Did the Tibet protests backfire?

yeo · Apr 12, 2008

Now some of the western press are finally starting to wake up and smell the coffee. French TV is speaking in trepidation of the rising tide of anti-French sentiment in China, and claiming that most of the protestors weren't really French.

And here is a piece from the Brits' Telegraph. This correspondent is still trying to find some positive out of it, but most of the comments told him he is dreaming.

Did the Tibet protests backfire?

It is now almost a universally accepted truth among well-meaning people, on both sides of the debate about Tibet, that the protests in London and Paris this week have backfired, at least in terms of winning round the Chinese people to their cause.

As Roland at ESWN argues, persuasively, the Chinese Communist Party couldn't have arranged a better act of propaganda to unite the nation around its cause than have a pro-Tibet demonstrator try to grapple the torch out of the hands of a one-legged woman athlete in a wheelchair.

(And he means that literally, and he is right: the Party is indeed incapable of organising anything so brilliantly symbolic of all it says about how the rest of the world bullies poor harmless China).

BXBQ, my commenter, pronounces himself one helluva proud Chinese SOB. Good on him, and good on the disabled girl Jin Jing, a new national heroine.

From the more rarefied world of the Economist, their blogsite records these anonymous thoughts about how, if anyone thinks that these protests will help bring democracy to China or freedom to Tibet, they are much mistaken. Rather, they have entrenched nationalist feeling, possibly dangerously.

I couldn't have put it better myself, I thought, particularly as I had myself bridled at descriptions of China as totalitarian, including in my own newspaper. I think this is very wrong - China is an authoritarian self-confessed dictatorship, with very nasty dark corners, but to call it totalitarian is an insult to victims of and witnesses to Stalin's Soviet Union, Mao's China and the Kims' Korea, and I have interviewed a few of all of them in my time.

(In fact, I will pierce that self-righteous Economist anonymity, and possibly annoy a friend into the bargain: I hereby out the author of that piece as my predecessor as Daily Telegraph correspondent here, David Rennie. There is no other Economist correspondent in Brussels who was "in Beijing for another newspaper in 2001", and anyway I would recognise his writing style anywhere. It's nice to know we agree.)

And yet, and yet. Is it actually true that the free Tibet people have achieved nothing?

In terms of the downside, are any of those terrible effects, was the backlash their actions are said to have brought to the fore, actually anything new?

All protests attract radicals and crazies, who go over the top. Trafalgar Square has seen worse action in recent years than a Tibetan and a Chinese scrabbling in the fountain. Jin Jing was, mercifully, unharmed, unlike people caught up in riots and protests in London, Europe, China and anywhere else you care to mention in recent years except possibly Monaco and Bhutan.

China has a vividly spoken, nationalistically minded, internet-obsessed youth, who are all too ready to take up the cause of "you're all out to get China". Yes, we knew that too. Is it stronger than a couple of weeks ago

Possibly. Will it stay so? Possibly not. No-one died, as I say.

But what has changed?

Well, I may be an ignorant outsider, and not have looked hard enough, but I never before saw or heard much discussion by intellectuals and journalists or by anybody else of the possibility of a new approach to Tibet.

All the people who have surfaced on the blogosphere saying "Of course the government got it wrong over Tibet, but there was still no call for the western media bias we have seen" were, until now, strangely silent - or silenced - on the government's wrongness over Tibet. Now they are writing, being read, and being discussed.

Some people are even questioning what they have been told to date.

And for all the nationalists pouring out their proud Chinese hearts on the cyberether, there must be many more saying just to themselves: "Funny. Tibet? What's that all about? I'd never thought about that before." They may, when asked, say they agree with their government, but there must be now a certain amount of wondering about the reality of life in Tibet that was never there before.

There were many British, I guess, who before the late 60s never gave any thought to Northern Ireland. Then, all through the 70s, 80s and most of the 90s, you would not hear anyone outside the republican heartlands who had a good word to say for the IRA.

But Irish policy itself became a major subject of political debate, which eventually led to a settlement that included the IRA. Many of us continue to regret that, in many ways - the fact that the IRA were part of the solution, not that there was one, of course - but such is the reality of life.

