Chinese students at Duke University live up to the "goons and thugs" label
Filed Under Tibet, Human Rights, China | Posted on April 18, 2008
A Chinese student at Duke University attempted to mediate a confrontation between pro-Tibet and Chinese students, and published an essay calling for tolerance and dialogue between the two sides. Grace Wang does not support Tibetan independence; she sees Tibetans as Chinese, and just believes that they ought to be treated by other Chinese as “brothers and compatriots”:
I think that Tibet is definitely a part of China. It is indivisible from China. This means that we must deal with Tibet and Tibetans as our brothers and compatriots. That means that we should use other methods than those used to deal with outsiders. You can use whatever methods you think expedient with outsiders, even very forceful methods. But with Tibetans we are dealing with our own relatives. There should be more reason and more relatedness in our dealings with them.
In return for her call for tolerance and reason, members and supporters of the Chinese student association at Duke barraged her with death threats and published her personal information online, as well as that of her parents, who live in China. Her parents home was vandalized, and her parents have been forced into hiding.
This is not the Chinese government at work. This is a group of Chinese students. Jack Cafferty may want to limit his “goons and thugs” label to China’s communist government, but behavior of this nature by ordinary citizens clearly deserves the same label, and the students responsible should be immediately expelled and deported.
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/2008/04/18/china_tibet/
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/17/us/17student.html?em&ex=1208577600&en=e767da4f6a75cfec&ei=5087
http://www.dukechronicle.com/news/2008/04/16/Editorial/Discourse.Gone.Awry-3328298.shtml
An Objective Look at Sino-Tibetan History
Filed Under Tibet, China | Posted on April 18, 2008
The Chinese position is, “Tibet has been a part of China for 1000 years.” The Tibetan position is, “Tibet was never a part of China until the Maoist invasion.” It seems the truth lies somewhere in between those two extremes.
Thanks to TIBETSPACE for posting links to the following articles, which provide as objective an analysis as I’ve seen on Sino-Tibetan history.
The Mongols, Mao and the Dalai Lama, by Elliot Sperling
Here are the facts. The claim that Tibet entertained only personal relations with China at the leadership level is easily rebutted. Administrative records and dynastic histories outline the governing structures of Mongol and Manchu rule. These make it clear that Tibet was subject to rules, laws and decisions made by the Yuan and Qing rulers. Tibet was not independent during these two periods.
But although Tibet did submit to the Mongol and Manchu Empires, neither attached Tibet to China. The same documentary record that shows Tibetan subjugation to the Mongols and Manchus also shows that China’s intervening Ming Dynasty (which ruled from 1368 to 1644) had no control over Tibet. This is problematic, given China’s insistence that Chinese sovereignty was exercised in an unbroken line from the 13th century onward.
From 1912 until the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, no Chinese government exercised control over what is today China’s Tibet Autonomous Region. The Dalai Lama’s government alone ruled the land until 1951.
There is something less to the arguments of both sides, but the argument on the Chinese side is weaker. Tibet was not “Chinese” until Mao Zedong’s armies marched in and made it so.
Tibetan Sovereignty Has a Long, Disputed History
Tibet has never been considered independent by major players on the world stage, Barnett says. Tibet did declare itself independent in 1913, along with Mongolia. Back then, China was in the middle of a civil war. It then fought off invasions by Japan. The question of Tibet went on the backburner. “The Chinese say they were just busy,” he says. “They were unable to deal with that and they don’t accept it legally.”
Barnett reaches back to 1903 for a key moment in the Tibetan saga. That’s when the British forces crossed into Tibet, killing about 4,000 people in the process. “It was really a shameful episode,” he says. “The British had no reason to invade Tibet. … They suddenly made Beijing worried about its back door.” Worried that Britain would start carving up its territory, in 1910 the Manchu Dynasty decided to invade Tibet and call it a province.
Before then, Tibet has been a protectorate, with a Chinese governor. The Manchu Dynasty collapsed, and Tibetan soldiers drove the Chinese out. Barnett says China “never forgot that bloody wound.” That’s why the Chinese began making such a direct claim on Tibet.
