Sorry, Tibet, Our Hands Are Tied
Monday, the Chinese government closed the Tibetan border to foreigners in the aftermath of the worst violence in the region in decades. As unconfirmed reports continue to trickle out of Lhasa, Chinese officials, in the last week, have brutally quelled mass freedom protests in Tibet, leaving anywhere between 16 (China's count) and 100 Tibetans (exiles' count) dead. Chinese forces have imprisoned dozens of Buddhist monks and activists and have threatened increased force if the Tibet protests do not subside by Monday at midnight.
If you ask China, the riots stem from that rabble-rousing Dalai Lama stirring up violence in the week that marks the 49th anniversary of the failed 1959 Tibetan uprising that sent the Buddhist leader into exile.
If you ask Tibetan exiles, however, the impetus for the riots is the upcoming Beijing Olympics and the torch run through Tibet and to the summit of Mount Everest. To many ethnic Tibetans, the passage of the Olympic torch through Tibet is the ultimate insult to a region that has been religiously oppressed and economically exploited by Beijing for nearly six decades.
News of the clash between Chinese military forces and Tibetan protesters Friday was overshadowed in the U.S. media by comments made by Barack Obama's pastor Jeremiah Wright, who said 5 days after September 11th that "America's chickens are coming home to roost." While Wright's assessment of American foreign policy as somehow justifying the 9/11 attacks comes across as profoundly insensitive and radical, and will surely haunt Obama as his campaign continues, Wright's statements about how "the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards" couldn't be more true with regard to the situation in Tibet.
Washington's failed policy with regard to China -- allowing the Communist nation to usurp the American labor force, control the U.S. dollar and bail out America's failing investment banks on the broken promise of "moving toward democracy" -- has truly, to borrow the words of Rev. Wright, been brought back to our front yards. Not only because America has become China's economic indentured servant, but because when human rights abuses and religious persecution runs wild in China, America's hands are tied and voices are muted. The Bush administration, by showing a total disregard for human rights, has surrendered America's most important weapon in combating China -- our moral high ground.
On Thursday, just one day before the bloody protests broke out in Lhasa, the Chinese government released its official response to the Pentagon's annual report of the nations with the worst human rights violations in the world calling the Iraq War " the greatest humanitarian disaster of the modern world." China's report on U.S. human rights, according to Xinhua, said the following:
America's arrogant critique on the human rights of other countries are always accompanied by a deliberate ignoring of serious human rights problems on its own territory... This was not only inconsistent with universally recognized norms of international relations, but also exposed the double standards and downright hypocrisy of the United States on the human rights issue, and inevitably impaired its international image...The United States has a notorious record of trampling on the sovereignty of and violating human rights in other countries...The invasion of Iraq by American troops has produced the biggest human rights tragedy and the greatest humanitarian disaster in modern world... 'Secret prisons' and 'torturing prisoners' have become synonymous with America.
If you lost focus while reading the quote above, that's China speaking of America, not the other way around.
In Bush's America -- an America where we torture prisoners or send them to countries that make our torture look like patty cake, where we deprive certain suspects for years without the right to a lawyer, trial or even an accusation, where our male interrogators in Guantanamo flush the Koran down the toilet while our female questioners humiliate Muslim detainees with sexual touching -- we have completely lost our authority to condemn China for its human rights abuses in Tibet. When the Bush people "call on the Chinese government to refrain from violence," as they did Friday, can they still do it with a straight face?
The only high American official with the balls to outright reproach China for its actions in Lhasa is an American official, well, without balls. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi released a statement Wednesday as soon as violence erupted. She said:
The violent response by Chinese police forces to peaceful protesters in Tibet is disgraceful. It must be met with strong condemnation by the United States government and the international community. The Chinese government should immediately provide information on the welfare and whereabouts of the detained Buddhist monks and facilitate access by international human rights monitors and journalists to Tibetan areas.
Speaker Pelosi, a Democrat who is not and has never been complicit in the disastrous Bush foreign policy, has retained her right to speak out on the religious plight of the Tibetan Buddhists and should continue to be a leading voice on China leading up to the Olympic Games.
As for the Bush people, their repudiations of international human rights abuses are now met by world leaders with eye rolls and laughter. And after all the lies and violence by which we Americans will remember this era in U.S. foreign policy, it will be the loss of our moral authority that will have the most far-reaching consequences throughout the world.
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HuffPost's Pick
I was born in China, but I am deeply sympathetic to Tibetan's cause and I hold deepest respect to Dala Lama. I strongly support his return to Tibet with an agreement reached between him and the Chinese central government. And I truly believe that the Tibet situation can only get worse without his leadership.
