CTA's Response IV
A Gift to the Minority Nationalities on the PRC's 60th Birthday:
A white paper and two executions
The Military March and the Message
On
1 October, Beijing celebrated the People's Republic of China's 60th
anniversary. The celebration was awe-inspiring. Military hardware
rolled past Chinese leaders, who stood tall with pride and stiff with
emotion. This display of China's military muscle was watched by
governments around the world with bated breath. Salivating at this
potential market were foreign companies who do business in the weapons
industry. They were bitterly disappointed. Almost 5000 pieces of
impressive range of sophisticated weapons were on display. Every piece
was made in China. To the merchants of death, the message is clear.
There is no China market for China's military arsenal. In this vital
area, China wants to be absolutely independent and wholly self-reliant.
A Gift from Heaven: A White Paper
A few days earlier on 27 September, Beijing gave its 55 minorities a gift: a white paper. It is called China's Ethnic Policy and Common Prosperity and Development of All Ethnic Groups released by the Information Office of the State Council of the People's Republic of China.
Outside
observers might not see a link between these two developments. However,
the minorities would have clearly gotten the message. The white paper
on their rights is the carrot. If they are not pleased with the carrot,
they will get the stick of the military hardware so blatantly displayed
on the anniversary day.
The 3-9 October issue of The Economist
magazine, which put China on its cover, had some perspective comments
on the reasons why Beijing put up this stupendous display. It says,
"China's leaders rightly point out that theirs is still a poor country
which will naturally give priority to lifting its economic development.
And this in one sense answers the question about the message conveyed
by the National Day parade: its main audience was not the outside
world, but China's own people. With no popular mandate, the
government's legitimacy relies on its record in making China richer and
stronger. The display of strength, showing how well it has done in
this, hints at its lack of confidence. For those worried about where
China's rise might lead, that the government is so insecure is not a
comforting thought."
Willy Lam, that wiliest of China hands,
comments, "And the unprecedentedly large-scale military parade on Oct.
1 was a show of force aimed as much at the Party's myriad domestic
enemies, (dissidents as well as Tibetan and Uighur splittists) as at
China's foreign foes."
The 12 October issue of Newsweek
agrees that the message was for the domestic audience. But it has a
different take on it. The magazine says that the parade was to reassure
the Chinese people that they are safe at home and abroad. This argument
does not ring true in the circumstances created by the authorities that
shrouded the parade in secrecy and foreboding. If this was the case,
except for the hand-picked crowd, why was the rest of China told to
stay indoors and watch the parade on TV that day? Question of safety
covers the safety of both the ruled and the rulers. If the rulers do
not feel safe from those whom they rule, what justification is there
for the ruled to feel safe from their rulers?
The questions for
both the parade and the white paper are as follows. If the key message
of the parade is to reassure the Chinese and the minorities that they
are safe, why would the authorities need to put up this staggering show
at such astronomical expenses?
There must be other candidates
for the post of the world's safest country. But for arguments sake, we
will consider Switzerland as one of the most civil and peaceful
countries in the world. However, the Swiss authorities do not see the
need to put up a grand muscle-flexing parade to reassure their people
that they are safe and in safe hands.
The same question goes
for the white paper. If the minorities enjoy common prosperity and
development, there is no earthly reason to put this on paper and in
ink. The truth of this accomplishment will be self-evident and
applauded by all, not the least the minorities who will repay Beijing
for this improbable service with their undying loyalty.
Unfortunately,
common prosperity and development for the minorities never catches up
with Beijing's claims. Issuing such a white paper and making such tall
claims against the background reality of the eruption of the most
sustained and widespread unrest in Tibet last year and the most violent
protests in Xinjiang this July and the brutal way both were crushed
either indicates Beijing's supreme confidence that its current economic
clout will make these claims acceptable to the world or that it
desperately wants to hide a terrible secret in a whitewash of a white
paper.
The secret is this. We have no access to all the
details on the full range of death and devastation the authorities
visited upon the Tibetan people, following the peaceful protests that
shook Tibet and the world last year. However, according to the
information available to us as of 27 October 2009, there have been a
total of 228 Tibetan dead since March 2008. We have all the relevant
details for 118 of them. 371 Tibetans have been sentenced. 4,657
Tibetans have been either arrested or detained. 990 Tibetans have
disappeared. 1,294 Tibetans have been injured. These are the facts that
we know. Who knows how many more Tibetans have died and the exact
number of Tibetans who are still in prison, subjected to torture?
The Latest Gift for the Tibetans: Executions
On
20 October, the Chinese authorities in Lhasa executed several Tibetans
for their involvement in the 2008 protests. Two have been confirmed by
the Chinese authorities. Not a word of these executions was mentioned
in the official Chinese press. The news of these executions spread in
the Tibetan world because the bodies of the executed were returned to
their families. That was how the world came to know about this official
murder of Tibetans who dared to speak up for the rights of their
people. The latest white paper cannot whitewash these executions of
Tibetans who exercised their right of freedom of expression.
