚逃回宾馆 我们已开始躲在一个藏民家里 他说几十年没有看到过这么严重的了 杀人,烧车 …

[From the Tibetan Front (a touring friend in Lhasa) comes this report: today in Lhasa huge riots I just fled the guesthouse We’re hiding out with a Tibetan family He says in all his years he’s never seen anything this serious – killings, burning cars…]

meadow 弱势群体永远正确吗？何况还不知道谁是弱者呢？在南昌读书那会，本地人说附近有个中学有西藏学生，经常打汉人学生，家长去投诉，学校劝家长息事宁人，因为从老师到学校到教育局到地方领导，对他们都是“迁就”。说这个的同学是汉人

[Is the underdog always right? While at university in Nanchang, local people said that a local high school has Tibetan students who regularly beat up Han students, parents complain, school administrators said not to cause a fuss, because from teachers to the school to the education bureau to local leadership, the watchword is “accomodation”. It was a Han student who told me this story]

Meanwhile, this is what’s being tweeted in English on Twitter:

atosdps : When can you show us the real Tibet, my violent government!!!

quanmengli : Reading: “(可怜的美国佛教徒) Actor Gere calls for Olympics boycott if China mishandles Tibet – Yahoo! News”

lonniehodge : My professor friends in schools in regions around Tibet called into emergency meetings and warned of internal pro-independence spies

wwwdotjenna : wow, tibet. the world is watching.

thijsjacobs : @sioksiok everyone tweeting about Tibet = Twitter soon to be blocked.

squidlord : Oh, goodie, Tibet is in political upheaval again. Maybe they’ll kill enough people to get things straightened out, one way or another.

borekv : thinking about Tibet and also remembering Tiananmen Square Massacre http://tinyurl.com/2sa7o8

Watching the build up to the Olympics has been, for me, like watching the world’s biggest, slowest traffic accident. For a while now its been pretty obvious that alot of contentious issues about China were going to come to the front as we approach August 8th, but the problem is that there are two completely separate parallel worlds on these issues: the Chinese one, and the rest of us. Westerners have been exposed to rhetoric and information about Tibetan discontent, Darfur’s international and Chinese dimensions, and of course old chestnuts like Tiananmen provide a larger context of long term, ongoing problems. Meanwhile, Chinese mainlanders by and large have no knowledge of these events or issues. While for the rest of the world the Olympics will be largely a referendum on China’s ability to deal with what everyone else has talked about for years, for Chinese citizens it will be about China winning a beauty pageant of sorts.

Two Worlds, Two Dreams: prepare for the SchizOlympics.

Note: Chinese blogger Beifeng was relaying SMSes from a friend in Lhasa, but since only one message about the military headed to Jokhang Temple, there have been no further updates.

Right on the heels of banning liquids in government officials, the Civil Aviation Administration of China has banned liquids on planes as of Tuesday, March 11, with the exception of baby formula and prescription medication. Details sketchy at the moment, though AVBuyer.com*, the website behind this weeks China Southern’s Xinjiang CYA press release blitz, says that there are plans to install liquid scanning machines in all major airports, most likely the already approved Nuctech‘s THSCAN LS 8016 X-Ray Liquid Security Scanner.
Meanwhile, news on the alleged airline terror plot continues apace, the major new bits being more information from two people who claimed to be passengers, lots of confusion, and snazzy graphics recreating the scene. The best has to be this one depicting the 18/19 year old suspect being apprehended while wearing a traditional Uyghur dancing costume. Subtle, guys.

But more concerning is that alot of facts seem to be getting confused, or at least confusing. From the beginning, many English news outlets have been reporting that Wang Lequan said on Sunday that the “terrorist” group captured in January aimed “specifically to sabotage the staging of the Beijing Olympics”. The source of this appears to be Xinhua’s English website which reported that Wang Lequan said “Obviously, the gang had planned an attack targeting the Olympics,” a report that the Telegraph’s Richard Spencer said had been removed but appears to still be online in at least one place. Xinhua also quoted Wang saying “The Olympic Games slated for this August is a big event, but there are always a few people who conspire sabotages. It is no longer a secret now,” and “Those terrorists, saboteurs and secessionists are to be battered resolutely, no matter what ethnic group they are from.” But is this what Wang actually said in Chinese?

According to this transcript of the press conference on the China Radio website, no. Here’s what Wang Lequan said in response to a Reuters reporters** question. Translation criticism and tips always welcome.