The reason for lack of such agreement is deeply profound, and only very few westerners actually understand. I strongly suggest any westerners caring about Tibet to read at least three books from different sides on recent history of this region. Actions of western nations during 1850 to 1950 were largely behind such complications. For example, part of the territorial control Tibet government had at 1950, were gained by around 1900 when the central government were severely weakened by a series of internal problems and attacks of western nations and Japan, and Tibet government was very much aided by British government at the time, who had tried to seek affluence in Tibet for many decades. Therefore, the sentiment from Chinese side when criticized by west on its Tibet policy can easily go very defensive. After all, Chinese is a people living in history, as it has the best detailed written history and records back to 3000 years. Unlike Britishers who often forget their history of colonialism and slavery and opium trades, and their atrocities committed to Irish's, africans, asians, and american indians, and Americans who often forget their slaughtering of native americans, invasion of Mexico and Hawaii, and rounding up Japanese americans to labor camps, Chinese tend to remember the western oppression it suffered after 1840 and tends to view their criticism to China continuation of such oppression especially when the critic's hands are not clean to begin with. For example, a comment on Taiwan from Japan would be much more badly received than the same comment from US. Since CIA was behind the 1959 riot against Chinese as part of its cold war policy, American's hand on Tibet is not much cleaner than British.
If western governments would like to help Tibetans, they should take cautious approach not to agonize China to avoid backslash against Tibetan people. And for reporters and columnist, it is important to get more familiar with this profound issue and have some quick check on the facts. David, this article is brilliant, but you might missed a few fact. First, this month's protest might be peaceful at beginning but turned into violence (as implied by Dala Lama's latest statement). The number of death claimed by China are the victim of the protesters and the number claimed by Tibetan exiles are the Tibetans. You also mentioned the Chinese economic exploitation in Tibet, well, this is simply so untrue.Quite the opposite, Chinese central government infuses billions of dollars each year to Tibet's economy in its effort to stabilize the area. Unfortunately, it is not enough to compensate for the religious oppression it imposes on Tibetans.
Now talking about the Olympics, it is first politicized by Nazi Germany, and why are we still following the idea of Hitler? Let it be a pure athletic event. The bad air quality in Beijing is a bigger threat than any political development.
I don't believe Dala Lama orchestrate the protest. He is too smart to do so. He would understand how much Chinese hates to be hold as hostage, if it gives up something for the sake of Olympics, it will take back three times more afterwards.
The real bad development of the recent events surrounding Tibet is that Dala Lama seems to loose control of his people, especially the younger generations of Tibet exiles, which has been widely rumored for years. This can be a real big blow to any hope of having a positive political future of Tibet and its people. Let's hope that the Chinese government finally feels some urgency and strike a deal when Dala Lama is still around.
China's invasion by 40,000 troops in 1950 was an act of unprovoked aggression. There is no generally accepted legal basis for China's claim of sovereignty.
Ten years later 100,000 Tibetans fled with the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual and temporal ruler.
In 1993 the UN High Commissioner for Refugees handled 3,700 Tibetan cases.
To avoid detection many refugees, who are poorly clothed, are forced to use the 19,000 ft. Nangpa-La pass below Everest. The Nepalese authorities continue to turn refugees over to the Chinese.
By the 17-Point Agreement of 1951 China undertook not to interfere with Tibet's existing system of government and society, but never kept these promises in eastern Tibet and in 1959 reneged on the treaty altogether.
China has renamed two out of Tibet's three provinces as parts of the Chinese provinces of Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan, and renamed the remaining province of U'Tsang as Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR).
Reprisals for the 1959 National Uprising alone involved the elimination of 87,000 Tibetans by the Chinese count, according to a Radio Lhasa broadcast of 1 October 1960. Tibetan exiles claim that 430,000 died during the Uprising and the subsequent 15 years of guerrilla warfare.
Some 1.2 million Tibetans are estimated to have been killed by the Chinese since 1950.
The International Commission of Jurists concluded in its reports, 1959 and 1960, that there was a prima facie case of genocide committed by the Chinese upon the Tibetan nation. These reports deal with events before the Cultural Revolution. Chinese Justice: Protest and Prisons
Exile sources estimate that up to 260,000 people died in prisons and labour camps between 1950 and 1984.
Unarmed demonstrators have been shot without warning by Chinese police on five occasions between 1987 and 1989. Amnesty International believes that "at least 200 civilians" were killed by the security forces during demonstrations in this period. There are also reports of detainees being summarily executed.
Some 3,000 people are believed to have been detained for political offences since September 1987, many of them for writing letters, distributing leaflets or talking to foreigners about the Tibetans' right to independence.
http://www.freetibet.org/info/facts/fact1.html
The honor of China hosting the Olympics is NOT warranted, it is an abomination! Their refusal to really help end the obscenity in Darfur, their brutal occupation and colonization of Tibet, their poisoning their own and other environments in pursuit of "economic growth" that will come back as death and disease for their own people, their despoliation and abuse of many threatened species throughout the world for food, delicacies, or "medicines" and "aphrodisiacs" is a disasterfor our Planet, the selling of executed "prisoners" bodies and organs for profit, the list of Chinese abuses in the world is long.
