The day before UK PM Cameron entertained Xi Jinping for a pint in his local pub last week, a Chinese Tiananmen survivor and two young Tibetan women were locked up overnight by police in London and informed they were not allowed to be ‘within 100 metres’ of the ‘victim’ of their ‘harassment’, Chinese Communist Party boss Xi.
It was a troubling conclusion to a week in which the UK government faced an angry public backlash to ‘the great British kowtow’, in which the authoritarian leader of the Chinese Communist Party, currently presiding over the most serious crackdown in the PRC in a generation, was accorded a glittering surfeit of Royal pomp and obsequiousness in line with Chancellor Osborne’s new China policy of doing whatever the Beijing leadership wants.
As the golden carriage bearing Xi Jinping and the Queen progressed down a Mall lined with cheering Chinese students with immense red flags, uniform tee-shirts, drummers and dragons, dissident writer Ma Jian had tears in his eyes. “The message from the Chinese tyrants to their subjects is clear: if the queen of the UK, the oldest democracy in the world, lavishes your president with such respect and approbation, then what right have you to criticise him?” Ma Jian wrote.
Sonam and Jamphel, the two Tibetan protesters arrested during Xi Jinping’s London visit, welcomed by members of the Tibetan community in London on their release.
There were numerous attempts by the Chinese students and security personnel to obscure or intimidate the small number of Tibetans, Chinese (Falun Gong and others), Uyghur and other protesters on the Mall. Carole Beavis wrote that she was “singled out by three official looking Chinese men, who effectively herded me away from the event, lowered my arm holding the camera.”
Xi Jinping’s visit to the UK coincides with a terrifying crackdown on civil society in China in which lawyers and human rights defenders have been targeted, with many enduring horrific torture. More than 140 Tibetans have set themselves on fire, an act emerging from anguish at unbearable oppression, while moderate Uyghur academic Ilham Tohti is serving life in prison for peacefully advocating dialogue.
But it is not only within the PRC. Xi and the top Party leadership are aggressively seeking to export their assault on civil society and to roll back freedom and democracy in other parts of the world.
The three arrests in London last Wednesday are in the context of police being pressed elsewhere in Europe to take stronger measures against peaceful demonstrations (for example in Denmark and Belgium.
TV footage shows Shao Jiang, a British citizen who was imprisoned for 18 months after involvement with the Tiananmen Square protests, stepping into the road with two small white placards bearing the statements ‘end autocracy’ and ‘democracy now’. Several police officers charge towards him, knocking him off his feet, helmets flying, and take him into custody.
At the police station that night, the duty officer told me that they were accused of ‘conspiracy’ ‘to commit threatening behaviour’. But Shao Jiang had been on his own – could they mean that perhaps he had been thinking of standing in another part of the public highway with his two placards? Perhaps the two young women, Sonam and Jamphel, were conspiring to go and grab a cup of tea afterwards, as it was a grey and rainy day?
As they were being held in custody, police went to each of their homes and seized laptops, phones, and USB sticks. All three depend on their laptops for work; the computer of Johanna Zhang, Shao Jiang’s wife, who works as an artist and translator, was even taken. This was a chilling step, particularly given the obvious resonances; in Tibet and China, people understand the visceral fear associated with a knock on the door in the middle of the night.
Chinese Tiananmen survivor Shao Jiang is released on bail at Bishopsgate police station (charges are now dropped) by Tsering Passang, head of the Tibetan Community in Britain, and Kate Saunders.
In a debate in Parliament on Monday (October 26), Shao Jiang’s MP, Emily Thornberry, asked for the Home Office Minister to advise her “how I can hold to account those who made the disgraceful decisions to arrest someone who was, on the face of it, behaving in a way that was entirely peaceful, who should not have been arrested and whose house should not have been searched?” MP David Winnick, referred to “British police action with Chinese characteristics”. (Video available here.)
The arrests made front page news in the UK, in the context of an overwhelming public backlash against the UK government’s ‘epic kowtow’ to Communist Party boss Xi. Business leader and expert on China James McGregor, chairman of consultancy APCO Worldwide, told the BBC’s influential Today programme: “If you act like panting puppy the object of your attention is going to think they’ve got you on a leash. China does not respect people who suck up to them.” Mark Steel mused in The Independent: “If trade helps improve human rights, it’s about time we let North Korea and Isis run some of our industries.”
