Honorable Prime Minister Stephen Harper,
As a Canadian citizen and PC supporter with Chinese ethnic origin, I have appreciated the grassroots-bonds, openness, democratic values, and persistent patriotism in many of the PC programs. Among many examples, you strong stands in proclaiming Canada’s Northern Pole sovereignty, and your excellent solution of the lingering ‘Chinese Head Tax’ issues – which the Liberals chose not to solve in their long reign of government – are convincing indicators of your leadership and integrity. I am truly proud of your and continue to cheer for every progress Canada has yet to gain under PC.
I came to this great country in the fall of 1987 to study for a graduate degree at Carleton University. After the notorious June 4th Tiananmen Square incident of 1989, I joined most fellow Chinese students in Canada who decided to stay on in protest of the brutal massacre of the peaceful students wanting to change the political system in China. In fact, the largest peaceful protesting rally and parade against the Chinese government that ever took place in Ottawa by over 3,000 people, mostly Chinese students from all over Canada, was planned and organized by 6 -7 Chinese students who met at my rented apartment near Summerset. This unforgettable political event became a turning point in my personal life. I later moved to Toronto area for further studies and employment and became a proud Canadian citizen. From 1998 to 2007, I worked as a manager for a CIDA environment project in China, promoting valuable Canadian development concepts and environment solutions to millions of Chinese SME managers and migrant workers. I spent many years of the prime time of my life helping the locals seeking sustainable development by applying Canadian environment technology and promoting the enhancement of cooperation between the Canadian and Chinese industries.
As a true believer of the fundamental Canadian values such as the human rights, freedom of speech and equality, I have maintained a strong interest and anxiety in following at a close range, the endeavors of the Chinese people towards a more modern, open and hopefully democratic country. However, I become deeply concerned with the most recent direction of the general Chinese public’s sentiment of nationalism and anger towards the western media, due to the apparent biases and untruthful reporting for the Tibet conflict in China. I am also aware of the common dissatisfaction towards your government’s Tibet policy by the majority of the Canadians with Chinese origin.
The recent chaos on the unrest in Tibet indicated that, the mainstream media in the west, Canada included, have NOT really grasped the complexity and essence of the Tibet issue. The rarely happened ‘errors’ or deliberate fabricating approach to insert biases in TV and newspaper reporting would only worsen the misunderstanding of many young generation Chinese towards the fairness of western media. That, regrettably, does not help to find a feasible solution to the Tibet issue any time sooner.
I would like to share with you my following thoughts regarding some typical viewpoints in the rationale of Tibet issue that warrant further discussion.
Premise 1: The definitions of ‘China’ and ‘Chinese’ in the media coverage of Tibet issue only implies to the category of ‘Han’ ethnic people. This is a confusing use of definitions. For decades, the contradictory notions of these two terms have been noticeable in the west. It is clear that the media had little doubt on the national heritage and successions of Qing Dynasty (Manchu ethnic rulers as portrayed in the movie ‘Last Emperor’), Yuan Dynasty (Mongolian rulers), and the Nationalist Party (KMT under Jiang Kai-shek, who fled to Taiwan Island in 1949) in China’s history. Yet I found that many news agencies have not actually perceived the current Beijing government as the legitimate representative of all ethnic groups other than Han people. In the eyes of many western reporters, and indeed your government, the word ‘Chinese’ has become the equivalent of ‘Han’ ethnic group. This definition is very wrong.
