China

Changing the public discourse on Tibet

A US-based public relations firm’s decade-old disclosure document reflects Beijing’s strategy to control and shape American public opinion on Tibet. The document unearthed by the US media group Axios last year carried critical information previously unseen by observers, although Beijing’s foreign policy to condition foreign countries to its politically constructed narrative on Tibet is clear throughout the last decade.

Beijing stepped up global influence operations to neutralize the Tibet issue in the quest to whitewash China’s image in the post-2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. A popular uprising in Tibet preceded the Summer Olympics, China’s coming-out party on the global stage.

Neutralizing Tibet

Beijing’s strategy to neutralize the Tibet issue includes both internal and external dimensions to not only hide the reality in Tibet but to control the discourse internationally. Internally repression was not only heightened in Tibet, but Beijing also constructed “copper ramparts, iron wall” and “nets in the sky, traps on the ground” to shut down the borders and communication channels to convert Tibet into a securitized black box hyper-managed by the state. Internationally, Beijing stepped up its influence operations mainly in the West to dominate and shape public opinion toward its politically constructed narrative. The method to achieving the set goal included setting up front organizations, sending government delegations, reinforcing government NGOs, financing and flexing its market power to proactively influence foreign countries and their citizens toward Beijing’s official master narrative. The International Campaign for Tibet observed 55 Chinese delegations, comprising government officials, academics and religious figures, to spread Beijing’s official narrative on Tibet internationally between 2009 to early 2018. The United States was the top destination during the period to alter the public discourse on Tibet through non-public meetings.

The principal front organization

Concurrent to controlling the stories of Tibetans from Tibet, Beijing stepped up its influence operations overseas to drive international public opinion toward its official narrative on Tibet. The establishment of the China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF) unmistakably coincides with the year Beijing set out to boost its influence operations worldwide. Established in 2008, CUSEF functions as a front organization in Beijing’s United Front systemic approach for influence mission. Claiming to be an independent organization, the founder and current chairman of the CUSEF, Tung Chee-hua, is also a vice chairperson of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, one of China’s two legislative bodies with the mandate of shepherding everyone in the arms of the Communist Party of China.

The agent

CUSEF’s public relations firm Brown Lloyd James, now rebranded as BLJ worldwide, in its 2011 disclosure revealed its activities as an agent of its foreign principal CUSEF. Mitigating the Tibet issue in the United States is a key component of services for CUSEF.

Brown Lloyd James’ disclosure, as required under the US Foreign Agents Registration Act, carries a comprehensive plan to shape American public opinion. While some of the program activities impact the Tibet issue in the US indirectly, changing American public opinion on Tibet toward Beijing’s narrative is undoubtedly a vital component of the plan.

Acknowledging that Beijing’s rule and injustices in Tibet are unpopular in American public opinion, BLJ Worldwide then claimed that Americans’ opinion of Beijing could be “improved and event[sic] reversed in the public perception, but not overnight.”

Emphasis on American youth

For goal execution, BLJ’s plan targeted high school students, journalists, politicians and academics as the primary target groups, as well the general American public. The American youth demographic receives particular emphasis in BLJ’s strategy to reverse the American public opinion on Tibet. This includes a long-term plan for influencing the next generation of US thought leaders toward Beijing’s narrative on Tibet. One of the methods for shifting the public discourse specified conducting a “long-term educational campaign to inform a younger generation of learners” toward Beijing’s historical narrative on Tibet.

Conducting a CUSEF-sponsored “thorough analysis” of four leading United States high-school textbooks’ coverage and portrayal of issues relating to Tibet and China, BLJ planned to influence editors and publishers of the textbooks for “countering the tide of public discourse” on Tibet.

The emphasis on youth in effect means that BLJ’s foreign principal CUSEF’s American engagement is long term, which may span decades as Chinese stratagems are always known to be.

Journalists to Tibet

For its role in informing the American public, journalists form a key target group to be influenced to steer American public opinion on Tibet toward Beijing’s narrative. In strategic planning for organizing media trips to China, BLJ cites as an example to cherry pick journalists for media trips to Tibet for favorable coverage as a follow-up to a “familiarized” ethnic minorities and “religious diversity” media trip to China. Attaching significance to the next generation of US journalists, partnerships between CUSEF and graduate journalism programs were proposed to arrange “familiarization trips” to China for the US journalism students during their winter and spring breaks.