Steve Hilton, the UK PM’s former strategy advisor, tore into his friend Chancellor Osborne, arguing that kowtowing to China does nothing for Britain’s economic health: “Of course the Beijing oppressors would prefer not to be lectured in public on human rights. But if a convicted murderer said he’d prefer not to be lectured in public on the morality of killing people, would we say: ‘OK, we’ll keep your verdict secret’? […]
China is a superpower, aggressively spreading its influence. Our security and economic opportunity depend on an orderly world, underpinned by the values of openness. We need to stand up, strongly, for openness. If the world slides towards the opposite values, those of the Beijing dictators, we should be very nervous.”
In the meantime, The Times reported that senior military and intelligence figures have warned ministers that plans to give China a big stake in Britain’s nuclear power industry pose a threat to national security (see this great video).
In a bizarre media postscript to the visit, I was invited to join a Sunday morning TV show on which Ken Livingstone bucked the trend with the bizarre claim that the Dalai Lama had no credibility because he was a CIA stooge, while TV presenter Tricia Goddard did agree that the Duchess of Cambridge’s dress at the state banquet was a step too far.
Kate looked stunning as she clinked glasses with President Xi, but did she need to wear red, in homage to a man who is China’s most authoritarian and paranoid leader since Mao? A man who is so controlling that he even banned cartoons of Pooh Bear, after Chinese micro-bloggers picked up on an uncanny resemblance between a photograph of Xi and President Obama and a cartoon image of A. A. Milne’s cartoon creations.
On Wednesday night, two days after questions were raised in Parliament about their arrests, Scotland Yard said that the three protesters had been “released from their bail with no further action”. Their laptops and phones were returned today.
Every time I watch the video of Tibetan nomad Runggye Adak going off-script while giving a speech at a major festival in Eastern Tibet, I’m struck by the disconnect between the simple action he took and the enormous consequences that followed. Adak, in full view of thousands of people, said what so many Tibetans think: “If we cannot invite the Dalai Lama home, we will not have freedom of religion and happiness in Tibet.” He went on to call for the 11th Panchen Lama and Tenzin Delek Rinpoche to be freed.
These are extremely common sentiments among Tibetans, but Adak paid a high price for voicing them out loud. After he walked away from the microphone he was seized by Chinese police, and within a month he had been charged with ‘provocation to subvert state power.’ During his trial he defended himself, saying: “I wanted to raise Tibetan concerns and grievances, as there is no outlet for us to do so.” Just the same, he was given 8 years in prison.
With that incident in mind, it was shocking and disappointing to see a co-owner of Politics & Prose bookstore in Washington DC help Chinese agents remove Lhadon Tethong from their store last week. Lhadon, the director of the Tibet Action Institute, had come to an event featuring Chinese State Council Information Office Deputy Director Guo Weimin with the intention of asking him about Tibet. As seen in the video below she started speaking several minutes into his remarks, which were delivered in promotion of Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping’s book The Governance of China:
Xi Jinping's Book Launch – PART 1:Lhadon Tethong, Director of Tibet Action Institute, and Pema Yoko, Acting Executive…
Politics & Prose co-owner Bradley Graham, seen here pushing Lhadon out of the store, once wrote in the Washington Post that he’s concerned about the erosion of democratic discourse. Isn’t democratic discourse eroded when a store owner helps silence a Tibetan voice in favor of a state propaganda official from an authoritarian government? The Party has annihilated democratic discourse inside China. Last week they were able to export a small piece of their repression to a bookstore in America’s capital which bills itself as “a forum for discussion addressing the salient ideas of the day.”
While we’re on the subject, are there any salient ideas in Xi’s book? The Atlanticdescribes it as having “portcullises of dullness” which seem to “forbid readers from entering any further.” The “droning cadences” of Communist Party propaganda feature “familiar abstractions, the insistent buzzwords, and the numbing repetitions.” Xi’s description of the Chinese dream contains “unsettling echoes of 20th-century ethnic nationalism,” a paradise “primarily built for people of a single race.” The Chinese race, naturally- and to be clear, the idea that Tibetans and Uyghurs and Chinese are somehow all Chinese is a rhetorical fig leaf over the racial reality of the People’s Republic of China.
Tibetans inside Tibet run incredible risks whenever they speak their minds. It’s deplorable to see them silenced when they find opportunities to demand answers from Chinese officials outside China- especially when the author of the book is the leader of a police state sustained by the denial of free expression.