Historically, the ethnic makeup of the Chinese nation was not a simple formation traced back only to one homogeneous racial group. For over five thousand years, numerous ethnic tribes and warrior states clashed, intermingled, and ruled by the merging emperors of various Dynasties. Even the generally categorized ethnic group of ‘Han’, now with the highest percentage in China’s demography, had been a complicated mixture of many cultures with different racial backgrounds. The recent scientific research proved that the genes of ‘Han’ people are not from a single dominating resource. After the Han writing system originated from the central China was adopted historically as the official written language(s), the discrepancy in oral languages between today’s Shanghai region and Guangdong (Canton) is still much bigger than that of French and Spanish. Also in China’s history, the ancient Emperors were not from only one single ethnical group. In 13th century, the Mongolian rulers of Yuan Dynasty (1271 - 1368) expanded its vast territories much bigger than China today. Since this period, the Central government has officially exerted sovereignty in Tibet, which already had close connection with the earlier Tang Dynasty (618 -907) emperors. In the following periods of Ming Dynasty (1368 -1644) under the Han ethnic rulers, the Qing Dynasty (1644 - 1911) under the Manchu Emperors and the Kuomintang government (KMT, or the Republic of China, 1911-1949), Tibet always remained a part of the country along side with the Muslims (Hui and Uygur ethnic groups), Mongolians, and many other ethnic groups. According to the historic records in the Qing Dynasty archives, even the term ‘Dalai Lama’ was in fact an entitlement given by the Qing Emperor who always had governors stationed in Tibet as well as in other provinces and territories. Before the Chinese Communist Party took over the whole country in 1949, the Capitalist government of KMT also maintained continued administrative and military rule of the country, including Xingjiang, Tibet and Mongolia (both the current Republic of Mongolia and the Inner Mongolia in China). In terms of the international law and UN resolutions since its foundation, the international community has always recognized Tibet as an integral part of this sovereign country.
Therefore, China’s historical heritage and creation have been evident that, by definition, ‘Chinese’ certainly should include all ethnic groups, large or small, who now live in China. Referring the words of ‘Chinese’ and ‘China’ merely to mean the ‘Han’ ethnic group is incorrect and lacking rudimentary knowledge of the country’s history, to say the least.
Premise 2: Tibet has been in existence independently for many years in history, and has its own culture and religion; therefore, it should be a separate country.
Some argue that Tibetan upper class rulers had tried to seek independence; they even openly claimed so when the last emperor of Qing Dynasty collapsed. Such a view is also not correct. After China’s domestic revolution broke out in 1911, nearly 20 regions and provinces declared to be independent from the Emperor or his short-lived successors. However, none of them, including Tibet, had gained international recognition. Thus, such an argument only makes reluctant reference by singling out events without due respect to the true historic reality. According to this logic, the legitimacy of many current sovereign countries would then lose their grounds for existence as well.
We all know even Dalai Lama admits that Buddhism first came to central China when Han ethnic people adopted the religion from India, later the religion spread to Tibet. Like the other above-mentioned major ethnic groups in China, Tibet has a distinct culture. Nevertheless, the existence of multiculturalism has always been evident in the contemporary and modern Chinese history. Anyone who travels to China will easily sense the diversity and validity of different religions and multiple cultures, in particular, the currently dominating influence of Buddhism in all inland provinces. By officially identifying 56 main ‘ethnic groups’ in China in the 1950s, the Chinese Communist government in fact had to recognize the basis of PRC as multicultural and of different ethnicity. It is true there have been continued political problems and conflicts between the Han people and the so-called ‘Ethnic Minorities’. China’s future really depends on a harmonious relationship and mutual growth among all ethnic groups. This challenging situation does not lead to a legitimate justification to segregate a sovereign country. We who live in Canada are very familiar with the concept of multiculturalism and ethnicity, aren’t we? If, in the eyes of the Tibet separatists and their supporters, any ethnic group with a distinct culture or religion should become an independent sovereign state, then the number of countries in the world will have to be increased from over 200 to more than 2,000.
I am always a firm supporter for maintaining the Tibetan culture as well as all distinct cultures elsewhere. In current China, the biggest threat to the native cultures, i.e. that of Mongolians, Muslim, Manchu and Han, are not mainly from the East. While traveling to the streets in Tibet and many other ethnic cities these days, the tourists hardly notice the traditional Han style buildings of Han culture. Rather, the ubiquitous western influence in architecture and commerce represented by the American culture is obvious. I do not see the substantial differences between the challenges confronting the Tibetan culture and many other native cultures in China where the needs for conservation of local cultures are very imperative. As the current government leads the country into a new path, China’s policy-makers have to address a social phenomenon of the survival of the traditional cultural heritages. At a time of materialism in a market economy, the lure of economic growth may easily undermine the sustainability of the local cultures. In fact, any type of governments in today’s world should make prominent efforts in finding solutions to meet the cultural challenges, adopting either the Canadian ‘Mosaic’ approach or the U.S. ‘Mincing machine’ concept. In my view, the answer to the protection of Tibetan culture lies in the encouragement of further political reforms in China. We should support a sustainable economic development pattern as well as a more democratic political system that fully recognizing and respecting the basis of native religions and cultures, rather than assist the political rhetoric in seeking independence of one ethnic group.