路透社记者：我们知道新疆有一部分人想对奥运会发动袭击，为什么会有这样的想法，这与中国在新疆的政策有关吗？

Reuters reporter: We know Xinjiang has some separatists who plan to attack the Olympics, why do they want to and is it related China’s policy in Xinjiang?
　　
王乐泉：总有那么少数人在很多问题上对新疆始终抱有敌意。本来在北京举办奥运会是件大好事，但有人就是要千方百计地进行破坏，在奥运会举办之前就千方百计 地进行干扰。这已经不是什么秘密，他们已经在国际上到处做宣传。但事实上，他们这一举动遭到全世界爱好和平的人民的坚决反对，包括各国政府都已明确表态。 把体育比赛政治化，这是大家坚决反对的，是不得人心的。

Since the beginning in Xinjiang there’s been a small minority that has been hostile. Of course the Olympics is a big deal, but some people have tried to ruin it by any means necessary in the run-up to these Olympics. This is no secret, they’ve publicized it internationally. But the fact is, by this very act they meet with the opposition of peace loving people all over the world. The governments of every nation of the world have already made this crystal clear, when it comes to politics in sports, everyone is opposed, its unpopular.
　　

新疆有有“东突”、“三股势力”，即“宗教极端势力、民族分裂势力和暴力恐怖势力”，在国内只有极少数人，主要是在境外。他们有一个代表人物热比娅，在境 外到处鼓噪、煽动，就是要我们办不成奥运会。但这只能是幻想，他们没有多少力量，只能到处胡说八道。这件事境内有少数人响应，确实有这个情况。

Xinjiang has “East Turkestan”, “Three Evil Forces”, namely “religious extremist forces, minority splittist forces and violent terror forces,” domestically they are a tiny minority, primarily they are outside our borders. They have one representative, Rebiya [Kadeer], who goes around the world clamoring, instigating, she doesn’t want us to successfully host the Olympics. But this is only a fantasy, they have no significant power, they can only go around talking nonsense. Within our borders there’s only a few of these people, that’s really the situation.

前不久，新疆安全部门刚刚打掉了一个团伙。他们制造炸药、手雷，就是要搞破坏，在准备过程中被我们发现了。抓捕时，他们
向我们的干警让了三枚手雷，七名干警受了轻伤。

Not long ago, the Xinjiang PSB recently cracked down on a cell. They were making explosives, grenades, wanted to cause destruction, in the course of their preparations we discovered them. When we launched a raid, they attacked us with three grenades, and seven officers suffered minor injuries.

对奥运会有少数人在那里干扰，第一，我们不希望有这样的现象，第二，我们不怕有这样的情况。我们的原则是加大各方面的工作，把那些想搞破坏的人，在预谋阶段就毫不含糊把他打掉!

There is a small minority determined to interfere with the Olympics. First, we wish this wasn’t the case, [but] second, we don’t fear facing the same circumstances again. Our principle is to increase our work across the board, these people who want to cause destruction, we will resolutely crack down on them during their planning stages!

It doesn’t appear that Wang Lequan said “Obviously, the gang had planned an attack targeting the Olympics,” or anything else directly linking the captured group to a planned attack on the Olympics, at least not at the press conference. There may have been off the cuff remarks made elsewhere, but there is no evidence of this. If this is the case, then Richard Spencer’s comments about China retreating from its claims of an Olympic terror threat have two problems: one, not all the English reports on Wang’s comments were pulled off the ‘net; second, Wang never said it. And not just Mr. Spencer, but the many repetitions of these quotes floating around the web [without clear attribution either, I might add].

Xinhua is giving less coverage (and certainly not continuing wall-to-wall) of the terror stories, but I don’t think this is because the government is “retreating from its claims.” As official state media, they are no doubt under very specific orders about what the narrative for the National Peoples Congress is to be. That means that the words of Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao cannot be eclipsed, not by any sexy stuff like terrorism, unless Hu and Wen say it. There are grand five year plans and slogans that have to be at the top of the page, terror plots be damned. Meanwhile, alot of information is coming from Hong Kong (Phoenix TV, Sing Tao Daily, Wei Wen Po, Da Kong Bao). Hong Kong doesn’t have the heavy hand of Mainland censorship, and has a media market more directed to selling papers (read: sex and violence). Foreign media, likewise, sees a hot story in tales of terrorism and the Olympics (hence mentioning the Xi’an bus kidnapping in the same breath as Xinjiang terrorists, though we know the would be bus bomber was a Han man named Xia Tao from the Xi’an Youliang district work unit who apparently had a grudge with local police), and so they are interested in continuing to follow the story as well. It’s not so much that Xinhua is signaling that the government cannot or will not back up their claims, but that they want attention focused elsewhere.