ICT has translated into English the first major speech in Beijing by Gyaltsen Norbu, known as the ‘Chinese Panchen (Gya Panchen)’ because he was selected by the CCP after the boy recognized by the Dalai Lama and acknowledged by Tibetans as the authentic incarnation, Gendun Choekyi Nyima, was ‘disappeared’ in 1995. There is no indication of his whereabouts or welfare 20 years later.[1]
Gyaltsen (Gyalcain) Norbu, 25, was installed by the Chinese authorities as part of their efforts to ensure control of Tibet and assert their authority over a future incarnation of the Dalai Lama,[2] and is compelled to conform to the role of ‘official’ Panchen Lama as a ‘patriotic’ figurehead with allegiance to the CCP. This perhaps makes one of his statements in the March 2 speech, before top Chinese leaders at a Party meeting,[3] all the more telling. Because of the shortage of monks in Tibet and “quotas set too low”, he says, there is “a danger of Buddhism existing in name only”.
Gyaltsen Norbu made the usual provisos in line with Party policy, asserting that Tibetan Buddhism is thriving in Tibet, just as the 10th Panchen Lama carefully framed his arguments.[4] But his main contention counters existing policy – for instance, officials do not even admit to monastic ‘quotas’.
The context of the March 2 speech, which has appeared so far only in Chinese in the state media, is an intense debate on the future of Buddhism in Tibet and China. More Chinese people are becoming devout followers of Tibetan lamas,[5] and Xi Jinping talks about the importance of China’s ‘traditional cultures or faiths’ including Buddhism. The Chinese Communist Party wants to give an impression that Buddhist faith is flourishing in Tibet and is acutely aware that the leaders of its main schools all reside in exile, with the Dalai Lama a globally respected figure. So they may be seeking to use Gyaltsen (Chinese: Gyalcain) Norbu in a more sophisticated way than before, and his comments may reflect an approach that some officials want to convey. Even so, Gyaltsen Norbu’s speech was reminiscent of the skillful phrasing used by the 10th Panchen Lama in parts, and he has made lengthy visits to a number of Tibetan monasteries, with senior lamas and scholars as his teachers. Their concerns appear to be reflected in his comments.
Gyaltsen Norbu’s speech is framed carefully in accordance with the Party line on religion, stating that in the “glow of the Party’s ethnic and religious policies”, Tibetans, Uyghurs and other ethnicities enjoy “freedom of religious belief” and normal religious practice and preservation of culture. But his main contention differs from policies that threaten the survival of Tibetan Buddhism in Tibet today, as he pinpoints the shortage of monks in Tibet and “quotas set too low” as serious problems.
The Chinese authorities do not openly admit that ‘quotas’ on monks and nuns in monasteries and nunneries exist. The government line is that the correct number of monks varies according to the monastery’s capacity to support them; Buddhist associations and monastic management committees are the proxies for the government in approving or reviewing such matters. In effect, this represents a government-approved ‘quota’.[6]
On February 12, Gyaltsen Norbu was pictured by the state media with Sun Chunlun, the head of the United Front Work Department who is also on the top Politburo.[7] It is unlikely that Gyaltsen Norbu would make the March 4 speech before members of China’s top leadership[8] without any official approval beforehand, although this may not have been from the United Front Work Department, which seeks to uphold a strong line on religious policies in Tibet and hostile approach towards the Dalai Lama. By directly addressing his remarks to Yu Zhengsheng, one of China’s top leaders who heads an important Party committee on ethnic and religious affairs, Gyaltsen Norbu effectively cut out any attempts by Tibetan or other less senior officials to filter his comments. Such officials, including from the United Front, normally serve as a buffer telling the central government that central religious policies are a success and there is no need for concern.
The context of the Chinese Panchen Lama’s comments is a deteriorating environment for Tibetan Buddhism which worsened significantly after overwhelmingly peaceful protests swept across Tibet in March and April 2008. The Chinese Communist Party state responded to the protests by intensifying an established anti-Dalai Lama campaign, issuing sweeping regulatory measures that intrude upon Tibetan Buddhist monastic affairs and implementing aggressive “legal education” programs that pressure monks and nuns to study and accept expanded government control over their religion, monasteries, and nunneries.
