Notebook
Beijing Olympics and Tibet
by kirk , 25 pages, 0 comment. Modified on .
A tiny number of articles that present a viewpoint different from the mainstream. Isn't it a bit boring when everyone is singing the same tune?
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  1. Unfortunately, the calls to boycott the Olympics and to label everything about China as evil can only serve to isolate China and the United States from each other. China is not a monolith, and blanket condemnations of China and its people are as simplistic as blaming all Americans for the U.S. human-rights violations at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. Such rhetoric, however, is driving many Chinese bloggers into a nationalistic response.

    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/08/ED2F100FMV.DTL&tsp=1
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  2. In the darkness of a London night, waving the chartered plane goodbye, I had a feeling the plane was heavier than when it landed. The torch will carry on, and the journey will educate the more than a billion Chinese people about the world, and the world about China.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/04/12/do1210.xml
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  3. For decades, anti-China human rights groups in Washington have spent millions of dollars denouncing China. To many Chinese, it seems that this lobby is the only voice that's acceptable or newsworthy in the U.S. media and to the U.S. government. But times are changing. We need to be open-minded and farsighted. We need to make more friends than enemies. Remember what a little ping-pong game did for Sino-U.S. relations in the 1970s? Let's celebrate the Olympics for what the Games are meant to be -- a bridge for friendship, not a playground for politics.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/08/AR2008040802907.html
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  4. Rather than seeing China as simply an unstoppable juggernaut, we must also recognise that it is grappling with a governance challenge so large that it probably has no precedent in political history. It must transform its superheated growth model into something that is economically more balanced, and politically and environmentally more sustainable. The mistake would be to imagine that we in Europe, and in the US, don't have a stake in China's successful transformation. We have the biggest stake imaginable.

    http://ec.europa.eu/commission_barroso/mandelson/speeches_articles/sppm199_en.htm
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  5. I do not want to whitewash all that Beijing does. ... But you judge a nation by the direction in which it is traveling, not by the road bumps. And China is clearly moving in a direction of very considerable promise to us all. The Olympics, like ping-pong diplomacy, will push China further in that direction.
    http://gregoryclark.net/jt/page31/page31.html
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  6. Yesterday's public grappling with the Olympic torch shone a light on the self-satisfied, cartoonish nature of contemporary China-bashing.

    http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/issues/C136/
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  7. The attack also angered Olympic chief Jacques Rogge, who said any attempt to take the torch from the athletes carrying it was destroying a dream, but Jin's injury made it even worse. "What shocked me most is when someone tried to rob the torch off a wheelchair athlete, a disabled athlete who was unable to defend the torch. This is unacceptable,"

    http://sport.guardian.co.uk/breakingnews/feedstory/0,,-7454494,00.html
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  8. To the average Beijing resident, the concept of an independent Tibet is as outlandish as, say, the notion of making Arizona a separate nation for the Navajo Indians.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/18/world/asia/18china.html?pagewanted=2&sq=olympics%20china&st=nyt&scp=18
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  9. To me, the Olympic torch represents hope. I know the importance of hope. In spring 2006, I was diagnosed with nasopharyngeal cancer and left school to get radiation and chemotherapy. I lost some hair, some hearing, most of my taste, my saliva, my ability to eat, and with that my energy. Some days it would take me 3 hours to eat a meal. I needed more calories to rebuild my body as it was attacked by the treatment, but the side effects to my mouth and my digestive system made that incredibly hard. There were days last summer when all I did was try to eat. Throughout the ordeal though, I always believed I would make it. And I did. I graduated from college a semester early. Every weekday, I run 2 miles in the morning. I've out-eaten some of my guy friends when we were trying to finish a huge 45 lb. pizza. Last year I chaired the Relay For Life committee at Carnegie Mellon and we raised over $52,000, more than double the previous amount, to help fight cancer.

    http://www.design.cmu.edu/show_news.php?id=168&m=200804
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  10. “The Olympics being in China is extremely special for us,” Michelle Hong said. You could understand her thinking it is fate, a journey that began and very nearly ended in the waters of Southeast Asia in 1976.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/15/sports/othersports/15araton.html?scp=13&sq=olympics+china&st=nyt
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  11. Air raids and rocket fire disrupt his training, his running shoes are cheap and scruffy and even getting Israeli permission to leave the Gaza Strip was a struggle. But armed with "faith and self-confidence," Palestinian athlete Nader al-Masri is determined to make Gaza proud at the Beijing Olympics in August.

    http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/lifestyle-olympics-palestinian.html?scp=32&sq=olympics+china&st=nyt
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  12. Mr. Liu defended China’s policy on Darfur last month at Chatham House, a research institute in London. On Friday, he said China’s position on Darfur was essentially the same as that of the United States and other Western powers. On arms sales, Mr. Liu said China was one of several countries that sold weapons to Sudan and “is by no means the biggest exporter.”