That violence is self-defeating is a platitude we all repeat to ourselves to reassure ourselves. It is something we all like to believe, whether by "violence" we mean cruise missiles, bomb attacks, or the much more moderate "violence" if that is what it is - and I stress I do not in any way equate pro-Tibet protesters with IRA terrorists - of trying to grab an Olympic torch.

But unfortunately the history of the wretched race that is humanity proves otherwise. Mao, Stalin and Kim Il-sung, all violent revolutionaries, died in their beds and in power. Mao's political legacy remains. Gerry Adams went to the White House. America lost Vietnam and saved South Korea at the cost of many, many lives, and the resulting political systems remain in place.

The Dalai Lama, on the other hand, is stuck in Dharamsala. I say this not to urge violence on the Tibetans. I am as much in favour of non-violent politics as the next man. Indeed, it is my fervent hope that governments everywhere are sensible enough to act before violence occurs, or is even threatened, and prevents it wherever possible.

But I noted one interview with Jin Jing herself, in which she said that before she went to Paris, she had never heard of pro-Tibet independence campaigners. She has now.
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yeo · Apr 12, 2008

And here is one of the best comments in reply to the article above.

Tibet protests indeed backfired disastrously-- all heart and no brain
JSwan 12 Apr 2008 02:35

I've been involved in the cause of human rights in China and the Tibet issue for many years now, and Richard Spencer is exactly right-- the protests have backfired disastrously, and not just among ordinary Chinese. The vast majority of regular people I know (Britons, Germans, Americans, Australians, Canadians) without a prior inclination either way on this issue, now find the Tibet movement and the drive to improve human rights in China overall, to be populated by a combination of fools, zealots and professional protesters with far too much spare time on their hands.

Rupertornelius said it right, as did Stanford-- there's been too much overzealous protesting and too little calm, seasoned discussion of what's actually a very complicated issue. The assault on the Paralympian torchbearer in a wheelchair was an utter fiasco, you're right.

But the Tibet protesters in San Francisco also suffered international humiliation when a reporter there walked up to the protesters and simply asked them to find Tibet on a map-- almost none of them, hardly a single one, even had any idea where Tibet was. http://tinyurl.com/5kgdse
I saw the full version of this report and many protesters didn't even know it was in Asia! His report, of course, was broadcast throughout the USA and even internationally, the result being that the Tibet activists came out looking like those knuckleheaded professional protesters who protest anything and everything under the sun without even knowing what they're talking about.

Even worse, there were some elderly Tibetan people in San Francisco who chastised the Free Tibet protesters themselves. This is complicated, but before the Chinese entered Tibet, the truth is that most of the Tibetan population was subjected to virtual slavery, in the form of being serfs on their land subject to the rule of nobles. For all their flaws, the Chinese authorities have prohibited this while actually encouraging a decent degree of freedom of religion and cultural integrity among Tibetans, certainly in recent years. And not just in Tibet itself-- most Tibetans aren't in Tibet anymore, they're in other parts of China along with the country's 50 other or so minorities. Yet they are still maintaining their Tibetan identity and uniqueness, as I myself found out to my surprise while in China years ago. Things still need reform and improvement on this front, but it's a complicated issue that requires cool heads to dialogue and negotiate, not hot heads to protest like this.

Anyone who fantasises that the protests have had the effect of "turning away heads of state from the Opening Ceremonies," is being delusional. Most of the Western world is attending in one form or another. Canada's PM is not attending but never said he planned to, and in fact, the Premier there is attending. Gordon Brown isn't showing up but again, he never planned to-- Britain is being represented by a minister there regardless, and he'll be there for other aspects of the Olympics. Angela Merkel in Germany is now caught in an embarrassing pickle because she said she wasn't attending but said it wasn't a boycott, but other German ministers are attending, and Merkel's entire plan is in a state of confusion. Same with France. Spanish ministers are attending, as are those of most other European countries. And with good reason-- to improve human rights in China, we need to go there ourselves. We need to see the situation with our own eyes and speak with the Chinese people themselves, in other words, genuine dialogue with them.