A further factor contributing to the shortage of monks – and one that is not mentioned in Gyaltsen Norbu’s speech, although it is perhaps implied – is the expulsion of monks and nuns from many monasteries, particularly in the Tibet Autonomous Region. Since a wave of overwhelmingly protests spread across Tibet in March, 2008, monasteries of historic and cultural significance have been targeted by the authorities. After monks from the ‘Great Three’ monasteries in Lhasa of Sera, Drepung and Ganden took to the streets in March, 2008, the monastic population has been subject to intensified suppression and the strengthening of control mechanisms.[9] Hundreds of monks have been expelled and arrested from these three monasteries, leading to serious fears for their survival as religious institutions.[10]
Gyaltsen Norbu’s comments appear to reflect a genuine alarm that monasteries in the Tibet Autonomous Region that once housed thousands of monks are now reduced to a few hundred whose main responsibility is no longer religious study but tending to the buildings and tourists. Many of the monks in these major monasteries were from Amdo, Kham, Mongolia, and the broader Himalayan region, and Gyaltsen Norbu does not mention in his speech the policies restricting them from studying in the Tibet Autonomous Region. The number of monks studying at large religious encampments in Tibetan areas of Kham, such as Larung Gar (Serthar) serves as a visible reminder of the potential that monasteries in the Tibet Autonomous Region are not allowed to fulfill.
After the 2008 protests, Tibetan language, culture and monasteries have been depicted by many Party officials as a source of instability. In his speech, Gyaltsen Norbu re-frames the issue by depicting them instead as a source of “stability”, saying: “Tibetan Buddhism is capable of playing a huge role in national economic and social development, and social harmony and stability.” In this way he opens a discussion of Buddhism and Buddhist ceremonies and rituals as something that people in the Tibet Autonomous Region require, and the lack of ability to provide these services as a shortcoming.
Gyaltsen Norbu gives a higher number of monks and nuns in Tibetan areas than usually acknowledged in official statistics, indicating that even this higher figure is not enough. He refers to 1,787 religious venues with 46,000 resident monks and nuns in the Tibet Autonomous Region, plus 783 monasteries and 68,000 monks and nuns in Sichuan, and 660 monasteries and 44,500 monks and nuns in Qinghai. This is a total of 158,500 without including the Tibetan areas of Gansu and Yunnan. The figure of 46,000 resident monks in the Tibet Autonomous Region has been standard in official representations since the 1990s.[11] More recently United Front Work Department official Zhu Weiqun gave the figure of 140,000 monks and nuns in the Tibet Autonomous Region and other Tibetan areas.[12]
While not recognized as the legitimate Panchen Lama by Tibetans, Gyaltsen Norbu has made lengthy visits to a number of Tibetan monasteries and had access to senior Buddhist teachers and scholars. Their concerns may be reflected in his comments; he makes specific reference to particular areas, for instance to the western area of the Tibet Autonomous Region where the sacred Mount Kailash is situated, saying: “I went to Ngari, and I learned: Ngari [Chinese: Ali, Tibet Autonomous Region] has 75 monasteries, and not one of them can hold a Buddhist meeting [in accordance with proper religious procedures and protocols.]”[13]
Few insights have been available into Gyaltsen Norbu’s views due to the stringent oversight of his activities and management of his public appearances by the Party authorities, who require him to convey the message that Tibetans have freedom to practice their religion. Although monks are often instructed to display his photographs, there is little evidence that many adhere to this request. After arriving in exile in India, a monk from Tashilhunpo monastery in Shigatse, the Panchen Lama’s seat, told ICT: “Since Gyaltsen Norbu was chosen as the Gya Panchen Lama, the majority of monks have lost their trust in the monastery, as well as lacking loyalty to the Chinese choice. When Gyaltsen Norbu visits [our monastery], you are not allowed to leave for two days before and after his visit, or it will be considered a political act. Usually young monks don’t display his photos in our rooms but elderly monks, for example my teacher, they always tell us to display it but they say, ‘Don’t worry. Just do whatever they say. If you don’t accept him from your heart then it doesn’t make any difference whether you display his photo or not.’”[14]