    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/08/world/asia/08darfur.html?scp=11&sq=olympics+china&st=nyt
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  13. China has begun shifting its position on Darfur, stepping outside its diplomatic comfort zone to quietly push Sudan to accept the world’s largest peacekeeping force, diplomats and analysts say. It has also acted publicly, sending engineers to help peacekeepers in Darfur and appointing a special envoy to the region who has toured refugee camps and pressed the Sudanese government to change its policies.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/23/world/africa/23darfur.html?pagewanted=1&sq=olympics%20china&st=nyt&scp=46
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  14. China cannot do alone what the United States and Europe have not been willing to do for five years. By pointing the finger mainly at China, those who passionately want peace in Darfur wind up helping Western governments evade responsibility on a humanitarian crisis they could do far more to stop. A great state seizes the opening to be a peacemaker as China did in the difficult Six-Party Talks, which lessened the tension between the United States and North Korea... and moved things in a more positive direction.
    http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/04-19-2008/0004796031&EDATE=
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  15. Political views on Tibet tend to be as unambiguous as the hard blue dome of sky that stretches above its mountains. In Western opinion, the "Tibet question" is settled: Tibet should not be part of China; before being forcibly annexed, in 1951, it was an independent country. The Chinese are cruel occupiers who are seeking to destroy the traditional culture of Tibet. The Dalai Lama, the traditional spiritual leader of Tibet, who fled to India in 1959, should be allowed to return and resume his rule over either an independent or at least a culturally autonomous Tibet. In short, in Western eyes there is only one answer to the Tibet question: Free Tibet.
    http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/199902/tibet-china
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  16. I did, however, point out that life for the majority of Tibetans has been improving under Chinese governance since the 1980s, and I did so because the weight of empirically verifiable evidence shows this to be the case.

    http://discussions.pbs.org/viewtopic.pbs?t=68073&postdays=0&postorder=asc&topic_view=&start=0
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  17. Earlier visitors to Tibet commented on the theocratic despotism. In 1895, an Englishman, Dr. A. L. Waddell, wrote that the populace was under the “intolerable tyranny of monks” and the devil superstitions they had fashioned to terrorize the people. In 1904 Perceval Landon described the Dalai Lama’s rule as “an engine of oppression.” At about that time, another English traveler, Captain W.F.T. O’Connor, observed that “the great landowners and the priests… exercise each in their own dominion a despotic power from which there is no appeal,” while the people are “oppressed by the most monstrous growth of monasticism and priest-craft.” Tibetan rulers “invented degrading legends and stimulated a spirit of superstition” among the common people. In 1937, another visitor, Spencer Chapman, wrote, “The Lamaist monk does not spend his time in ministering to the people or educating them. . . . The beggar beside the road is nothing to the monk. Knowledge is the jealously guarded prerogative of the monasteries and is used to increase their influence and wealth.”24 As much as we might wish otherwise, feudal theocratic Tibet was a far cry from the romanticized Shangri La so enthusiastically nurtured by Buddhism’s western proselytes.

    http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html
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  18. The "Tibetan Question," the nature of Tibet's political status vis-Ã -vis China, has been the subject of often bitterly competing views while the facts of the issue have not been fully accessible to interested observers. While one faction has argued that Tibet was, in the main, historically independent until it was conquered by the Chinese Communists in 1951 and incorporated into the new Chinese state, the other faction views Tibet as a traditional part ofChina that split away at the instigation of the British after the fall of the Manchu Dynasty and was later dutifully reunited with "New China" in 1951. In contrast, this comprehensive study of modern Tibetan history presents a detailed, non-partisan account of the demise of the Lamaist state.

    http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/2403.php
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  19. The numerous speeches of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, his interviews, statements, writings, biographies, books, and his countless introductions and forewords to the texts of others deal almost exclusively with topics like compassion, kindness, sincerity, love, nonviolence, human rights, ecological visions, professions of democracy, religious tolerance, inner and outer spirituality, the blessings of science, world peace, and so on. It would take a true villain to not agree totally with what he has said and written. Training consciousness, achieving spiritual peace, cultivating inner contentment, fostering satisfaction, practicing awareness, eliminating egoism, helping others — what responsible person could fail to identify with this? Who doesn’t long for flawless love, clear intellect, generosity, and enlightenment?