Premise 3: The Chinese government invaded Tibet, persecuted the Tibetan people, and violated their human rights, so we should support Tibet to seek independence. This popular attitude in the west media and the Canadian Federal Government completely messed up the human rights concepts with the definition of the nation sovereignty. China has received a lot of criticism in its human rights records in the past five decades. However, we should not ignore two important factors. First, the Chinese Communist Party had long engaged in “The Proletarian Dictatorship” or “The People’s Democratic Dictatorship” in China’s modern history. It overthrew the KMT government by force. The People’s Liberation Army not only ‘invaded’ Tibet, but also ‘invaded’ Beijing, Shanghai and the whole country because of the revolution led by Mao Zedong and an outcome of many years of domestic war. Since 1949, China has experienced devastating waves of political turbulence that peaked by a 10-year ‘Cultural Revolution’ when the whole society suffered tremendously with the Han ethnic group as the largest victim. No one specific ethnical group was targeted exclusively during this unlawful and chaotic era. Under its none democratic one-party system, the Communist government has put a harsh hand on anyone who intends to overthrow the government by force or by organized ‘subversive activities’. The freedom of speech is still lagging behind many democratic countries. The violation of human rights in terms of political tolerance has caused outcries by many ordinary Chinese people, not only the Tibetan ethnic group alone.
Second, the past three decades have witnessed dramatic changes in the Chinese government’s policies of ruling the country. With impatience, disappointment, and anger regarding many Beijing’s policies, people like me also have to admit that what are happening in China is very positive. As the economic reforms have led to the endorsement of private ownership, which has already overwhelmed the marketplaces, the opening-up of the country and the shift to the rule by law through numerous newly implemented legislations resulted in abandoning many ruthless and unpopular conducts of governance. The religious freedom in the society has been restored; the continued efforts in economic strives have replaced the radical political movements; and there are now clear government priorities in support of the economically lesser developed western regions. All these sharp departures from the hard-line doctrines of communism have greatly benefited the Chinese people of all ethnical groups who now enjoy much improved freedom and standard of living. Life in Tibet is much better off nowadays than the feudalist slavery society before 1950s and the Cultural Revolution era from 1966 to 1976. It is also evident that the public in China is already openly demanding for new political reforms to ensure the mutual well being of the people. A large majority of Chinese are asking for more democratic freedom to replace the authoritarianism, and sounder legal enforcement mechanisms to cope with the widely spread corruptions under the one-party political system. As a big country and a member of the UN Standing Committee, China is now playing a more responsible and increasingly important role in the international fight against the terrorism and in maintaining world peace.
I strongly believe that the human rights values have already embedded into the Chinese peoples’ hearts. It is not a feasible approach to ‘block’ China’s historic transition by ignoring the amazing social progress, and by accusing the Chinese government as the worst enemy of human rights hence to question the country’s sovereignty over Tibet. Such extreme accusations without historic perspective would not help find the solutions of the Tibet issue.
Premise 4: The Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama in exile only asks for a peaceful solution of Tibet issue, the Beijing government is blatantly wrong not to accept his requirement for the autonomous administration instead of independence. The polarized views concerning the intention and role of the Lama in the Tibetan riots have always been a contrast between the west and China. Whereas the mainstream media in the west constantly believes that the Dalai Lama’s reiterated position in seeking an autonomous status of Tibet is reasonable and peaceful, the Chinese government has frequently accused him as the mastermind behind all violent riots and separatist unrests.
Upon coming to Canada, many Chinese students and immigrants wondered why, after the Maoist era, Beijing government and the Lama still could not reach any consensus to end the unrest peacefully. Many people like me have a lot of respect to this Nobel Peace Price winner and a religious spiritual leader. We have paid serious attention to the Dalai Lama’s t public speeches and positions on the Tibet issue. In fact, most of his opinions translated into the ‘Han’ Chinese language are easily accessible in many Chinese Internet media websites. Until recently, we always hoped that he could and would play a positive role in bringing peace and solution to this lingering problem. My expectations become fading away and my mind often confused after March 2008.