Spencer does raise a good point, however, wondering what the Chinese government is trying to say to the world. Xinhua did, after all, quote Wang Lequan saying that the group was targeting the Olympics, though his point may have been that they are cut from the same cloth as those who would like to see the Beijing Olympics ruined. From my perspective, its important to remember that Wang Lequan is not a typical provincial leader. Xinjiang and Tibet are special cases in the Chinese government. Wang Lequan is head of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps as well as provincial party chief and a member of the Politburo, giving him a unique position. He is the replacement for Wang Enmao, who controlled Xinjiang for nearly thirty years [except when he fell from favor during the Cultural Revolution]. In many ways he is more of a strongman than his peers, and security and “ethnic unity” in Xinjiang have been the obsessive focus of the government for years. While he may not have made a direct link between this attack and the Olympics, he certainly hasn’t been afraid to mention the Olympics as context, and he’s made more than one disparaging remark about Rebiya Kadeer, which has roughly the same effect internationally as his closest peer, Tibet Party Secretary Zhang Qingli’s rough comments about another figure associated with the Nobel Prize, the Dalai Lama. It seems that this sort of less-than-diplomatic talk comes with the job, especially for a domestic audience, and foreign audiences are not the concern of these officials. Add Time Magazine’s quote of Russell Leigh Moses of the China Center in Beijing that “this is exactly the kind of thing that happens around the time of the National People’s Congress… cadres who don’t necessarily get noticed a lot normally want to be seen as publicly carrying out the orders of the central government” and I think you get a pretty good picture of what’s going on.

Also reported recently: China Southern CEO Liu Shaoyong told Phoenix TV that this hijacking was different from others as it was “politically motivated”. I think he needs to read my previous post, An Incomplete History of Chinese Plane Hijackings. Guangzhou Daily also tried to interview Urumqi airport security personnel, but didn’t get very far. And Richard Spencer, who is making a great effort to figure this whole thing out, has also discovered that Sing Tao Daily in Hong Kong is reporting that the Uyghur girl on the plane was sent abroad for “training” when she was six. Just remember, Sing Tao is a pro-PRC paper that first reported rumors of the raid in Urumqi that Wang Lequan was discussing, but managed to get some of the facts wrong.

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* An interesting aside: AVBuyer has apparently plagiarized ESWN’s translation of Southern Weekend’s Searching for Eyewitnesses for CZ6901 Incident, and not credited the original author Ding Bu either.

** It is not clear who the Reuters reporter was, or if the original question was in English. If it was, this question may not be clearly translated. It sounds like its been harmonized a little.

Did One of These Attendants Tackle a “Terrorist”?

Apparently China Southern Airlines Xinjiang Branch is trying to counter bad publicity due to the alleged terror attack that diverted an Urumqi to Beijing flight last Friday by drowning Baidu News in a sea of press releases, all released this afternoon.

Not Terrorists!

Most of them were released on the website avbuyer.com.cn, which is brought to you by the same people who publish the official magazine of the General Administration of Civil Aviation in China (CAAC). Subject matter included: new lounges and VIP services at Urumqi airport, the warming and soothing service provided to delayed Spring Festival travelers (because of the blizzards in Eastern China), saluting Chinese peacekeepers returning home with traditional Uyghur dances, the cleaning and maintenenace of aircraft serving the Xinjiang region, improving ground staff training for the Xinjiang branch, paying attention customer service in Xinjiang, the recollections of a China Southern Xinjiang Branch flight attendant who offhandedly remarks she considered joining the military, and a declaration by the 2008 class of flight attendants for the XJ Branch in which they state that as the “flowers of the Motherland”, they are “customer service and safety defenders”.

Attendants with Peacekeeper Characteristics?

Meanwhile, there are rumors that one the alleged terrorists was a 18-19 year old Uyghur girl who had gone into the toilet with a bottle or bottles of gasoline. Its hard to say if any further details will ever be revealed.