The Chinese Panchen Lama’s comments are made in the context of a complex, changing picture in Tibet. Beyond the stringent measures of state control, there are of course other social and economic factors involved in the decline in numbers of monks at many monastic institutions.[15]
In Tibet today, an oppressive crackdown co-exists with the resilient spirit of the Tibetan people in defending their religion and culture, and a growing Chinese interest in Tibetan Buddhism. Last month, remarkable footage from Kumbum monastery, one of the great Gelugpa institutions in Tibet, showed thousands of Tibetan pilgrims gathering at a prayer ceremony despite an intimidating paramilitary troop presence.[16]
At the same time, Tibet’s religious culture is inspiring millions inside the PRC; increasing numbers of Chinese people are becoming practitioners, with many making devout pilgrimages to Tibet, or following Tibetan lamas. Some popular lamas have tremendous influence and following among Chinese, and prominent indications of this trend include a front page story about a Tibetan lama in a Chinese magazine, People Weekly, telling the story of “how a young shepherd becomes a great Tibetan Buddhist teacher of millions of students, with over 1.5 million followers on Weibo”.[17] In January, a former Chinese Communist Party official Xiao Wunan invited the BBC into his home and showed them footage of his audience with the Dalai Lama.[18]
While these developments are of immense importance to Tibet’s future, and despite the evidence of some moderate and progressive views, a White Paper released by the Chinese state media on April 15 provided sobering confirmation of the current dominance of the anti-Dalai Lama, ‘anti-separatist’ power-bloc in the Beijing establishment.[19]
[2] Tibetans refer to Gyaltsen Norbu as ‘Gya Panchen’, meaning Chinese Panchen. Panchen Lamas have previously played a role in the recognition and subsequent education of Dalai Lamas, and vice versa, which is why control over the institution is considered to be so crucial by Beijing.
[4] The Tenth Panchen Lama died on January 28, 1989, after enduring 14 years in prison in the Mao era. He had submitted what is believed to be the most extensive internal criticism of Chinese Communist policies ever submitted to the leadership, documenting the mass arrests, executions and oppressions in Tibet that followed the 1959 Uprising. Mao Zedong famously denounced the report as “a poisoned arrow shot at the Party” and its author as a “reactionary feudal overlord”. It was published by Tibet Information Network in London (now closed) in 1997, in English translation.
[8] It was at the Third Session of the 12th Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee.
[9] Numerous reports detail the suffering of monks in custody. Tibetan writer Woeser wrote on her blog: “During the monks’ time in detention, a 22-year-old monk called Jigme Phuntsog who had fallen ill and been seriously misdiagnosed by the military hospital deteriorated suddenly after 20 days and died without being treated. Another monk of around 30 years old simply couldn’t bear it any longer. He started banging his head against the wall and then jumped from the window when he was taken to hospital. He broke several bones and is deaf in one ear.” See ICT report, ‘A Great Mountain Burned by Fire’, https://www.savetibet.nl/fileadmin/images/ictreports/A_Great_Mountain_Burned_by_Fire_ICTReport.pdf
[10] Monks in other areas of Tibet, who traditionally visited these monasteries for period of study, are no longer allowed to do so. The Chinese state media acknowledged that a total of 1200 monks from Drepung and Sera had been expelled in 2008. For full details, see ICT report, ‘A Great Mountain Burned by Fire’, https://www.savetibet.nl/fileadmin/images/ictreports/A_Great_Mountain_Burned_by_Fire_ICTReport.pdf. The Chinese authorities have also singled out other important and influential centres of Tibetan Buddhist culture outside the Tibet Autonomous Region – notably Kirti monastery in Ngaba (Chinese: Aba), Sichuan (the Tibetan area of Amdo), where the current wave of self-immolations in Tibet began in 2009. The situation at Kirti escalated in 2011 when monks from the age of 18-40 were taken away from the monastery under the pretext of giving them “legal education”. Local laypeople who tried to prevent them being removed were violently beaten by troops surrounding the monastery. As with Sera, Ganden and Drepung in Lhasa, the authorities used the pretext of taking monks away “for study” or “legal education” as a means to reduce and control the monastic population at Kirti. A full account of these developments is given in International Campaign for Tibet’s report, “Storm in the Grasslands: Self-Immolations in Tibet and Chinese Policy”, December 2012, http://www.savetibet.org/resource-center/ictpublications/reports/storm-grasslands-self-immolations-tibet-and-chinese-policy.