Having analyzed the Dalai Lama’s positions, many Chinese immigrants have two major concerns. First, is he a real peacemaker or not? In a poignant public address, the Dalai Lama repeatedly uttered “no independence, no independence, and no independence” and claiming that he supported the Beijing Olympic Games. He was also found applying a long strategy to ‘occupy the monasteries as bases’ in combating with the Chinese authorities through well organized ‘protests’ that increasingly started with violence instead of peace. The Dalai Lama openly asked his followers and supporters to use the ‘last opportunity’ before the Games to start a “Cooperated Tibet People’s Uprising”. In the Chinese term, ‘uprising’ traditionally meant to overthrow a government by force. After the most recent violent and coordinated Tibetan riots, the Dalai Lama has sent the world even more confused messages. This weekend all popular Chinese websites reported a same topic about the Dalai Lama’s own dilemma: after he denounced the violence by the monks and threatened to resign two weeks ago, he now used one color photo to accuse the Chinese government sending soldiers who disguised as monks and started the tragic riots. Soon this picture was proved untrue. People found this photo was actually taken in 2001 when a Hollywood movie crew from Hong Kong was shooting a scene in China, a small group of invited armed police holding a few borrowed red monk ropes were lining up for the camera. Thus, this accusation is unfounded. In the eyes of Han Chinese and ordinary Tibetan people, one of his allegations of “the planned genocide of Tibetan race and destruction of Buddhist religion by the communist government” was never substantiated. On the contrary, the latest news disclosed that his caucus of exile government (including his brother) had smuggled lethal weapons and tons of ammunition into some Tibetan monasteries. If this news is only a Chinese government’s propaganda, then the well-planned, violent attacks to the overseas Chinese embassies and the scenes of disrupting the Olympics torch relay all viewed as coordinated sabotage activities that added common distrust for the Dalai Lama’s true intention.
Second, many scholars of Chinese ethnic origin have carefully studied the Lama’s proposal for the “high degree autonomous administration of Tibet instead of independence”. A shocking finding was, the ‘Autonomous Tibet’ that Dalai Lama referred to actually includes not only the Tibet area where the Dalai regime traditionally had jurisdiction under the central government’s administration before 1950, but also other vast areas of 4 provinces wherever and whenever the Tibetan ethnic group had set foot on in history. Of this proposal, which demands more than 25% of current territory in China, the Dalai Lama even asked that the residents should be only Tibetans. This is a very unrealistic land claim because even in the weak reign of Qing Dynasty the Lama’s power was never that far reaching.
Under these circumstances, the Dalai Lama and his supporters infuriated an overwhelming number of Chinese populations. Even many previously sympathetic Chinese immigrants become very suspicious of the Dalai Lama’s true attempt. A common view is that the Chinese government cannot and would not reconcile the Tibet issue under such a framework. Some American scholars of Chinese origin quickly pointed out the fact that over 70% of the Dalai Lama’s Caucus members of the exile government are the Tibetan descendants whose ancestors were born outside of Tibet thus they may have given the Lama profound pressure for this unapproachable request, and this may not be his real attempt. Nevertheless, it is the first time in history that more and more people start to doubt the Dalai Lama’s Saintly image as a peacemaker. While the Beijing government starts to openly link him with all available evidence for the recent violent ‘uprising’ in Tibet amid China’s preparation for the Olympics, the Lama is forced to be on the defense. In his latest interview by an overseas Chinese reporter, he admitted that the current violence had caused dangerous antagonism between the Tibetan and the Han people, which was not his attention. However, this time, the majority of Chinese is supporting Beijing’s denouncement. This has never happened in the past three decades.
Premise 5: The Canadians with Chinese ethnic background who support the Chinese government’s stand in the recent unrest of Tibet are either the sympathizers of communism or being brain washed by the Chinese government. The Tibet exile leaders in Toronto stated this view and some media commentators hinted in the similar tone publicly. They forgot one import fact: over 99 % of the immigrants from China are traditionally either anti-communism or people who hate the Chinese government’s none-democratic ruling. They ‘voted with feet’ to embrace a democratic life in Canada. They have become an important force of criticism to the Chinese government through their linkage with their birthplaces. Many thousands of these people have helped to penetrate the Chinese government’s blockade of the western media’s criticism about China via Internet. With insightful understanding of both cultures and obvious advantage in both Chinese and foreign languages, these immigrants are much better informed about the Chinese events than most of the western journalists. However, their attitude towards the Chinese government’s handling of the Tibet problem changed dramatically amid the most recent ‘media frenzy’ on the Tibet violence. The reason is simple: they can no longer tolerate the continued, irresponsible, and openly untruthful reporting on the Tibet unrest that failed the democratic news principles.