Despite the long-term nature of the strategic plans, influencing U.S. journalists on Tibet has had little to no success thus far. As the fourth pillar of a vibrant and robust democracy, American journalists have seen through Beijing’s ruse of access through stage-managed media trips to Tibet to influence the journalists. Beijing’s tactic has had some success in influencing journalists from like-minded authoritarian states or the states in Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, but those from Western liberal democracies in general have remained elusive to Beijing to date.

Goal of Chinese influence operations

The goal of the Chinese global influence operations is to dominate and bury the story of Tibet. Tibet’s story is one of Chinese military occupation and an ever-escalating repression and securitization in the past seven decades which are glossed over by Beijing as “70 years of peaceful liberation.” The story of Tibet touches humanity that has seen far too many wars, genocides, colonialism, oppression, and mass atrocities in history and continues to see them in the contemporary world. Beijing’s goal is to demolish the human story of Tibet and impose a Chinese state-centric narrative instead. It is a project in progress.

As the British newspaper The Guardian reported, the Telegraph had maintained the lucrative connection with the Chinese propaganda sheet China Daily for more than 10 years and, together with its print edition, had delivered its supplement China Watch. In addition, the newspaper maintained a subsection on its website that originated from People’s Daily Online and naturally also ran unrestrained Beijing PR. No wonder, since this is the English version of the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee. The Guardian quotes some typical headlines from articles that have since been deleted. The headlines read, for example, “Why are some framing China’s heroic efforts to stop coronavirus as inhumane?”; “Traditional Chinese medicine ‘helps fight coronavirus’”; and “Coronavirus outbreak is not an opportunity to score points against China.” The Telegraph is reported to have received about £750,000 a year for supporting Chinese state propaganda.

The step by the Telegraph comes late, and the motives for it remain hidden. The paper follows newspapers such as the Süddeutsche Zeitung and The New York Times, which have also withdrawn from such cooperation. Until the end of 2019, the Handelsblatt was the only German newspaper to carry China Watch. Despite several inquiries, its management does not want to comment on the conditions of cooperation with the Communist Party. And also Le Figaro in France or Le Soir of Belgium refuse to respond to appeals from civil society, including the International Campaign for Tibet. Transparency and openness would be essential, especially for newspapers that are important watchdogs in a democratic society. This lack of transparency does not match the image of independent media and damages their credibility.

The termination of China Watch by the Telegraph is a long overdue step. It was and is a shame for free Western media to disseminate propaganda of a regime that uses violence to attack freedom of expression and mercilessly censors the media. It is incomprehensible why free Western media can be bought by a system that harasses, persecutes and imprisons countless people who dare to insist on their human right to freedom of expression. It is high time that the remaining China Watch inserts in Western newspapers are now discontinued.

A screen shot of Google’s website. ICT has signed a letter insisting that Google abandon its plans for a censored search app in China.

That’s a question the world’s most popular search engine might need to ask itself.

As Google reportedly develops plans for a censored search app in China, the International Campaign for Tibet has signed a letter insisting that the tech behemoth scrap the project immediately.

The letter, written by the International Tibet Network and signed by 170 groups worldwide that are working on Tibet, says “There is little doubt that ‘Dragonfly,’” the proposed app, “would have an immense negative impact on the human rights of Chinese citizens, Tibetans, Uyghurs and other nationalities who, like all global citizens, deserve an undivided internet and free access to information.”

According to news reports, Dragonfly would fully adhere to China’s extreme censorship laws, which block access to content disfavored by the country’s authoritarian regime. The app would allegedly remove search results for blacklisted websites and search terms banned by the government, including “Tibet,” “democracy” and the “Dalai Lama.”

The development of the app comes as China ramps up its oppression of ethnic minorities. In Tibet, a historically independent nation that China has occupied for nearly 70 years, severe restrictions have been placed on religious freedom, freedom of speech and freedom to travel. Tibet has been cut off from the outside world, with foreign observers largely denied access to the region while China carries out its human rights abuses. The people of Tibet can be jailed and tortured for flying the Tibetan flag or promoting the Tibetan language. Trapped in this repressive environment, more than 150 Tibetans have self-immolated since 2009.