The Ministry of Truth
However,
Beijing tries to drown all these atrocities in the barrage of
propaganda it fires, salvo after salvo. The white paper was followed by
an extensive interview of Zhu Weiqun, the vice-minister of the United
Front Work Department of the Communist Party of China. The interview,
11 pages, was splashed on Xinhua's web site on 16 October. This longish
interview was reprinted from the original source, a German magazine
called Focus, which published it on 22 September, a month earlier.
Perhaps the motivation behind recycling an old interview on old and
worn-out themes was that reprinting it from a foreign publication might
make the interview seem less Newspeak than Xinhua itself doing an
original interview of the boss of the Ministry of Truth. And in the
interview, the Zhu Weiqun, as it comes naturally to him, said that
truth is on his side and the Tibetan side is all wrapped up in lies and
sealed by a huge falsehood.
Zhu Weiqun's real message is
clear. He says there is no need to change or improve the autonomous
arrangement that is set in place for the Tibetan people. He says, "What
China's regional ethnic autonomy should be like, to put it more simply,
is exactly what it is right now."
What Chinese Civil Society Says
China's
civil society, as small and as battered it is, bravely disagrees with
this hardline approach. In one of the most courageous acts that came in
the aftermath of the widespread and sustained protests that engulfed
Tibet in the spring and summer of last year, the Beijing-based Gongmeng
Law Research Centre dispatched researchers to three areas in the
so-called Tibet Autonomous Region and Tibetan areas outside of it to
find out the causes of these protests. The researchers spent one whole
month interviewing people. Their findings were published in May as An Investigative Report into the Social and Economic Causes of the 3.14 Incident in Tibetan Areas.
The report says that the upsurge of Tibetan nationalism was largely
triggered by conditions in Tibet, including the pervasive corruption
that spawns what the report calls the "new aristocracy," which feeds on
Beijing's largess but immediately blames the "separatists" for their
own total incompetence and mis-rule.
The report lists nine
recommendations to Beijing to resolve the issue of Tibet. The first
suggestions says, "Earnestly listen to the voices of ordinary Tibetans
and on the basis of respecting and protecting each of the Tibetan
people's rights and interests, adjust policy and thinking in Tibetan
areas to formulate development policies which are suited to the
characteristics of Tibetan areas, and which accord with the wishes of
the Tibetan people.
The third suggestion says, "Increase
effective supervision over local structures in the implementation of
regional ethnic autonomy policies, and speed up the process of
democraticizing power structures. End tolerance of corruption, poor
administrative abilities and dereliction of duty which is apparent in
government in Tibetan areas, and in particular of those officials who
suppress social problems in the name of "anti-splittism."
The report also recommends Beijing to "Promote the rule of law in governance processes in Tibetan areas."
In
his lengthy interview as reprinted by Xinhua, Zhu Weiqun is quoted as
saying, "As far as religion is concerned, we implement the same policy
of freedom of religious belief in Tibet and the rest of the country.
The freedom of religious belief is fully respected and protected in
China, and there are no obstacles."
This is not the case is made
clear by the investigative report which urges central authorities to
"Fully respect and protect the Tibetan people's freedom of religious
belief, resuming and supporting normal religious lives and activities.
Fully recognize the important significance of religion and a religious
life to Tibetan areas and the Tibetan people."
Domestic Angle of China's Propaganda
On China's propaganda, the same issue of The Economist
has this to say. "But the image that it would like to cultivate, as a
responsible, un-threatening, emergent superpower, is constantly being
undercut by two of its leaders' habits. One is the knee-jerk resort to
hysterical propaganda and reprisals when a foreign country displeases
it by criticising its appalling treatment of political dissidents, or
accepts a visit from the Dalai Lama or other objects of the Communist
Party's venom."
The Communist Party considers its image
important, not because of the foreigners but because of its own people.
With the rest of the world, Beijing can buy, bribe and bully. According
to Beijing's recent experience, this tactic seems to be working.
However, the same tactic, long tried on its own people, now seems to be
wearing thin. Take the case of the Gongmeng Law Research Centre, which
despite all odds stacked against it courageously challenged Beijing's
assumptions and propaganda on Tibet. For its pains, the law firm was
closed and its director detained, although he was released sometime
later.
These Chinese voices of sanity and common sense are
growing. From 6 to 8 August this year, a conference was held in Geneva
between Chinese scholars and human rights advocates and Tibetan exiles.
The Finding Common Ground conference produced a document, which says,
"The root cause of the Tibetan issue is not a conflict between the
Chinese people and the Tibetan people, but rather the autocratic rule
of the People's Republic of China in Tibet and its cultural genocide.