Even though they are very critical of the CNN and other media organizations, this facts-based change in attitude would not prevent them from their continued monitoring and criticism of the Chinese government human rights records. Any generalized and stereotyping of the people with Chinese ethnic origin will only contribute to more public misunderstandings that may lead to racial tensions. We should have ‘zero intolerance’ toward this absurd accusation.
Premise 6: The recent media coverage reflects the western ‘value’ and moral support to Tibet. It is clear that the Chinese government has been under great pressure since March 15, 2008 when Tibetan unrest started. While denying the ‘crackdown’ of the riots by excessive force, the Chinese government started to evacuate the foreign reporters from the rioting regions, and blocked some western websites such as the YouTube and BBC web. Under this situation, not only the western media took side with the Dalai Lama’s exile government, many young Chinese people became very skeptical of the government’s explanations. However, this seemingly perfect opportunity for pressing a more open media environment in China had a sharp turn quickly. Whereas some remaining western tourists and reporters sent back first hand news to disclose the well-organized riots with brutal mobs that killed 20 innocent people, most of the already opinionated western media recourses refused to change their stand. Despite of the newly available resources indicating that this time the government was not cracking down the ‘peaceful demonstrators by force first’, the mainstream media chose to emphasize their traditional view of the Chinese government’s ‘brutality’ with or without substantiated facts. This consequence led to the worst fabricating and twisting in news report in the media history that I know of.
After checking out various web resources and by watching CNN, BBC reporting alive, I was shocked to see so many obvious ‘errors’ in reporting and commentating were not able to match the genuine facts at all. Not only the scenes from the India and Nepal were ‘stolen’ to repeatedly illustrate the ‘Chinese violent force against the monks’, often a tele-interviewed victim woman speaking in mandarin to recall how the mobs brutally killed civilians without pre-warning was captioned in English as “ the Chinese government pepper-spray at my face”. CNN insisted that their cutting and erasing the picture of monks attacking the police vehicle with rocks was “due to the size limit”. Nevertheless, I watched, and clearly heard the CNN commentators changed the Chinese government’s report of “18 innocent people were killed by the rioters” as “the Chinese government said only fewer than 20 people are killed by the police”. I was speechless. Some young Chinese students found out more pictures taken by the locals when the police were rescuing the victims and carrying the wounded into the ambulance had been shamelessly distorted as the “Chinese army arresting the peaceful Tibetan monks”. The news reports inundated with this kind of ‘special treatment’ have largely sent a wrong and unbalanced image of the event to millions of western viewers. Surprisingly, almost none of the media stations even bothered to interview the returned tourists or use their video clipping and pictures, let alone the bloody views of the violence later provided by the Chinese side.
Ironically, one of the most popular Chinese political jokes in 2006 was “you are so CCTV”, meaning, the central TV station of China has been very stubborn and arrogant. Right now the most quoted saying in China becomes “You cannot behave too CNN”, this time it means that one should not drop moral standards to forge facts shamelessly. Apparently, this situation largely alleviated the Chinese government’s pressure. What it did then was to remove the block of YouTube and BBC websites to let millions of the viewers be their own judge. As time goes by, more and more ordinary Chinese aware of the western reporting chaos are very irritated and started to support the government by denouncing the western hostility and ‘anti-China propaganda’. In the information age, the news resource is indeed a double-edged sward; only the correct use of it will serve the purpose. Or it is the other way around. What a pathetic scenario, isn’t it? Now, the nationalism in China is on the rise in a way I have not seen in the past 20 years.
Many Chinese immigrants are starting to take a second look at the fairness and legitimacy of the western media, with CNN at the focal point. Some of my friends conclude that we all know the CCTV in China is infamous in cutting out the negative scenes such as the pro-Dalai Lama protests during the Chinese leader’s visits to the foreign countries, but at least it does not have the guts to fabricate false news. Never could we have imagined that the worse things happen with the media in the democratic countries. The worst thing for me is that most of the media professionals here still feel nothing is wrong. This ‘value-added’ reporting style however, could only hurt the principles of our democratic society and tarnish the good faith we have in media. Justice was not done as we all hoped. I think we should all learn a lesson this time.