To be perfectly honest, in terms of the cause of human rights in China, I think a boycott is a dumb idea anyway. You're only going to make progress in China by physically going there and interacting with the Chinese people on the ground-- the authorities and the ordinary people. As individual Chinese gain wealth, they become less subservient toward their government and more insistent on basic rights, a freer press, releasing political prisoners and so forth. Things in Tibet need improvement but they're much better than twenty years ago, to be honest-- I visited Tibet last year, and all the signs are in both Mandarin Chinese and Tibetan, the Tibetan people are encouraged to celebrate their culture, to take part in festivities, to celebrate their holidays. And no, there wasn't a government minder with us, we were free to go where we wanted.

On other issues, China's environmental and animal protection record needs improvement, there needs to be more oversight of products there-- like a Food and Drug Administration-- more checks and balances, better protection against arbitrary power and corruption by officials, a more independent judiciary, certainly an end to the practice of political prisoners, even a kind of list of basic human rights so that people accused of crime, or who are being persecuted by a corrupt official, aren't attacked by someone with arbitrary power. Nobody is saying that China is ideal, and reforms are needed.

But the truth is, as I found out while in China, the Chinese people and even the authorities are moving in the right direction-- if more gradually than many of us would like. And most of the Chinese authorities really do seem to be sincere about doing their jobs well. There's a meritocracy in China to select public servants and political leaders that, if anything, may even work better in some respects than the power-driven free-for-all that's turned the selection of public officials in much of the West, not only in the UK but especially in the USA, into an image-driven fiasco.

China has its own way of doing things, and with such a large and ancient population, they want to maintain social harmony there. Countries like Britain and France only made things much worse there with our clod-headed imperialistic attempts in China in the past 150 years, even though we were unsuccessful at it. China was never colonised after all, and when the Afghans defeated the British and even humiliated us like that in 1842, that basically ended any hope we'd had of controlling the trade routes going into China. And the Chinese, of course, hit back hard after that against Britain, France, the USA, basically all the Western powers in 1950. They have a historical reason for being mistrustful.

Things like this don't help to build trust with the Chinese either-- http://tinyurl.com/5cq9qz
The truth is, much of the Western media outright lied about some of the Tibet coverage-- falsely labeling people as "Tibetan protesters" when in fact they were Han Chinese fleeing violent riots, or making false claims about the origin of the protests (they indeed weren't peaceful), even an Australian fellow in Tibet recorded the violent attacks against individuals and shops in Tibet-- http://tinyurl.com/6nm8ne In fact, many of the scenes claimed to be taking place in Tibet, actually occurred in Nepal, and the police (claimed to be Chinese security services) were actually Nepalese security forces! A total misrepresentation in Western media that does grave damage to our credibility.

These kinds of things have understandably enraged ordinary Chinese who, as I've found from working in China, actually tend to be favourably inclined to the West and want to interact with us. These distortions in Western media make us look like fools, and even anger Western citizens as well.

External urgings for reform can still be valuable in China, nobody denies that. But they have to be calm, seasoned, and inclined toward constructive dialogue. Yelling and shouting, and especially these kinds of attacks and misrepresentations on China, anger not only Chinese but the world against us.

The truth is, most Chinese aren't really that different from people in the West. And the Chinese people do want freedoms there, they want their rights protected, they want checks and balances. So the best way to bring this positive change about, is to engage in constructive dialogue, to trade with the Chinese, to interact with them more.

We in Britain and the West in general, absolutely do need to improve the state of our foreign-language education and particularly, our teaching of the Mandarin Chinese language. To communicate with the Chinese on a person-to-person level, we need to speak their language better. It's not nearly as difficult as some have claimed, and in my own organization, we made a commitment to improve our Chinese fluency years ago. This has paid tremendous dividends for us in helping to push for intelligent reform within China, because it opens the bridge of communication that actually enables us to understand each other.
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yeo · Apr 12, 2008

And this from one of the best known foreigner-written blogs coimng out of Beijing.

There is a public relations disaster, but the question is for whom?

The Olympic Torch Tour As Public Relations Disaster

There is a public relations disaster, but the question is for whom?

On one hand, the pro-Tibet protestors have managed to turn the Olympic torch processions in London and Paris into huge publicity stunts. They have gathered global media coverage for their cause.

