Tibet Unrest, China Wins
The recent Tibet unrest has been huge in Western media as of late. Western coverage (CNN, Fox, BBC, …) hasn’t merely been biased against China, but downright against China. A lot of lies and misinformation was spread. For instance, the protests were labeled as “peaceful”, when many Tibetans, even monks, were caught on tape with weapons destroying property or beating Police.
When they found this wasn’t working well for them, they then spread the false news that the Chinese Army (PLA) had set the riots up, dressing as monks. A picture was even provided as evidence, but only hours after the report that picture was also found to be fake. The photo was taken during a 1994 movie shooting. Chinese movie companies often use students or the military for low skilled acting as they are much cheaper than professional actors. Also, the PLA uniform was changed long ago, the picture showed them with the old version.
I find it funny that Western media outlets, that often speak poorly of China’s state controlled media are responsible for such a catastrophic level of journalism. Clearly, they are at least as bad as their Chinese “propaganda-spreading” counterparts.
The central government also acted with extreme caution this time, as they knew that separatist camps as well as the Western media was watching closely for any form of aggression. Despite of this, several journalists have stilled called for a 2008 Olympics Boycott, one prominent journalist even compared the 2008 Olympics to the 1936 Nazi Olympics.
On German TV, people saw videos of how Nepalese Police beat monks at the same time as reporting as reporting the Tibet unrest in China. If I was an average German citizen, I sure as hell would hate China after watching the news too. All the false, bad press about China has caused major demonstrations outside the Chinese embassies throughout the entire Western world.
After all this media hype, I decided to do some digging on my own, on the root of the problem; the Dälai Läma. My own research shows that he is a hypocrite, and has no right to (and doesn’t) advocate peace. He is sponsored by CIA. I won’t go into details as it will take up too much space. If you are interested, you can dig it up yourself. Information against him can even be collected from commercial Western media, such as the New York Times.
Despite all this, China won.
This is the information age, and as Chinese citizens now are better educated and use English more proficiently, they also learn ways to bait the media. First, a Chinese student collected photos of how Western news reports wrongly told this story. Chinese news websites quickly picked the photos up, and not long after, even Chinese old media started reporting on this. When the Chinese mainstream got to know about this, they were furious at all the lies. Even students, who often disagreed with the actions of the central government embracing Western thinking, were now fully supportive of how the government handled the situation.
China unites, and fights back. All over the internet, one could see Chinese citizens posting on English message boards in their best English trying to explain their truth. Not long after, students set up a website, Anti CNN, to show the various “lies” that the Western media used to turn the story against China. If you are interested in learning more about Tibet, or how Chinese people feel about the situation, I strongly urge you to check the website.
Also, it’s funny to note that the Chinese government has noticed that the internet can not only work against them, but in favor of them too. After years of inaccessibility from the Middle Kingdom, the BBC, which was responsible for many of the so called lies, was suddenly unblocked in the midst of chaos so that everyone in China could see how they reported. I was shocked at fist, but now believe it was a very smart move.
Maybe it’s because the Chinese people are starting to tell their versions of what’s happened, that the overall tone online has changed. Ten, or even five years ago, if something like this happened, people all over the world would agree in unison that China was evil. Now, it’s different. More and more Westerners, especially those with higher education, are not so sure about their position anymore. Some have even started to support China and condemn their own media on this matter.
The times have changed indeed.
April 3rd, 2008 at 10:53 pm
I always thought china was evil
. But jokes apart, Dalai Lama and CIA? 
WTF is that connection? Taking too much space is another matter, but I would have appreciated your guts if you had linked to the exact evidence on the same matter.
April 4th, 2008 at 1:01 am
@Carl: Good post. I agree completely that the best thing the Chinese government can do is allow open and free access to all media. By shutting it down it just makes them look like they’ve something to hide. All mainstream media has an agenda (Chinese/Western, there’s no difference) and I think it’s a tragedy that we live in an age where we can’t trust our reporters for an unbiased story.
@TheAnand: The Dalai Lama is no longer supported by the CIA. He was in the 60s and early 70s when anti-communism was at its hight in the US. The US was looking for a way they could drive a wedge into communist China. As the “red threat” has since died, so has any support he may at one time have received. Regardless, he shouldn’t be judged to harshly, as they would technically have been taken by his ‘government in exile’ and distributed to train insurgency forces – it was, after all, the position of the Tibetan leadership (then, as now) that they were invaded by the PLA and that they needed to fight back.
April 4th, 2008 at 8:23 am
Have a look here:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CEFD61538F931A35753C1A96E958260
More specifically, this:
The decade-long covert program to support the Tibetan independence movement was part of the C.I.A.’s worldwide effort to undermine Communist governments, particularly in the Soviet Union and China.
April 9th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
[...] lets look at a Chinese perspective, Carl Pei gives some good insight (h/t to HHR) as to why many in China feel the way they do: Western coverage (CNN, Fox, BBC, …) [...]
August 12th, 2008 at 4:10 am
Yes China wins because the world allowed China to invade Tibet, a sovereign nation. The governments of the world are so dependent on cheap products from China that they do nothing when China attacks neighboring countries.
It is sad that Chinese people consider this a “win”.
Losing Tibet to China is a great loss for the world even if it is a “win” for China.
Also it is the Chinese controlling the press releases to the world and not the Tibetans.
March 31st, 2009 at 4:02 am
Laurel is correct. Why do we have to ‘lose’ Tibet and it’s culture to become part of China? I can’t understand why the media, as biased or unbiased as it is, isn’t allowed to report on what is actually going on! Human Rights have suffered greatly.
November 11th, 2009 at 10:24 am
All China can do, is enter into an open debate, through press and through open internet. Blocking websites, not allowing press or people to talk to outside world, does not look fishy but dangerous too.
Let the people of China shout and say, that whatever is said by Western world is false. Similarly let them (Chinese) know, what stand , the people outside have. What do they think, and why they think so, and thus let them decide on there own.
A representative ( Chinese authority) in between are always dangerous, as this always leads to corruption. Authority must be in the hands of people, at least in the matters of free speech.
I never see, the conflicts are at all among the people of the world. But the conflicts exist between the dominants that take over the nations. In case of China it seems the dominants never want the outsiders to talk to their slaves. As this would open there secret, on how they make people to live under there rule.
Thanks.