The Beijing government's claim that 'Tibet has always been a part of
China' is factually incorrect."
The conference determined that
"Tibetan culture is a precious treasure among the many cultures of
humanity. Without freedom for Tibet, there will be no freedom for
China."
No amount of white papers will be able to stem the growing
tide of public opinion in China. And the public opinion in China
demands that the Chinese government becomes more transparent and
responsive to the needs and aspirations of the Chinese people
themselves and the minorities whose capacity to live with dignity and
freedom will constitute a solid foundation for a stable and prosperous
China.
This is what the government in Beijing should be working
on. Issuing white papers and, on the other hand, executing people is
not the way to go about in providing good governance. To paraphrase
Abraham Lincoln, you can buy, bribe and bully some people all the time
but you cannot buy, bribe and bully all the people all the time.
Using a 'Separatist' to Oppose a 'Separatist'
Beijing
realises that it cannot buy, bribe and bully its way to stability and
legitimacy. Because of this realisation and in calculated frustration,
Beijing is increasing the volume of its shrill diatribe on His Holiness
the Dalai Lama. At the moment, its pet pique is the democratic system
the Tibetans have established in exile. Beijing says this form of
Tibetan democracy is a sham. It argues that His Holiness the Dalai Lama
is still the real power.
The latest Chinese government blast
at Tibetan democracy was carried in the CCP's newspaper, People's Daily
on 28 October 2009. The article is titled Dalai's Democracy Practices
are Laughing Stock. All the proceedings of the Tibetan parliament are
broadcast live and the reporter of the People's Daily for this
particular news item would not have much of a problem in knowing what
was going on and the context in which the walk-out took place.
However,
to feign surprise and shock at the parliamentarians' walk-out is, at
best, being disingenuous, but at worst, an exposure of the reporter's
total ignorance of the basis of democracy, which is having the freedom
to choose. However, to argue that the walk-out indicates the hollowness
of Tibetan democracy is an outright distortion of democracy as
practised by Tibetan exiles. This walk-out, after a frank and heated
discussion, reinforces the vitality of Tibetan democracy, something
which every Tibetan is proud of.
No reporter from the People's
Daily came to Dharamsala to cover the session of the Tibetan
Parliament, as testified by the parliamentary secretariat, which
registers all reporters who wish to cover the proceedings. In fact, we
learn that China-Tibet Information Centre contributed the laughing
stock article. This piece of reporting is a case of arm-chair
journalism, and the source of this piece of creative writing is
Chinese. For example, the name of the speaker of the Tibetan parliament
Penpa Tsering is spelled as Bianba Cering. Kalon Tripa Samdhong
Rinpoche is rendered as Sangdong. The Tibetan writer Jamyang Norbu is
transformed into Jia Yangnuobu. Flinging accuracy and fact-checking out
of the propaganda door, the People's Daily refers to Voice of Tibet as
Tibetan Sound in Norway. As a matter of curiosity, we would like to
know what is the Tibetan Sound doing in Norway and whose sound is it?
In
view of such flagrant carelessness and irresponsible reporting, it is
no wonder when the Chinese people are asked whether anything in the
People's Daily is true, they reply, "just the dates."
There is
another article called Tibetan Separatist Exposes Dalai Lama's
'democracy myth'. This is available on
http://chinatibet.people.com.cn/6789022.html. The article uses
extensive quotes from a lengthy essay by Jamyang Norbu entitled Waiting
for Mangtso. This essay is available on www.phayul.com.
What
is surprising is the tactic of quoting one 'separatist' to oppose
another 'separatist.' During the Cultural Revolution some Chinese were
accused of carrying the red flag to oppose the red flag. This meant
that one faction was using the name of Mao to oppose Mao himself. That
China, a fast-rising great power, resorts to using quotes from Jamyang
Norbu, who along with the Tibetan Youth Congress had been earlier
contemptuously dismissed by Beijing as 'a fly flapping its wings
against the king of mountains,' is a sure sign of desperation. Jamyang
Norbu is an advocate of Tibetan independence and is loudly proud of it.
To use his article to condemn and belittle the enormous achievements of
His Holiness the Dalai Lama in democratising his administration and his
community means that Beijing is losing the battle to win the hearts and
minds of people in Tibet and China.
Democracy and the right to
choose is His Holiness the Dalai Lama's gift to the Tibetan people.
This gift has empowered the Tibetan refugees and has fundamentally
changed the nature of the community and has given it enormous vitality.
It has unleashed the talent and energy of the young to pursue their
dreams and fulfill their potential and in the process contribute to the
cohesion of the community in exile. This freedom is actively denied to
the Chinese people by their leaders who see democracy as a menace. This
explains Beijing's tireless barking at this stranger called democracy.
|