On the other hand, it would appear that the Chinese Communists have reaped a huge publicity bonanza from the same incidents. How so? For the Chinese Communists, the responses from western government, media and citizens are immaterial. If German Chancellor Merkel won't attend the Olympic opening ceremony, it only means tickets for some others who want to come. It won't impact their existence. The paramount goal of the Chinese Communists is to retain control of China, and therefore it is the response from the Chinese citizens that matter. Thanks to the protests, the Chinese Communists may have consolidated support by its citizens for years to come.

Specifically, you can read the story here of the Chinese paralympian fencer Jin Jing carrying the Olympic torch in Paris. The following includes the photos, the report in <Liberation Daily>, forum posts by eyewitnesses (including the photographer of that famous photo of the assault on Jin Jing) and western media reports. Millions of Chinese readers probably cried their hearts out after reading the stuff. And this public relations show was not even scripted by the Chinese Communists, who are unlikely to ever accomplish this level of success no matter how hard they try. Faced with the beautiful heroine with one leg, how is any liberal dissidence on behalf of Tibet independence going to work inside China? This was a bonanza handed to the Chinese Communists by the pro-Tibet protestors.

As the Olympic torch tour progresses to the United States, Australia, South Korea, etc, the Chinese Communists are probably hoping that other protestors would make similar showings for their own causes (Xinjiang independence, FLG, vindication of June 4th, etc). That would guarantee that those causes will never become accepted into mainstream Chinese opinion for the next generation.
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And the now iconic picture, btw, the attacker has been tracked down by the internet man-hunt. His name is Lobsang Gandang and he lives in Salt Lake City. His address and telephone number has been pasted all over the net. Run, Lobsang, run!

SamFisher · Apr 12, 2008

yeo said:

Now some of the western press are finally starting to wake up and smell the coffee. French TV is speaking in trepidation of the rising tide of anti-French sentiment in China, and claiming that most of the protestors weren't really French.
[/URL]
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LOL, yes I'm sure the French are absolutely trepidated of whiny chinese internet mobs, with the ballsy tactics of sending people anonymous spam emails and harassing phone calls.

I KNOW I SURE AM!

SCARY SINO E-MOBS U SCARE ME!

SamFisher · Apr 12, 2008

Nice tactic, CCP, of using a 1-legged handicapped person as a human shield for your aggressive nationalism.

Talk about sick and twisted....wow....

yuantian · Apr 12, 2008

SamFisher said:

Nice tactic, CCP, of using a 1-legged handicapped person as a human shield for your aggressive nationalism.

Talk about sick and twisted....wow....
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talking about biased views.

actually, it would be cool if the CCP saw this ahead of time and just let them protest. too bad, i don't think they were that bright though.

yeo · Apr 12, 2008

yuantian said:

talking about biased views.

actually, it would be cool if the CCP saw this ahead of time and just let them protest. too bad, i don't think they were that bright though.
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LOL, I think the CCP would love for old Sammie to go to China and give a few of his rants too! That would turn the Chinese off the cause of Tibetan Independence fo the next 100 years!

langal · Apr 12, 2008

SamFisher said:

Nice tactic, CCP, of using a 1-legged handicapped person as a human shield for your aggressive nationalism.

Talk about sick and twisted....wow....
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I think both sides would have to agree that guy was a classless a-hole.

Likewise - I wouldn't characterize him as representative of all the protesters. I'm sure there a plenty of zealots on all sides.

yuantian · Apr 12, 2008

yeo said:

LOL, I think the CCP would love for old Sammie to go to China and give a few of his rants too! That would turn the Chinese off the cause of Tibetan Independence fo the next 100 years!
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yup. i think CCP has learned a new propaganda tool. i don't think they are going to bother with too much investment in internal propaganda now. mostly, they'll use external criticism to fuel their support. i find this interesting. i never thought this would work before. but the reaction this time proved me wrong. we'll see where it leads us. hopefully it doesn't get out of hands though.

SamFisher · Apr 12, 2008

^ Attention Clutchfans PLA - I am going out for the afternoon, I will deliver you a measured impartial response come nightfall. In the meantime please do not hack me.

再见! for now

yuantian · Apr 12, 2008

SamFisher said:

^ Attention Clutchfans PLA - I am going out for the afternoon, I will deliver you a measured impartial response come nightfall. In the meantime please do not hack me.