    Within Western civilization, the Dalai Lama appears as the purest light. He represents — according to former President Jimmy Carter — a new type of world leader, who has placed the principles of peace and compassion at the center of his politics, and who, with his kind and winning nature, has shown us all how the hardest blows of fate can be borne with perseverance and patience. By now he symbolizes human dignity and global responsibility for millions. Up until very recently hardly anyone, with the exception of his archenemies, the Chinese communists, has dared to criticize this impotent/omnipotent luminary. But then, out of the blue in 1996, dark clouds began to gather over the bright aura of the “living Buddha”.
    http://www.iivs.de/~iivs01311/SDLE/
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  20. Not unlike other religions Buddhism also has “skeletons in its’ closet” which it carefully conceals in the Western world. There are dark aspects in this “philosophy of compassion, non-violence and tolerance”. Zen-Buddhism for example influenced the most sophisticated warrior philosophy of the East: the extremely brutal and suicidal Samurai Ethics. In Tibetan Buddhism one can find believes in spirits and demons, in secret sexual practices, in war gods, in occultism. Lamas search to influence their retinue and the world with all sorts of magical rituals. In Sri Lanka Buddhist violence and Buddhist racism are the order of the day. In Burma and in Kashmir Buddhist armies are fighting. And yet the Dalai Lama has another face that peeks out from behind the mask of goodness, charity and kindness, which gives one pause to think more deeply about the shadow sides of this “man of peace.” Why is Buddhist fundamentalism so dangerous - because it shows a tendency to religious Fascism! It’s not well known that the brain trust of the SS in Nazi Germany was extremely interested in Vedic- and Buddhist- teachings, in the Lamaist culture, and in Zen-Meditation with the goal to construct with elements of these eastern believes its own Nazi-Religion. (See: www.trimondi.de/H-B-K/inhalt.hi.en.htm ) Buddhism - if it will become congruent with western values like democracy, human rights, equality of gender etc. must be “reinvented”. The condition therefore is an open, critical and honest debate.
    http://www.iivs.de/~iivs01311/EN/links.htm
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  21. My story... certainly not b'washed

    carlfcao 16 Apr 2008 03:01

    Well, I am tired after nearly 11 hours of work that does create some value (I am sure everybody on this forum is currently using), but still, I cannot refrain from responding to this post from Richard.

    This rebuttal will be my last posting and I have gotten better things to do. I hope Richard is not implying that I am brainwashed or pre-disposed to propagandize on behalf of the Chinese government. If that is the case, it will be very offensive indeed.

    I believe I made my views of human rights abuses in China clear. Where I am supporting them, it is not because that they are perfect human rights defenders, or saints, gosh, where would find them on this planet? Not even in the Vatican.

    No, not at all. The reason I am supporting them where appropriate is because they have, have come and come a long, long way. And that, in 30 years. My family had death, cripples, and banishment during the culture revolution. My old man was "adopted" by a Poor Peasant (what is that in chinese) Class family, actually his nanny, because it was hoped that he would have a better life compared to the rest of his clan. He did.

    While I still see millions of abuses in that country, I also see billions of progress (well, that is actually not countable). By stepping back onto my intellectual strength, and as a student of history, I also see the big picture. What I find has my immense liking. In other words, they are on the right track, heading in the right direction. That is something we cannot say here in the land of the free, my adopted country, the big grand U.S.A.

    How do I prove that my vision is not biased? Well... I landed in Scotland at the most prestigious school in Artificial Intelligence when I was 19. With every intention of turning my backs on my native country, which I did, and hated anything chinese (including the language - which I can no longer write). My little girl was spoken not a single sentence in chinese, and now she is pressured to learn (what regret).

    I was influenced by the best under her majesty's eyes... that is when she made the yearly track to the Belmoral. My role models included that Amsterdam hopping (for the fun), eccentric, and paper computer inventing A.M. Turing. My boss and I published some of the best papers on the subject of Machine Learning in the late 80's. Big inventors of high intellect indeed. The end result was impressive even to me; a few years back before my American influences set in, I still sported quite a few plums in my mouth. So, childishly sympathetic to any cause I am not.