The Tibet-China Conflict: History and Polemics, by Elliot Sperling
China’s contention that Tibet has been an “integral” part of China since the thirteenth century took shape only in the twentieth century. Moverover, as last as the 1950s, Chinese writers were accustomed to describing Tibet’s place in the world of imperial China as that of a subordinate vassal state, not an integral part of China, as current Chinese materials put it. Indeed, for quite some time after Tibet was incorporated into the PRC, Chinese narratives of that process were often vague and beset by contradictory chronologies.
Similarly, the Tibetan concept of a “priest-patron” religious relationship governing Sino-Tibetan relations to the exclusion of concrete political subordination is itself rather a recent construction. Ample evidence shows that Tibetan religious figures entertained religious and spiritual relationships with emperors of several dynasties, sometimes under conditions in which Tibet was politically subordinate to the dynasty in question and at other times under conditions in which Tibet was independent.
Tibet, China and the United States: Reflections on the Tibet Question, by Melvyn C. Goldstein
The roots of the conflict can be traced back hundreds of years, but in modern times the Tibet Question entered the international arena at the turn of the 19th century when British attempts to open relations with Tibet culminated in the 1903-04 invasion and conquest of Lhasa. The Qing China, which considered Tibet politically subordinate, countered this perceived threat to its hegemony by taking measures to increase its control over Tibet’s administration. These actions ended in 1911 when the Qing Dynasty was overthrown in China. Tibetans then expelled all Chinese troops and officials and the 13th Dalai Lama triumphantly returned from exile in India, immediately issuing a proclamation that is considered by many Tibetans to be a declaration of independence.
From 1911-1951, Tibet functioned as a defacto independent nation, conducting all governmental functions without interference from China or any other country. Nevertheless, its international status was ambivalent since China continued to claim Tibet as part of its state and the relevant Western countries like Britain and the United States refused to recognize Tibetan independence. The current dispute over the political status of Tibet is to no small extent an artifact of the Western democracies’ decision to publicly acknowledge Chinese suzerainty over Tibet throughout this period, even though Beijing had no direct influence there.
The founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 quickly ended Tibet’s defacto independence. The Communists, like the Nationalists of Chiang Kaishek, claimed Chinese sovereignty over Tibet, and invaded Tibet’s eastern province in October 1950 to force the Tibetan government to commence negotiations to accept such a status. They quickly vanquished the Tibetan forces, and when neither the Western democracies, India, nor the U.N. responded positively to Tibet’s pleas for help, the 14th Dalai Lama sent a negotiating team to Beijing. It signed the 17 Point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet in May of 1951. This agreement recognized Chinese sovereignty over Tibet for the first time in Tibetan history, but also recognized the right of the Dalai Lama’s government to continue to administer Tibet, at least until the Tibetan people and leaders wanted reforms.
This agreement, however, proved difficult to operationalize, and after an eight year period of coexistence, a Tibetan uprising occurred in Lhasa in 1959. The Dalai Lama then fled to exile in India, followed by about 80,000 Tibetans. China now set aside the agreement and established a people’s government in Tibet. The Dalai Lama, in India, similarly denounced the agreement, claiming Tibet’s right to self determination and independence. The political status of Tibet vis-a-vis China reemerged as a contested issue.
Tibet-China-Olympics Update: April 18, 2008
Filed Under Tibet, Human Rights, China | Posted on April 18, 2008
Japanese Buddhist temple withdrawn from Olympic torch route
(via Tricycle Blog)
A famous Buddhist temple in Japan has been withdrawn from the Olympic flame relay over security concerns and anger at China’s crackdown on Tibetans. The Zenkoji temple in the city of Nagano said it had received 1,000 letters from across Japan calling for it to withdraw from the April 26 procession after the crackdown in predominantly Buddhist Tibet, where monasteries were raided and monks arrested. The temple was due to be the starting point of the flame’s passage through Japan, taking runners through the city for 11.5 miles (18.5km).
Chinese police raid Tibetan monastery
(via Agam’s Gecko)
Armed police raided a monastery in northwest China and detained dozens of Tibetan Buddhist monks on Thursday, following anti-Chinese protests in February, according to a Beijing-based source. They took away four fifths of the monastery’s inhabitants — around 200 people — and dozens more lay locals, some of whom had tried to prevent police from detaining the monks.