Meanwhile, China’s brutalization of Uyghur Muslims has reached a level that the Washington Post describes as ethnic cleansing. Echoing some of the worst crimes against humanity of the past century, China’s government has forced as many as 1 million Muslims into modern-day concentration camps, where they are forced to recite pro-government propaganda and renounce their Islamic beliefs.

Yet this is the moment Google has chosen to try to reenter the Chinese market. That fact is even more astonishing when you consider the company’s history. Google previously left China in 2010, saying “we don’t want to engage in political censorship.” In the eight years since, censorship in China has grown far worse.

Google is famous for its motto, “don’t be evil.” Tellingly, the company removed “don’t be evil” from its code of conduct earlier this year.

Google was founded 20 years ago by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the latter of whose family fled the Soviet Union to escape state-sponsored discrimination. Now these two men are part of a project that would help China discriminate against Tibetans and Uyghurs.

Sadly, Google’s development of Dragonfly is part of a trend of Western corporations appeasing the Chinese government over its policies in Tibet. In just the past few months, Mercedes Benz apologized to China for quoting the Dalai Lama in an Instagram post, while Marriott fired an American employee who used a company account to like a pro-Tibet tweet.

These examples show how China uses its economic clout to export its brand of censorship around the globe. Now, Google wants to help China’s leaders impose censorship at home.

The letter from the International Tibet Network—which is addressed to Google CEO Sundar Pichai and copies Page and Brin—says that “Google would not purely be ‘respecting’ national laws if ‘Dragonfly’ launched in China; it would be actively implementing them.”

The dire situation facing Tibetans and Uyghurs should be a cause of urgent concern for the global community. Unfortunately, for greedy businesses like Google, it is just another chance to make money. All of us must continue to speak out against the Chinese government, but we should also direct outrage at any corporation that would enable its censorship, torture and ethnic cleansing.

Ok, Google? Don’t be evil.

Read the letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai.

A Phoenix TV correspondent had asked a two-part question: “Despite China’s firm opposition, some countries have been inviting him [the Dalai Lama] for a visit, and he has just concluded a visit to Europe. Will China take more steps to express such opposition? On the religious freedom in Tibet, in your opening remarks you said that we must ensure the Chinese orientation of religions. Will that be more work done in this regard?”

In his response, Zhang repeated the Party line about the Dalai Lama being “a leader of a separatist group that is engaging in separatist activities”, and therefore the Chinese Government oppose any meetings by governments and others with him.

However, it is a fact known not only to the international community, but even to the Chinese themselves that the Dalai Lama has since the mid-1970s been seeking a solution for a future Tibet that is within the framework of the People’s Republic of China. It is precisely for this reason that he could respond immediately and positively to the overture of then Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in 1979 who said other than the independence of Tibet anything else can be discussed and resolved. United Front leader Ding Guangen repeated, in 1992, this assurance by Deng Xiaoping and by a Chinese official spokesperson in 1993. On August 25, 1993, Xinhua quoted a spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry as saying, “The affairs of Tibet are an internal business of China’s and the door of negotiations between the central government and the Dalai Lama remains widely open. Except independence of Tibet, all other questions can be negotiated.”

The Dalai Lama had subsequently concretized his initiatives on the future of Tibet through his Middle Way Approach that called for genuine autonomy for the Tibetan people, something actually guaranteed (but not implemented) in the Chinese Constitution and Law on Regional Ethnic Autonomy. The Chinese authorities know that the Dalai Lama was not calling for “separatism”, but not having the political courage to acknowledge this, they sought recourse to semantics by saying they are against “semi-independence or disguised independence”.

Following the devolution of political power by the Dalai Lama to the elected Tibetan leadership in 2011, the Central Tibetan Administration has continued to be committed to the Middle Way Approach. Governments, even those close to China, are aware of this Tibetan position, as are people who know about the Dalai Lama, including the thousands of Chinese who are able to know the truth.

Since the Dalai Lama continues to garner unimaginable (for Chinese leaders) international public support, and since he has begun to focus on the younger generation (who are in schools) that can contribute positively to humanity, Zhang makes it seem as if the universities are the only space that is available now to the Dalai Lama.

During his visit to Latvia in September this year, when asked about some government leaders hesitating to receive him, the Dalai Lama said: “That’s ok,” my visit is entirely non-political. I’m not disappointed. The world belongs to its 7 billion people and each country belongs to its population, so I consider the general public to be more important.”