[11] The figure of 1,787 religious ‘venues’ in the Tibet Autonomous Region has also been given in previous official statistics, such as an article in China Daily on December 24, 2012. The same article referred to progress made in the ‘patriotic education’ campaign in the Tibet Autonomous Region, reporting that: “In 2014, more than 50,000 copies of [patriotic education] documents were distributed [….] to Buddhist monasteries across the Tibet Autonomous Region and more than 100,000 Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns participated the sessions.” The article noted that one of the main subjects of the campaign was for monks and nuns to declare their dissociation with the “Dalai clique”.
[12] His comment in 2012 was as follows: “There are 3,542 monasteries and 140,000 monks and nuns in Tibet and other Tibetan-populated regions.” (Xinhua, 7 March, 2012).
[13] In his speech, Gyaltsen Norbu says that Buddhism has specified that where four or more monks have formed a group, they should regularly hold Buddhist meetings in order to discuss and inspect their adherence to the precepts.
[14] The same monk said that even so, ordinary Tibetans recognize the pressures that Gyaltsen Norbu is under given his unique role: “I have heard that Gyaltsen Norbu is smart and recognizes his Tibetan identity and responsibility.” ‘An Insight into the Gya Panchen’, p 53-55, ‘The Communist Party as Living Buddha: The Crisis facing Tibetan Religion under Chinese control’, ICT report, http://www.savetibet.org/the-communist-party-as-living-buddha/
[15] For instance, see papers by Dr Jane Caple from Manchester University, who writes: “Monastic actors are facing serious challenges as they attempt to ‘move with the times’ while maintaining the soteriological and mundane bases of monastic Buddhism in rapidly changing political, economic and social contexts. Thus far, accounts of the revival have largely been framed in relation to the Chinese state, the shifting public space for religion and culture and the ‘Tibet question’. This study attempts to ‘see beyond the state’ to examine other contingent factors in the ongoing process of renewal and development.” (‘Seeing beyond the state: The negotiation of moral boundaries in the revival and development of Tibetan Buddhist monasticism in contemporary China’, Jane Caple, 2011, https://www.escholar.manchester.ac.uk/uk-ac-man-scw:199630.)
The terrorist attack of last week in Paris against the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo is sparking a debate that goes beyond reflecting on the killings of innocent people for political or religious reasons.
Unfortunately, the killings of innocent people as a result of different extremist ideologies happen every day and in huge numbers in many parts of the world.
Sometimes, the violence comes from individuals, sometimes it comes from organized armed groups, and sometimes it comes directly from authoritarian governments.
We should all remember that the loss of innocent lives is always unacceptable and we should learn to stay away from the moral double standards that the media inevitably impose on us by choosing which events (often tragedies) should deserve our attention instead of others.
Having said this, the genuine outpour of indignation and attention that has emerged as a result of the Paris terrorist attack has an objective basis. A satirical magazine represents the essence of freedom of expression in any free society, and to violently and brutally target its employees, as it happened in Paris, has raised the concerns of every citizen who is interested in protecting this right.
What is now becoming clear is that while the “international community” generally agrees to “condemn” this kind of violence, it has not yet agreed on the central issue that is at stake here: how to advance the fundamental human right of free expression for billions of people who do not yet enjoy it.
Globally, nation states have approached this issue with too many different laws and regulations, many of which are in direct contrast with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights approved by the UN General assembly in 1948 after a war that left millions upon millions dead after the rise of authoritarian ideologies.
Article 19 states:
“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”
The technological revolution of the last decades has made the visionary aspiration of sharing information “regardless of frontiers” a concrete daily possibility. In fact, the advent of the Internet makes it possible for everyone not only to express, but most importantly, to “seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” But this can happen only if one fundamental condition is met: that national governments do not censor the information that citizens are entitled to receive.
There are an increasing number of countries that explicitly limit this right by censoring media content available on the Internet. This is allowed to happen without serious challenges from the UN or democratic governments.
Pay attention, freedom of speech is the battleground chosen by extremists and authoritarian governments to change the way in which democratic societies operate.
In fact, by focusing on “offensive”, “immoral” or “graphic” manifestations of freedom of expression, the goal is to intimidate and limit the right of the people to freely express themselves on sensitive political or social issues, as clearly emerged by the Chinese state news agency’s comment on the Paris attack.
The reasons are simple: the main enemy for any authoritarian government or extremist group is the people’s capacity to question or criticize its actions and motives. Imposing fear, and then silence, through violence, imprisonment, and torture are the means used to achieve this goal.
Democratic societies have ignored the importance of this issue for too long, and the future of freedom of expression cannot be left to Internet companies to negotiate or decide.