Olympic sponsors scale back plans for torch relay
(via Tibet Will Be Free - UK)
Three of the biggest global sponsors of the Beijing Olympics have scaled back their plans for next week’s Japanese leg of the torch relay amid mounting fears of violent anti-Chinese protests, The Times has learnt. In the first sign that the commercial side of the Olympics has been affected by the various anti-Chinese demonstrations around the world, Coca-Cola, Samsung and Lenovo have not exercised their right to run a logo-festooned vehicle along with the relay as the Olympic flame makes its way through Nagano.
508 Tibetan Protestors arrested in Nepal
508 Tibetan protestors were arrested and detained in the Nepalese Capital of Kathmandu yesterday (April 17) after a series of demonstrations staged by Tibetans in different groups near the Chinese Embassy in Baluwatar, calling for ‘Free Tibet’ and urging the United Nations to send fact finding delegation. Ten people were injured in the protest and were later attended to in a medical facility. All the detainees were released around 11 PM. Over 200 Armed Police Force personnel were deployed at the Chinese Embassy to curb any Pro-Tibet movement.
China state media seeks to contain nationalist anger
Chinese official media have sought to temper nationalist calls for boycotts of foreign businesses accused of supporting Tibetan independence, urging angry citizens to focus on economic development. Chinese Internet sites have been awash with calls to stop buying French-made goods and to stop shopping at Carrefour stores after Tibet protesters in Paris disrupted the Beijing Olympics torch relay. Following earlier prominent state media reports, Chinese officials and citizens have also vented outrage at a commentator on CNN television who spoke of Chinese “goons” and “junk”.
Scores arrested in India after torch relay ends
Scores of Tibetan demonstrators were arrested Thursday as thousands of police and soldiers defended the Beijing Olympic torch on a suffocating run through the Indian capital. The heart of New Delhi was almost totally sealed off for the most sensitive leg of the protest-hit global relay to date, with security personnel far outnumbering the schoolboys and other select onlookers allowed to watch.
China steps up crackdown in Tibet
China is intensifying its crackdown on Tibet after the largest anti-Chinese protests there in almost 50 years. But many monks have refused to fly the Chinese flag on monastery roofs, sources in China and India say. In addition to reports from remote Qinghai province this week that authorities have arrested Tibetan feminist and writer Jamyang Kyi, Tibetans say five other Qinghai Tibetan community leaders are in custody as well. All are residents of Machen [in Chinese, Maqin] county in Golog [Goulou] prefecture, and all are now being held in the provincial capital, Xining, sources said.
CNN Apologizes to China for Jack Cafferty’s “goons and thugs” Comment
Filed Under Tibet, Human Rights, China | Posted on April 16, 2008
In the April 9 edition of The Situation Room, the following exchange occurred between CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and Jack Cafferty:
BLITZER: One of the arguments that some of the pro-China elements is making, Jack, is that this is a very different China today than existed 10 years ago, certainly 20 or 30 years ago. This communist regime today is almost like a capitalist regime. They’re a huge economic superpower and that we have a lot at stake in maintaining this economic relationship with China.
CAFFERTY: Well, I don’t know if China is any different, but our relationship with China is certainly different. We’re in hawk [sic] to the Chinese up to our eyeballs because of the war in Iraq, for one thing. They’re holding hundreds of billions of dollars worth of our paper. We also are running hundred of billions of dollars worth of trade deficits with them, as we continue to import their junk with the lead paint on them and the poisoned pet food and export, you know, jobs to places where you can pay workers a dollar a month to turn out the stuff that we’re buying from Wal-Mart.
So I think our relationship with China has certainly changed. I think they’re basically the same bunch of goons and thugs they’ve been for the last 50 years.
(LAUGHTER)
I was watching the program when Cafferty made his remarks and thought they were so insightful and refreshing that I rewound it (I love my DVR) and called my wife in from the other room to hear them replayed.