    While human rights abuses are still great, I also know enough that there had also been huge improvements. Would it ever be the envy of the Britons? I doubt it; the land of Wendi, Wudi (Han dynasty), and Tachong (Tang), were not known as the human rights shagri-la either. I had made enough trips to china and other Asian countries in the past decade to know how rapidly china had caught up, and suppressed many a tiger in the region. A china that is prosperous, strong, decent, and worthy of my trips is within grasp.

    It's a secret, because I am telling everyone, not event the closest. Oh, boy I am proud! (Ethnic chinese.)

    It may never be the beacon of freedom as America is, but it will be a model of development to all. You know what, that is also a good thing. A beacon attracts some within to harbour apparently benign, but demonic in reality, thoughts. Exporting your experience on the unprepared can be enormously destructive. A modest model can help; it encourages other to try your experience, but certainly not forced upon you. Even in Darfor, do you think that completely shutting off that country will solve all your pet problems? Is there another way? Well, go read Tom Barnett.

    I see my relatives who are still in china progress to PhD, MScs, and positions of big responsibilities. All made possible by that little Bismark of Asia. Oh no, wrong analogy. He is the Wendi after the monstrosity of Mao. I see them making good and creating value comparable to mine. I see giant companies beating my employer with a game better than ours. I see mud house dwellers graduating into shining, at least reasonable, apartments (actually large than mine this year as we sold our house before the bubble burst). I conclude that they must be doing something right!

    Of course it cannot be ALL right. I know that there are 100+ million poor people. On the streets of Hangzhou, a relatively prosperous provincial capital, I gave out 10 yuan and immediately attracting 5 poor mothers with dirty babies in hands. But, but, all that is light years ahead compared to when I left. And by the way, sound-speed years ahead of the other beacon for the poor countries, that is the largest democracy, India. And I also know, there are similar problems in India; there are no abuses in India? Well, it is hard to kid the ones who know. There are riots, conflicts, killings, and all forms of abuses. They are just not attracting as much attention.

    On tibet, I was initially shocked to read about the continued repression after apparently the riots had been suppressed. Why, and why? This does not fit a urbane, Confucian, and intellectual image of many a "Still Communist" ministers (by the way, better than our own Greenspan - who fed the most gigantic bubble serially - and still monkeying around in speeches in denial). So research I did. Trust me, the quality of that is second to Sir Issac himself only. Piecing together the big picture, so I think I know. This is in fact an intractable problem from time immortal.

    Why do I know? Because I also have the childhood experience. I was born in Gansu province where my parents were banished. On every trip I make to the region I try to fly in (it is still vastly backward compared to the eastern sea board). I lived with Hui muslim, Tibetan, and Han children until I was team. Popular I was not (read nerdy in American english), but well enough to make some friends in each ethnicity. I recall disturbances of a Hui being mistakenly sold pork by this-and-that shopkeeper and the noises the mosque made mid-day (it is now quiet by agreement). My father as a snr pediatrician cured many a babies and youngster in his teaching hospital (still going even after long-time retirement). I was comfortable with the Mando pieces fried with tibetan yak butter (unknown to most chinese) - a constant supply from parents of cured children. I have taken the moon shaped sharp knifes (tibetan knife) from many a grateful tibetan uncle. Each new year, we had a heap of supply of fried dough crackers (a Hui delicacy). Conflicts were many, despite it all we lived reasonably well enough under much hasher conditions.

    So I know at least superficially that it is not easy. I had argued with many of my Jewish friends, well not so direct but in a devious way, that they are barbarians because of their treatment of the arabs. And puzzled by the apparent freedom loving people's (from America) support of such an repressive regime (Israel) no matter what; it does not even have anything to do with oil as there is none in that little piece of desert. Oh that must hurt (in hindsight). I now know that it is a tactical convenience to pacify their little corner. Like in tibet (where there is much stronger historical claim), until a grand settlement is reached, there is no other solution.

    So why can they not improve overnight? That will be great. Well, perhaps it is because of the people they are just not mature enough to accept my view on human rights and freedoms. Then we must get rid of them, en, that must be great. But still, even on that there is so much improvement I would not recognize it. Just talk to the youngsters of my age when I left the country. The comment that you have improved every other freedoms but not the political one is just ignorant, for every ting is political eventually.