It is urgent for our countries to start publicly contrasting the measures that are taken by national governments to limit the right to access information through the Internet. China is leading this effort, having built a firewall and having set up a huge censorship machine, and putting pressure on Internet companies that want to do business in China.
And this is why, even before the Paris attack, we were worried to see Facebook, a giant and global social media enterprise, deleting the post of a video of a Tibetan monk’s self-immolation (videos that are censored in China) citing “graphic” concerns regarding a purely political action; and that is why we decided to launch a petition to restore it that has now been signed by over 17000 people.
Worryingly, earlier this week, while meeting in Paris also a number of EU Ministers of the interiors called on Internet providers to increase their surveillance capacities.
This is the wrong path to follow. It is not by increasing censorship and controls on the general public, like China does, that terrorist attack will be prevented. This will only increase abuses. Experience tells us that a society is more secure when civil liberties are respected.
We at ICT are following very closely this debate. We do not want our societies to follow China’s censorship practices on the Internet and we are working to make sure that the opposite happens and that, one day, the flow of free information will break China’s firewall and reach the Chinese and Tibetan people.
The Dalai Lama with Pope John Paul II, Vatican City, June 14, 1988. (Photo: www.dalailama.com)
Last week His Holiness the Dalai Lama participated in the Nobel Peace Prize Summit in Rome, which had initially been scheduled to take place in South Africa. This plan was scrapped after the South African government failed to grant His Holiness a visa under Chinese pressure.
At the same time, in what was the biggest public relations failure by Papa Bergoglio since he ascended to the seat of San Pietro in Rome in 2013, the Vatican did not grant to His Holiness a meeting. Instead he issued a public statement saying that the Pope holds the Dalai Lama “in very high regard”, in a recognition of the high opinion that hundreds of millions of Catholics all over the world have for the Tibetan spiritual leader.
So why not meet him? The answer is simple. The Chinese Government uses the “Dalai Lama card” to put pressure on all its international partners, both to put them on the defensive (typical behavior of aggressive negotiators) and most importantly because it fears that the moral authority and legitimacy that His Holiness has gained worldwide might be transformed in pressure to implement much-needed political reforms in China and Tibet.
Contrary to China’s calculations – betting that isolating him politically will resolve the Tibetan question – the Dalai Lama anticipated China’s aggressive campaign by voluntarily and willingly choosing to abdicate his political authority in 2011. This, among other long-term factors, including China’s bullying, has not undermined, but rather increased the popularity in the west of the 14th Dalai Lama.
With this decision and a step forward to dedicate himself to promote peace and interreligious dialogue, the Dalai Lama had hoped to facilitate a meaningful political dialogue between the Tibetan and the Chinese sides. Unfortunately, China continues to act aggressively, hoping that the problems in Tibet will be solved through their current policies.
Certainly, as a Tibetan, the Dalai Lama remains concerned with the deterioration of human rights and individual freedoms in Tibet, but it must also be noted that the he tries all the time to highlight potential positive developments that are taking place in China. Furthermore, in regards to the foreign leaders who have stopped meeting him in Europe, he continues to repeat that he does not want to create any inconvenience to the countries that are eager to make business or have good relations with China. The problem is, clearly, what kind of long-term relations can be established with an authoritarian country that does not apply the rule of law and whose judicial system is highly corrupt?
With this in mind, the way China continues to pressure everybody in the world not to meet His Holiness tells us a lot on how insecure Beijing is about its policies in Tibet, and shows its failure to grow as a responsible partner for democratic governments on the world scene. Getting away with bullying the Tibetans is only going to encourage the hardliners in Beijing to do this on other issues and to other peoples and countries.
For Pope Francis, who has courageously challenged the Vatican bureaucracy on many fronts (from its shadowy finances to the cover up of sexual abuses within the Church, from a renewed dialogue with Muslims and the Russian Orthodox to recommit the Church to help the poor and shelve luxury living styles), to give up on the promotion of interreligious dialogue with the Dalai Lama is a striking contradiction with what he has been preaching from the pulpit.
While tactically this move might bring some benefits to the Vatican in its dealing with China – the Vatican has been trying hard for decades to establish diplomatic relations with Beijing and the Chinese Foreign Ministry had a positive comment in response to the – this choice makes clear that the promotion of religious freedom for all in China is not a priority for this papacy. This is a stain that will not fade until urgent remedial measures are taken.