Cafferty clarified his remarks on the April 14 edition of The Situation Room by saying:
Last week, during a discussion of the controversy surrounding China’s hosting of the Olympic Games, I said that the Chinese are basically the same bunch of goons and thugs they have been for the last 50 years. I was referring to the Chinese government, and not to Chinese people or to Chinese-Americans
Predictably, the remarks hurt China’s feelings and the government demanded an apology. CNN caved in to China’s demand — sort of — by issuing this statement”
CNN would like to clarify that it was not Mr. Cafferty’s, nor CNN’s, intent to cause offense to the Chinese people, and [CNN] would apologize to anyone who has interpreted the comments in this way.
CNN is a network that reports the news in an objective and balanced fashion. However, as part of our coverage we also employ commentators who provide robust opinions that generate debate.
On this occasion Jack was offering his strongly held opinion of the Chinese government, not the Chinese people — a point he subsequently clarified on The Situation Room on April 14.
It should be noted that over many years, Jack Cafferty has expressed critical comments on many governments, including the U.S. government and its leaders.
A willingness and freedom to express opinions contrary to the policies and actions of one’s government is something that China clearly does not understand.
I’m not at all clear on why supporters of human rights always feel compelled to clarify that their criticisms of China relate to the Chinese government and not to the Chinese people. In the first place, it seems ridiculously obvious that it’s China’s government and Communist party whose actions are the target of the criticism. In the second place, however, it seems worth noting that recent activities by some Chinese citizens display the same level of goonishness and thuggishness as those of their government. If some Chinese people are actively supporting and defending the brutal policies of their government, it seems to me that they share in the responsibility for those policies, and are therefore subject to the same criticism and condemnation that those policies invoke.
For the record, when I criticize “China” for its human rights atrocities, I’m unapologetically criticizing the government, the Chinese Communist Party, and anyone who supports and defends their actions.
ICT: Authorities acknowledge 4,000 detentions: thousands ‘disappear’ in ongoing Lhasa crackdown; Unrest at Drepung follows new patriotic education campaign
Filed Under Tibet, Human Rights, China | Posted on April 15, 2008
International Campaign for Tibet
April 14th, 2008
Raids on people’s houses and ‘disappearances’ are continuing every day during the ongoing crackdown in Lhasa, and there are new fears for monks at Drepung monastery after more troops were deployed following unrest there over the past few days.
Details of the incident at Drepung are unclear, although it is known that the unrest followed the arrival of a ‘patriotic education’ team at the monastery last week. There are also serious concerns of a humanitarian crisis in Lhasa’s monasteries, as food and water supplies are running low and monks prevented from leaving.
Mary Beth Markey, Vice President for Advocacy at the International Campaign for Tibet, said today: “Chinese authorities claim they are conducting political campaigns against the influence of the Dalai Lama to ‘restore order’ in Tibet, while Tibetans are risking their lives to call for the Dalai Lama’s return. This wrong-headed approach by the Chinese state creates more resentment and risks provoking further dissent and an increase in brutality from force now surrounding many monasteries in Tibet.”
Since March 10 when Tibetan protests began in Lhasa, one or more instances of protest have been reported in each of at least 52 county-level locations in Tibetan areas of China, as well as in Chengdu (the capital of Sichuan), Lanzhou (the capital of Gansu), and Beijing, according to a report today by the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (www.cecc.gov).
China’s state-run media has acknowledged the surrender or detention of nearly 4,000 “rioters” in Lhasa and in Gannan (Kanlho) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (TAP), Gansu province (Xinhua, April 9). The disclosure raises by more than 2,000 the previous total of officially acknowledged surrenders and detentions in Lhasa and Gannan. Authorities have released more than half of the nearly 4,000 persons and formally arrested more than 400 persons on undisclosed criminal charges. (www.cecc.gov).
Disappearances and intimidation in Lhasa described as ‘Second Cultural Revolution’.
Read the complete release, with photographs here.
European Parliament Resolution on the Situation Tibet
Filed Under Tibet, Human Rights, China | Posted on April 13, 2008
The European Parliament on April 10 passed a resolution condemning the ‘brutal repression’ by China in last month’s crackdown on Tibetan protests.
The resolution also said the 27 EU countries should adopt a common stance on whether to boycott the opening ceremony of the Beijing- hosted Olympic Games in August.
