Why do they do it?
Every few months the Chinese authorities rustle up a dozen or more foreign journalists based in Beijing to take on rigid tours of parts of Tibet. But in all the years the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) has been doing this, the journalists have hardly ever—and possibly never—painted their trips or their MFA minders in a good light. Quite the opposite: the story that inevitably comes out is of the palpable fear and anger among Tibetans they meet, the frustrations with their MFA minders’ scripted evasions, and the reports end up vividly conveying the exact opposite impression that the journalists’ MFA minders would supposedly want them to—that the Chinese authorities in Tibet are at best blind and ill-informed, at worst stupid and brutal, and that the Tibetan people are understandably restless because of it.
It could be that these foreign trips are more for the benefit of China’s domestic propaganda machine. On the back of this latest trip there were reports in the TAR’s regional and the national press depicting fawning foreign journalists slightly bowed before proudly erect officials reeling off impressive economic stats; previous reports about these press trips have quoted foreign journalists delivering improbably naïve statements such as “My! Tibetan medicine surely is a treasure of Chinese culture!” or some such gem, supposedly from a Turkish journalist in a delegation last year.
Whatever the MFA’s motivation is for dragging foreign journalists around Tibet and force-feeding them an indigestible diet of propaganda, the tours at least add to the broader awareness that all is far from well in Tibet. The visits are a distant cry from the free and unfettered access to Tibet that the Dalai Lama, foreign governments and others were calling for at the height of the protests in March 2008 and since, and they should in no way be seen as evidence of a greater degree of access or progress on the free flows of information in Tibet. So long as the journalists keep reporting what they see and not what they are told to see, long may these trips continue.
(Photo Caption: Foreign journalists during this latest press trip to Tibet, interviewing a local official. Xinhua)
4 Responses to “Why do they do it?”
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Same story, different location (East Turkestan):
Another Media Tour Goes Very, Very Badly for Chinese Authorities
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/07/media-tour-goes-very-very-badly-for-chinese-authorities/
In order to change Chinese, we have to change ourselves.
1. How can we improve ourselves in terms of economic development?
2. Why the government outside have no educated young people to work on improving our economic situation? No matter where Tibetans are, they are poor.
Tibetan inside have different opinion about free Tibet with Tibetan outside? As we all know Only HH can unite us together if we do not strive toward it.
Since we are all human being? Seeking a happy life is the ultimate and common goal of human being? Why there is no educated Tibetans come to Tibet to help Tibetan to improve their economic situation rather than just shutting Free Tibet?
Dear ICT
I have a suggestion for you. When I listen to the program of SFT and reports on Phayul and I think that most of people outside don’t understand the real situation in Tibet. As a ICT is a big and leading org for Tibetan cause, how can you build bridge for outside to understand Tibet and give really in-depth thoughts about Tibet? My personal opinion is that the information of Woeser la’s blog is better than Phayul website. Do you have some priorities every year and make some concrete goal for it?
1. Do you have any support or recognition of people like acha Woeser? How to support them?
2. Do you know any kind of program to help chinese understand TIbet, not only westerners?
3. We need more actions then words. Do you have any projects to help the prisoner in Tibet about their life after get out of jail? Nobody take care of them. How to help the prisoners all over Tibet?
4. What is the pressure for destroying the natural resource of Tibet, holy mountain which have value of more than billions for chinese companies? How we can give pressure on them? Why only one township or several villages struggling for protecting these nature resource which will benefit not only Tibetan but also all over world?