再见! for now
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have fun Sammy. i'm going to string my guitars now. eh, so many strings.

Northside Storm · Apr 12, 2008

SamFisher said:

LOL, yes I'm sure the French are absolutely trepidated of whiny chinese internet mobs, with the ballsy tactics of sending people anonymous spam emails and harassing phone calls.

I KNOW I SURE AM!

SCARY SINO E-MOBS U SCARE ME!
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I'm sure no one gives a crap about individual Chinese.

But speaking in terms of the "world economy" viewpoint, I have heard that losing about 1 billion consumers can be harmful.

Northside Storm · Apr 12, 2008

Northside Storm said:

I'm sure no one gives a crap about individual Chinese.

But speaking in terms of the "world economy" viewpoint, I have heard that losing about 1 billion consumers can be harmful.
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...Bleh, this came out somewhat wrong.

So to somewhat mollify people who might misinterpret this, I doubt nations care about individual Americans or Canadians either.

yuantian · Apr 12, 2008

Northside Storm said:

I'm sure no one gives a crap about individual Chinese.

But speaking in terms of the "world economy" viewpoint, I have heard that losing about 1 billion consumers can be harmful.
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well, i don't think they are going to lose 1 billion consumers. but the government or state linked companies may lose out on some big deals. but for other civil stuff, i doubt anything is going to happen. business goes both ways.

KingCheetah · Apr 12, 2008

SamFisher said:

Nice tactic, CCP, of using a 1-legged handicapped person as a human shield for your aggressive nationalism.

Talk about sick and twisted....wow....
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Why won't they give that poor girl a prosthetic leg instead of forcing her to ride around in a wheel chair?

Northside Storm · Apr 12, 2008

yuantian said:

well, i don't think they are going to lose 1 billion consumers. but the government or state linked companies may lose out on some big deals. but for other civil stuff, i doubt anything is going to happen. business goes both ways.
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Doesn't China's system still have many elements of state control/intervention? I know it's free market to a degree now but I think the Chinese gouvernment can easily block out certain corporations...

yuantian · Apr 12, 2008

Northside Storm said:

Doesn't China's system still have many elements of state control/intervention? I know it's free market to a degree now but I think the Chinese gouvernment can easily block out certain corporations...
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no, i don't think so. they only have control over large state owned business. i don't think there are any real 100% state controlled companies anymore. there are just too many businesses in China, it's impossible for government to control. unless companies are trying to sell state secrets, i don't think they are going give a crap. that's part of the reason a lot of bad products are going overseas now too. it's impossible to be 100% on quality control.

i think China's economy is completely non communist. i don't know if you have been there before. but just look around. people are more capitalistic than a lot of western countries. there isn't much protectionism either, not to the degree of some western countries at least.

yuantian · Apr 12, 2008

by the way. i don't know if the Chinese posters here still remember the Tibetan Chinese comedian. 洛桑. he died tragically in Hong Kong in a car accident.

http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/rbR7r6GVqFY/

here is one of his many videos. just to remind you that not all Tibetans are like those protesters. many people within are still cool and just enjoying their lives. we should unite rather than divide.

tinman · Apr 12, 2008

yuantian said:

by the way. i don't know if the Chinese posters here still remember the Tibetan Chinese comedian. 洛桑. he died tragically in Hong Kong in a car accident.

http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/rbR7r6GVqFY/

here is one of his many videos. just to remind you that not all Tibetans are like those protesters. many people within are still cool and just enjoying their lives. we should unite rather than divide.
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here's a video of yuantian in hong kong!

<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/YnM1Ee_H2As&hl=en"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/YnM1Ee_H2As&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>

rz04 · Apr 12, 2008

While I believe that China needs to change the way it rules Tibet (religious freedom and such, I am not questioning China's sovereignty over Tibet).

These protests are really not helping anything, if anything its going to reinforce the point of view spread by the Chinese government to its people that the West media and government is out to get China.

From the Chinese people's point of view they are seeing looting in Tibet and people trying to wrestle and put out the olympic torch, the symbol for world peace.

We need to use the Olympics to open dialog with China regarding its human rights issues, not to make it shut out itself from the rest of the world.

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