    Oh, no. The change in the country is so vast and improvement so rapid, they must have their hands full. To go any faster probably would be burning the wheel. Like here I am, we had too accustomed to bubbles. First there was the internet/telecom/tech bubble. Painful for me. Then we have the housing & credit bubble. If I was smart enough to recognize that one, I should be smart enough to recommend to the chinese: go slow, steady, don't overreach. Otherwise, you will be very regretful as I was for the first bubble.

    Yours sincerely,
    Hope it is useful
    Singed never to post again.
    http://my.telegraph.co.uk/__users/19082/
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  22. My final one for a while

    Mark A 16 Apr 2008 16:05


    Pondy,

    I am sorry to say I find your comments quite often too simplistic.
    Of course it is not up to me to say China is not ready for democracy, nor is it up to you to say China is ready. There have been quite a few successful democracies today, but most of them in developed West. There are also quite a few failed ones from Africa to central Asia. You can blame violence in Zimbabwe to Mugabe in person or violence in Kenya to another guy, but the real question is why Mugabe exists in Zimbabwe. How to prevent such a person coming out? How to prevent Chinese equivalent of Mugabe? I am afraid China can easily degenerate into a military dictatorship from a communist one at moment when chaos appear. Pakistan has been experimenting with democracy for decades and still periodically replaced with a military one.

    China has started a grassroot election progress at village level since several years ago. I have visited a few of them. They are not pretty I am afraid. It is not helped by the fact that most young villagers have moved to cities to seek a better life and they don’t care about who will be their village head. Their voting papers are quite often been filled by someone else without their consent. Even those left behind, mostly elderly, they aren’t bothered either and their paper can easily be filled by others as well. In some places where there are resources available in the village, the election quickly became an auction where anyone who promise bigger payout get the job despite it may be disastrous for environment or long term interest.

    In terms of press freedom, you are absolutely right there should be one. But “truth” do not necessarily coming out automatically in a free society like UK. I had to spend a lot of time and efforts recently to find out a fuller picture about Dalai and his followers as well as Tibetan people inside China. I discovered a lot you could not find in British newspapers. I don’t want to upset your sensitive feelings about Dalai Lama and I have nothing against the guy myself. Perhaps you would be shocked to hear there is currently a court action allowed in India against Dalai for his religious oppression by his fellow Tibetans exiles.

    Sorry, that was a deviation. I support a dialogue between Beijing and DL, but knowing what I know now, knowing the "unbreakable" gap between the two, I won’t be able to solve it even if I were a Chinese president. Both sides have to comprimise, but can DL afford to, knowing his precarious position among his very diversified followers at moment.

    There is nothing more offensive to say we are just brainwashed. By who? I wonder. How do your guys feel if I say you are just CIA paid agents? Or neo-Con?
    http://my.telegraph.co.uk/__users/7315/
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  23. Story Highlights:
    (1) James Miles, journalist with The Economist, was in Lhasa during violent protests
    (2) Says he witnessed violence against ethnic Han Chinese and Muslim Hui minority
    (3) Ethnic Tibetans involved in protests were "armed and very intimidating," he says
    (4) He says he did not see any evidence of any organized anti-Chinese activity

    http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/03/20/tibet.miles.interview/index.html?
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  24. The founders of our modern Olympic movement in 1894 believed that bringing together the youth of the world for two weeks of peaceful competition could lead to respect for fair play and open roads to peaceful discourse and understanding.

    Indeed, the Games changed my life. I lived in the Olympic Village with people of every size, shape and nationality. The experience made me believe that world peace was possible. Everyone there was successful, as we had all been selected to represent our countries. And though we knew there were not enough medals for all of us, we lived in mutual respect.

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20080516/cm_usatoday/athletesnotpoliticsdefineolympics;_ylt=AuTeJOox3xgvzxOnRve9Leis0NUE
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  25. “This is a small victory for my people,” Salukvadze, 39, told Agence France Presse. Of Paderina, she added, “When it comes to sport, we will always remain friends. If the world were to draw any lessons from what we do, there wouldn’t be any wars. There should be no hatred between athletes and people in general. We’ll leave it to the politicians to figure it out.”

    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/11/sports/olympics/11longman.html?hp
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