China should be sanctioned and SHUNNED for this brutal crushing of Tibetan independence demonstrations! This is NOT THE FIRST! We must BOYCOTT anything Chinese (almost impossible, I know) until they change their political and environmental policies! Of course since they hold so much power over our economy that will not happen on a governmental level.....it is only possible on an individual level. The Bush Regime has sold us down the river by their trade and economic policies that benefit only the richest among us........those policies also empower Chinese actions, and makes holding them to account nearly impossible.
FREE TIBET! BOYCOTT THE CHINESE OLYMPICS! NO Chinese Olympics Until freedom For Tibet and a positive commitment in Darfur!
First, there's a big difference between saying the 'chickens are coming home to roost' and saying the attacks were justified. Saying that walking around with money hanging out of your pocket will get you mugged isn't justifying the mugging. It's simply saying that what goes around comes around. Personally, I'd say that preacher Wright was right if I didn't think that Bushco was up to its eyeballs in carrying out 9/11, or seeing that it would be carried out.
As for Nancy Pelosi not being complicit in Bushco' crimes: Ha. When someone in a position of great power refuses to use that power to prevent crimes, they are complicit. If Pelosi had done or were doing her job, the U.S. might be able to condemn China's actions without hypocrisy.
A thoughtful blog by David. I don't agree with all of it but there's a lot of insight here. Not to be an incurable optimist, but despite the seeming darkness in China, here's a cause for hope in China and Tibet: Look to Taiwan's history. The "228 incident", when tens of thousands of Taiwanese were massacred in 1947 is seared in the memory of those who lost a relative or acquaintance, but for many growing up in Taiwan up until the late 1980's, not a word was spoken as it was forbidden to be taught. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/228_Incident#Legacy) I first learned about it in the 80's in furtive whispers in the backroom of a music shop, as one might have been arrested if found speaking about this. From 1949 to 1987, Taiwan's government maintained martial law, banned opposition political parties and controlled all press and media and public expression - much like China does today (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6294902.stm). And here we are 20 years later, Taiwan has a vibrant democracy. The current Taiwan president Chen Shui-bian was defense lawyer for political dissidents in the 80's. Chen Shui-bian's wife is confined to a wheelchair today because she was crippled at an opposition political rally in 1985 when a van "accidentally" ran over her -- twice. He and his wife were seen as Chinese democracy's hero and heroine when Chen was first elected. However, the "purity" of those opposition days have been marred by a recent corruption scandal when his wife was charged with embezzlement (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chen_Shui-bian). The point of all this is, once economic conditions are stable, China, like Taiwan before it, will most likely liberalize political expression. (And we can look forward to ordinary sordid corrupt money-driven democratic politics in China, just like everywhere else!).
Is this a sad state or WHAT? It is true..we (the us of a) can no longer "pretend" to be morally righteous. Bushco blew that. I still cannot figure out how china got the olympics..and challenge those athletes to boycott..yes..costing them much in post Olympic payola..but my GAWD!...
We "boycotted" stupidly..the Moscow Olympics because the Soviet Union invaded their NEIGHBOR Afghanistan...(we should have let them have it!)....so..what makes China's oppression any different?
Oh yeah..we didn't owe Russia money...
Defend the rights of the Tibetans? Why what would WalMart do if we attacked our "pal" China? Let's see...money...human rights....money....human rights....ok...let's go with the dough. Isn't it nice to say one thing and do another, make's you proud.
I agree, except I take issue with this statement: "Wright's assessment of American foreign policy as somehow justifying the 9/11 attacks comes across as profoundly insensitive"
I haven't heard all of Wright's quotes but nothing that I have heard comes close to "justifying" 9/11. There is a big difference between explaining the reason for something and justifying something. In regard to 9/11 the reasons for it should actually be pretty non-controversial (assuming that bin Laden was really behind it). Bin Laden himself has stated several times that the reasons he wants to attack America are the presence of US troops on sacred muslim lands (Saudi Arabia -- since removed after the Iraq invasion), the suffering imposed on muslim people by the US (e.g., the American embargo enforced after the first Gulf war), and the US support for Israel's exploitation of Palestinians. Pointing out that these are the reasons for 9/11 doesn't mean that one agrees that attacking innocent civilians was the proper response.
Actually, one of the speeches most certainly met the "somehow justifying" test. I think the line you quoted was quite a tame characterization of what I heard Wright say.
Boycott the Olympics.
We launched Gulf War UNO for less.
"We Sell For Less! Always!"
I wonder how many times the two words "bush" and "moral" have been paired together in the last 7.3 years? I wonder how many times they have been paired negatively as in bush has no morals, no moral high ground, is immoral, etc.? If I had a dollar for every instance, I would be sweating the tanking stock markets right now.
HuffPost's Pick
The U.S' hands have been tied for decades.
Darfur. Rwanda. Bosnia, for starters.
Oh, I forgot. Nazi Germany.
So true! We need to get rid of the current administration so we can reclaim the moral high ground. That is what the USA always has prided itself on being and we have seriously crippled our image by letting our morals go to filth. Now we cannot even ban the Olympic games without looking like hypocrites! Screw you, President Bush! You and your ilk have equated us with China! It's both depressing and pathetic.
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