The resolution, carried by a large majority, urged EU leaders to adopt a united stance on Tibet, including the option of boycotting the opening ceremony.
It also called on China to begin a dialogue with the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama by August, and urged a UN inquiry into the events in Tibet last month.
The full text of the resolution appears below:
Resolution A3-0369/92
The European Parliament,
- having regard to the motions for resolutions:
(a) by Mrs. Muscardini and others on human rights and EEC economic activity in China (B3-0460/90) (b) by Mrs Aglietta and Mr Langer on the situation in Tibet (B3-1375/90) (c) by Mr Coates and others on the situation in Tibet (B3-1557/90),
- having regard to its resolution of 15 October 1987, 16 March 1989, 15 March 1990 and 13 February 1992,
- expressing its concern, mindful of Resolution 1991/10 of 23 August 1991 of the United Nations Sub-commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, at violations of fundamental human rights and freedoms that threaten the distinct cultural, religious and national identity of the Tibetan people,
Read more14 Reasons to Boycott Chinese Products
Filed Under Human Rights, China | Posted on April 12, 2008
The following comes from the introduction and table of contents of Jamyang Norbu’s pamphlet, Buying the Dragon’s Teeth: How Your Money Empowers a Cruel and Dangerous Communist Regime in China, and Undermines Labor, Industry and Freedom Worldwide. It’s available online, and worth reading before your next shopping trip to Wal-Mart.
… this anthology of China’s human rights violations and other crimes, presented in memory-convenient précis, is essentially intended as a perspective-restoring tonic. Presented like this in a handy catalogue form it is hoped that the reader will come to grasp the totality of the Beijing regime’s crimes, which in their sheer scale, variety, sophistication, pitilessness, self-serving expediency, profitability and the matter-of-fact calculated deliberation that has engendered them, make the thuggish brutality and murderousness of other authoritarian regimes around the world (yes, even Saddam Hussein’s) seem crude and self-defeating in comparison.
Reasons Not To Buy “MADE IN CHINA” Products
- Products Made in Forced Labor Camps
- Products Manufactured by the Chinese Military
- Products Made by a Disenfranchised Labor Force
- Sweeping Repression of All Religions
- Nationwide Forced Abortions and Sterilizations
- Indiscriminate and Widespread Use of the Death Penalty
- Commercial Harvesting of Transplant Organs of Executed Prisoners
- Routine Torture of Prisoners
- State Psychiatric Persecution of Political Prisoners
- Military Occupation and Cultural Genocide in Tibet
- Draconian Repression in East Turkestan
- World’s Tightest Internet Censorship
- Spread of Nuclear Weapons to Rogue States and Terrorists
- China Does Not Play by the Usual Rules of Business
China: Human Rights Visit Inconvenient
Filed Under Tibet, Human Rights, China | Posted on April 11, 2008
From Reuters:
China has turned down a request by U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour to visit Tibet this month to look into anti-Chinese protests in which at least 19 people died, her spokesman said on Thursday.
“The Chinese authorities came back to her… and said it wouldn’t be convenient at this time,” spokesman Rupert Colville told Reuters.
Well, we certainly wouldn’t want to inconvience them.
For the Record: Detailing China’s Abuses
Filed Under Human Rights, China | Posted on April 11, 2008
The following is just a few highlights from recent State Department documents.
U.S. Department of State
Background Note: China
Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs
April 2008The China country reports in the State Department’s 2007 Human Rights Practices and International Religious Freedom Reports noted China’s well-documented and continuing abuses of human rights in violation of internationally recognized norms, stemming both from the authorities’ intolerance of dissent and the inadequacy of legal safeguards for basic freedoms. Reported abuses have included arbitrary and lengthy incommunicado detention, forced confessions, torture, and mistreatment of prisoners as well as severe restrictions on freedom of speech, the press, assembly, association, religion, privacy, worker rights, and coercive birth limitation. In 2006, China continued the monitoring, harassment, intimidation, and arrest of journalists, Internet writers, defense lawyers, religious activists, and political dissidents. The activities of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), especially those relating to the rule of law and expansion of judicial review, continue to be restricted. The Chinese Government recognizes five official religions–Buddhism, Islam, Taoism, Catholicism, and Protestantism–and seeks to regulate religious groups and worship. Religious believers who seek to practice their faith outside of state-controlled religious venues and unregistered religious groups and spiritual movements are subject to intimidation, harassment, and detention. In 2006, the Secretary of State again designated China as a “Country of Particular Concern” under the International Religious Freedom Act for particularly severe violations of religious freedom.