Under this circumstance, I would like to plea to you, Prime Minister, Canada as an important democratic country that has a traditional close tie with and influence in China should avoid any vague and politically shortsighted approach on the Tibet problems. Rather than a sentimental disengagement with China, we need more understanding of the roots of this issue and a better assessment in our foreign policy. Along with the trade considerations, I hope the Canadian government will continue to keep high-level contacts with Beijing, including the 2008 Olympic opportunity. Some of the proven effective activities, such as CIDA’s human rights and environment projects should be continued. Only by so doing, Canada will play a constructive and powerful role in China’s transition.
Sincerely,
John Hong ZHANG
Toronto
fithong2007@yahoo.ca
As a Canadian citizen and PC supporter with Chinese ethnic origin, I have appreciated the grassroots-bonds, openness, democratic values, and persistent patriotism in many of the PC programs. Among many examples, you strong stands in proclaiming Canada’s Northern Pole sovereignty, and your excellent solution of the lingering ‘Chinese Head Tax’ issues – which the Liberals chose not to solve in their long reign of government – are convincing indicators of your leadership and integrity. I am truly proud of your and continue to cheer for every progress Canada has yet to gain under PC.
I came to this great country in the fall of 1987 to study for a graduate degree at Carleton University. After the notorious June 4th Tiananmen Square incident of 1989, I joined most fellow Chinese students in Canada who decided to stay on in protest of the brutal massacre of the peaceful students wanting to change the political system in China. In fact, the largest peaceful protesting rally and parade against the Chinese government that ever took place in Ottawa by over 3,000 people, mostly Chinese students from all over Canada, was planned and organized by 6 -7 Chinese students who met at my rented apartment near Summerset. This unforgettable political event became a turning point in my personal life. I later moved to Toronto area for further studies and employment and became a proud Canadian citizen. From 1998 to 2007, I worked as a manager for a CIDA environment project in China, promoting valuable Canadian development concepts and environment solutions to millions of Chinese SME managers and migrant workers. I spent many years of the prime time of my life helping the locals seeking sustainable development by applying Canadian environment technology and promoting the enhancement of cooperation between the Canadian and Chinese industries.
As a true believer of the fundamental Canadian values such as the human rights, freedom of speech and equality, I have maintained a strong interest and anxiety in following at a close range, the endeavors of the Chinese people towards a more modern, open and hopefully democratic country. However, I become deeply concerned with the most recent direction of the general Chinese public’s sentiment of nationalism and anger towards the western media, due to the apparent biases and untruthful reporting for the Tibet conflict in China. I am also aware of the common dissatisfaction towards your government’s Tibet policy by the majority of the Canadians with Chinese origin.
The recent chaos on the unrest in Tibet indicated that, the mainstream media in the west, Canada included, have NOT really grasped the complexity and essence of the Tibet issue. The rarely happened ‘errors’ or deliberate fabricating approach to insert biases in TV and newspaper reporting would only worsen the misunderstanding of many young generation Chinese towards the fairness of western media. That, regrettably, does not help to find a feasible solution to the Tibet issue any time sooner.
I would like to share with you my following thoughts regarding some typical viewpoints in the rationale of Tibet issue that warrant further discussion.
Premise 1: The definitions of ‘China’ and ‘Chinese’ in the media coverage of Tibet issue only implies to the category of ‘Han’ ethnic people. This is a confusing use of definitions. For decades, the contradictory notions of these two terms have been noticeable in the west. It is clear that the media had little doubt on the national heritage and successions of Qing Dynasty (Manchu ethnic rulers as portrayed in the movie ‘Last Emperor’), Yuan Dynasty (Mongolian rulers), and the Nationalist Party (KMT under Jiang Kai-shek, who fled to Taiwan Island in 1949) in China’s history. Yet I found that many news agencies have not actually perceived the current Beijing government as the legitimate representative of all ethnic groups other than Han people. In the eyes of many western reporters, and indeed your government, the word ‘Chinese’ has become the equivalent of ‘Han’ ethnic group. This definition is very wrong.