Now that we have a picture of where the issue of Tibet figured in the summit between President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on November 11 and 12, 2014, overall President Obama deserves our commendation.
On Wednesday, November 12, 2014, during his press meeting with President Xi, President Obama publicly said he had urged the Chinese authorities “to take steps to preserve the unique cultural, religious and linguistic identity of the Tibetan people.”
The President also made it clear that “America’s unwavering support for fundamental human rights of all people will continue to be an important element of our relationship with China.”
Such a clear outlining of American approach was needed at a time when there are many who feel that the United States is giving into economic consideration by being soft on the fundamental American values of human rights, democracy, and freedom.
I have no doubt that President Xi Jinping and the Chinese Government have once again received the message that the American people and government have not slackened off in their support for the rights of the Tibetan people.
However, there were people who were perturbed at President Obama saying, “…we recognize Tibet as part of the People’s Republic of China. We are not in favor of independence.” While I would have wished for the President not to have said this, to be fair, recognizing Tibet as a part of the People’s Republic of China is a known American position, and as the Washington Post put in an editorial, “Obama was more diplomatic“ by reiterating it. But of course the Chinese media exploited this by focusing only on it and conveniently neglecting to refer to President Obama’s strong stress on the importance of Tibetan identity.
So, how would one sum up the summit in terms of Tibet? Here I can only quote the Washington Post editorial, which said, “In short, it’s possible for Mr. Obama to speak forthrightly in support of human rights in China and to press Mr. Xi about matters such as Tibet and Hong Kong while still partnering with Beijing in areas of mutual interest. It’s a lesson the Obama administration has been slow to learn, but the president’s performance Wednesday was auspicious.”
Left: Scottish voters line up at a polling station. Right: Snipers on a Lhasa rooftop.
Following the Scottish independence referendum through state-owned Chinese news outlets, one might have noticed that they struck an apocalyptic tone. Global Times variously referred to it as a “shock,” “a tremor shaking the whole Western system,” a “[fierce] outbreak of secessionism,” “a white knuckle ride,” and a case of a minority “sabotaging” the unity of a country[1]. A Yes vote would “wreck the whole UK,” and make Britain a “second-class nation.” These predictions started out looking foolish, but ended up looking even worse on September 19, when the world awoke to find that Scotland had peaceably voted to remain a part of the UK.
To begin with, the framing of the issue reflected the peculiar narratives crafted by Beijing. One Global Times headline asked if a minority would decide the UK’s fate[2]. But this referendum concerned Scotland first and foremost, and it should be noted that the Scottish are not the minority in Scotland, but are in fact 84% of the population. It seems quite sensible that the Scottish would determine the fate of Scotland, and it’s hard to see how members of the Chinese Communist Party Standing Committee could argue with that; every single one of them, since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, has been ethnically Chinese. The real question is whether or not the UK should be in control of Scotland, and it’s here that we find Beijing’s real objection. If the Scottish can debate and vote on their union with the UK, why shouldn’t the Tibetans, Uyghurs, Mongolians, Hong Kongers, and Taiwanese be allowed to do the same today in regards to the PRC?
At times the stories almost seemed to be trying to goad London into overreacting. The Global Times wrote that “liberal practices in the UK might have worked in the past, but now are facing immense uncertainty.” But if we look at the illiberal practices favored by Beijing in responding to perceived threats to their authority- tanks in Tiananmen, missiles aimed at Taiwan, armored personnel carriers driving around Hong Kong, and rule by force in Tibet- and look at the outcomes they’ve fostered, the difference couldn’t be any clearer. On September 18 an astonishing 84.6% voter turnout rendered a democratic decision in which the level of violence never rose above strenuous flag-waving. Contrast this with China, where the Global Times says that “legal, political and moral systems play an effective role” in curbing separatism, but which has been roiled by massive Tibetan protests, harsh crackdowns, and over 130 self-immolations over the last few years. In one revealing news story, one county in Tibet has made so many arrests lately, and anticipates so many more in the future, that they’ve had to enlarge the paramilitary police detention center used to hold Tibetan political prisoners.
It seems that the system China is mainly dependent on force and the threat of violence, while in reality the local legal, political, and moral systems actually did result in peaceful outcome for Scotland. China should find inspiration there instead of deriding it, and allow the minorities of the PRC to freely exercise self-determination in deciding their own futures as well.