U.S. Department of State
China (includes Tibet, Hong Kong, and Macau)
Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2007
Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor
March 11, 2008Arbitrary or Unlawful Deprivation of Life
During the year the government and its agents reportedly committed arbitrary or unlawful killings. Trials involving capital offenses sometimes took place under circumstances involving severe lack of due process and with no meaningful appeal. Some executions took place on the day of conviction or failed appeal.
Disappearance
Human rights defender Gao Zhisheng, who was detained and questioned several times over the past two years, was last seen September 22 in the presence of municipal security officials at his Beijing home. In September a group of 21 farmers reportedly disappeared in Beijing after traveling from Chengdu to petition the government in a land compensation case. Tibetan Web master Tsewangnorbu has been missing since Gansu province security authorities shut down his Web site in 2005. At year’s end the government still had not provided a comprehensive, credible accounting of all those killed, missing, or detained in connection with the violent suppression of the 1989 Tiananmen demonstrations.
The whereabouts of the Panchen Lama, Tibetan Buddhism’s second most prominent figure after the Dalai Lama, and his family remained unknown. Government officials continued to claim he was under government supervision at an undisclosed location.
Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
In November 2006 the Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) Deputy Secretary Wang Zhenchuan acknowledged that illegal interrogation by “atrocious torture” existed in local judicial practice throughout China. In addition there continued to be frequent reports that police and other elements of the security apparatus employed widespread torture and degrading treatment when dealing with some detainees and prisoners. During the year there were reports that officials used electric shocks, beatings, shackles, and other forms of abuse.
In March 2006 UN Special Rapporteur Nowak reported that beatings with fists, sticks, and electric batons continued to be the most common forms of torture. He also found that prisoners continued to suffer cigarette burns, prolonged periods of solitary confinement, and submersion in water or sewage, and that they were made to hold extreme positions for long periods, were denied medical treatment, and were forced to do hard labor. Sexual and physical abuse and extortion occurred in some detention centers.
In early September authorities detained seven ethnic Tibetan school children ages 14 and 15 in the Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (TAP) of Gansu Province for allegedly writing slogans on public buildings calling for the return of the Dalai Lama. The children were held until fines were paid. According to reports, during their incarceration they were severely beaten and subjected to electric shocks. One child was released to a hospital for treatment after sustaining serious injuries believed to be the result of beatings.
On October 18, PAP border guards reportedly fired on a group of 46 Tibetans attempting to enter Nepal at the Nangpa La pass. Three Tibetans reportedly were arrested and nine were missing; the remainder reached Nepal.
The security apparatus employed torture and degrading treatment in dealing with some detainees and prisoners. Tibetans repatriated from Nepal reportedly continued to suffer torture and other abuse in detention centers, including electric shocks, exposure to cold, and severe beatings, and were forced to perform heavy physical labor.
Arbitrary Arrest or Detention
Arbitrary arrest and detention remained serious problems. Police continued the practice of placing under surveillance, harassing, and detaining citizens around politically sensitive events. Authorities in the XUAR used house arrest and other forms of arbitrary detention against those accused of the “three evils” of extremism, “splittism,” and terrorism.
U.S Hurts China’s Feelings
Filed Under Tibet, Human Rights, China | Posted on April 11, 2008
The AP reports, “An indignant China said Friday the U.S. “seriously hurt the feelings of the Chinese people” when Congress passed a resolution calling on Beijing to stop cracking down on Tibetan dissent and talk to the Dalai Lama.”
What strange feelings the Chinese have. It’s absolutely no problem for them to systematically wipe out an entire culture, or to kidnap, rape, torture, and murder their own citizens and minorities within their society. But when someone asks them to stop, their little feelings get hurt.
Cry me a freaking river.
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