Which Chinese leader can hope to fill a stadium or an auditorium (often for several days at a stretch and with people willing to buy tickets)? The Dalai Lama does this all the time (most recently during his talks in Pisa and Florence in Italy in September).

While talking about money, unless the interpreter was wrong, Zhang says “Usually a university paid the Dalai to give a speech” making it seem as if His Holiness is making money out of them. Those who organize talks by the Dalai Lama, including universities, and those who attend such talks clearly know that he does not charge money for such events. In fact, the Dalai Lama’s website clearly says, “For your information, as a long-standing policy His Holiness the Dalai Lama does not accept any fees for his talks. Where tickets need to be purchased, organizers are requested by our office to charge the minimum entrance fee in order to cover their costs only.” Since I have had the privilege of being part of his entourage during several visits to North America, I know that at all such public talks by the Dalai Lama where tickets have to be purchased a public accounting of the finances is done at the conclusion. Where there is surplus money they are allocated to local and other charity work. None of the money goes to him.

On the matter of protection of Tibetan Buddhism, Zhang has the audacity to claim that “Tibetan Buddhism originated in ancient China; it is a special form of religion that originated within China.” He goes on to add that although it is true that it has been “influenced by other religions and other cultures” (read India), “but it is not acquired religion. It is originated [sic] within China; it has its roots in China. So it is an example of being Chinese. It has Chinese orientation.”

Zhang might be saying this to lay the ground for legitimizing the Chinese Government’s interference in Tibetan Buddhism; but anyone having only a cursory knowledge of Tibetan Buddhism would know that the spiritual knowledge came from India and had nothing to with China. For God sake, there is a reason why the term “Buddhism” is included in Tibetan Buddhism, because it is the religion founded by Lord Buddha.

Zhang’s utterance that Tibetan Buddhism “has Chinese orientation”, lays bare China’s political agenda of wanting to Sinicize Tibetan Buddhism and make it Chinese.

Thus, Zhang Yijiong’s statements might serve the narrow interest of that section of the Chinese leadership that does not want a resolution of the Tibetan issue and does not want the Tibetan people to enjoy their fundamental human rights, including religious freedom. But does this serve the long-term interest of China? Why should the Chinese people be concerned about views of individuals like Zhang?

Referring to viewpoints like this, Chinese intellectual Wang Lixiong said in 2009 in Washington D.C. while receiving the International Campaign for Tibet’s Light of Truth award, on behalf of the Chinese scholars, “This is the major long-term obstacle to resolving the Tibet question. Removing this obstacle should be the mission of China’s intellectuals, for there is no greater knowledge than the truth”.

Wang also added China’s fake propaganda and information blackouts prevented most Chinese from understanding that the Dalai Lama was seeking a non-violent “Middle Way” of greater rights for Tibetans under Chinese rule.

In fact, a 12-point suggestion, signed by several hundred mainland Chinese scholars, in the wake of the widespread demonstrations in Tibet in 2008 included a call to the Chinese Government not to do things that are not in the interest of China itself.

Its Point 4 reads: “In our opinion, such Cultural-Revolution-like language as “the Dalai Lama is a jackal in Buddhist monk’s robes and an evil spirit with a human face and the heart of a beast ” used by the Chinese Communist Party leadership in the Tibet Autonomous Region is of no help in easing the situation, nor is it beneficial to the Chinese government’s image. As the Chinese government is committed to integrating into the international community, we maintain that it should display a style of governing that conforms to the standards of modern civilization.”

As the new Chinese Party leadership begins their work, they should also be mindful of Point 12 of the suggestions: “We hold that we must eliminate animosity and bring about national reconciliation, not continue to increase divisions between nationalities. A country that wishes to avoid the partition of its territory must first avoid divisions among its nationalities. Therefore, we appeal to the leaders of our country to hold direct dialogue with the Dalai Lama. We hope that the Chinese and Tibetan people will do away with the misunderstandings between them, develop their interactions with each other, and achieve unity. Government departments as much as popular organizations and religious figures should make great efforts toward this goal.”

If the Chinese leadership in fact believes that the People’s Republic of China is a multi-ethnic nation, with Tibetans being equal citizens, they should walk the talk. Zhang Yijiong’s statement does not do that.