Historically, the ethnic makeup of the Chinese nation was not a simple formation traced back only to one homogeneous racial group. For over five thousand years, numerous ethnic tribes and warrior states clashed, intermingled, and ruled by the merging emperors of various Dynasties. Even the generally categorized ethnic group of ‘Han’, now with the highest percentage in China’s demography, had been a complicated mixture of many cultures with different racial backgrounds. The recent scientific research proved that the genes of ‘Han’ people are not from a single dominating resource. After the Han writing system originated from the central China was adopted historically as the official written language(s), the discrepancy in oral languages between today’s Shanghai region and Guangdong (Canton) is still much bigger than that of French and Spanish. Also in China’s history, the ancient Emperors were not from only one single ethnical group. In 13th century, the Mongolian rulers of Yuan Dynasty (1271 - 1368) expanded its vast territories much bigger than China today. Since this period, the Central government has officially exerted sovereignty in Tibet, which already had close connection with the earlier Tang Dynasty (618 -907) emperors. In the following periods of Ming Dynasty (1368 -1644) under the Han ethnic rulers, the Qing Dynasty (1644 - 1911) under the Manchu Emperors and the Kuomintang government (KMT, or the Republic of China, 1911-1949), Tibet always remained a part of the country along side with the Muslims (Hui and Uygur ethnic groups), Mongolians, and many other ethnic groups. According to the historic records in the Qing Dynasty archives, even the term ‘Dalai Lama’ was in fact an entitlement given by the Qing Emperor who always had governors stationed in Tibet as well as in other provinces and territories. Before the Chinese Communist Party took over the whole country in 1949, the Capitalist government of KMT also maintained continued administrative and military rule of the country, including Xingjiang, Tibet and Mongolia (both the current Republic of Mongolia and the Inner Mongolia in China). In terms of the international law and UN resolutions since its foundation, the international community has always recognized Tibet as an integral part of this sovereign country.
Therefore, China’s historical heritage and creation have been evident that, by definition, ‘Chinese’ certainly should include all ethnic groups, large or small, who now live in China. Referring the words of ‘Chinese’ and ‘China’ merely to mean the ‘Han’ ethnic group is incorrect and lacking rudimentary knowledge of the country’s history, to say the least.
Premise 2: Tibet has been in existence independently for many years in history, and has its own culture and religion; therefore, it should be a separate country.
Some argue that Tibetan upper class rulers had tried to seek independence; they even openly claimed so when the last emperor of Qing Dynasty collapsed. Such a view is also not correct. After China’s domestic revolution broke out in 1911, nearly 20 regions and provinces declared to be independent from the Emperor or his short-lived successors. However, none of them, including Tibet, had gained international recognition. Thus, such an argument only makes reluctant reference by singling out events without due respect to the true historic reality. According to this logic, the legitimacy of many current sovereign countries would then lose their grounds for existence as well.
We all know even Dalai Lama admits that Buddhism first came to central China when Han ethnic people adopted the religion from India, later the religion spread to Tibet. Like the other above-mentioned major ethnic groups in China, Tibet has a distinct culture. Nevertheless, the existence of multiculturalism has always been evident in the contemporary and modern Chinese history. Anyone who travels to China will easily sense the diversity and validity of different religions and multiple cultures, in particular, the currently dominating influence of Buddhism in all inland provinces. By officially identifying 56 main ‘ethnic groups’ in China in the 1950s, the Chinese Communist government in fact had to recognize the basis of PRC as multicultural and of different ethnicity. It is true there have been continued political problems and conflicts between the Han people and the so-called ‘Ethnic Minorities’. China’s future really depends on a harmonious relationship and mutual growth among all ethnic groups. This challenging situation does not lead to a legitimate justification to segregate a sovereign country. We who live in Canada are very familiar with the concept of multiculturalism and ethnicity, aren’t we? If, in the eyes of the Tibet separatists and their supporters, any ethnic group with a distinct culture or religion should become an independent sovereign state, then the number of countries in the world will have to be increased from over 200 to more than 2,000.
I am always a firm supporter for maintaining the Tibetan culture as well as all distinct cultures elsewhere. In current China, the biggest threat to the native cultures, i.e. that of Mongolians, Muslim, Manchu and Han, are not mainly from the East. While traveling to the streets in Tibet and many other ethnic cities these days, the tourists hardly notice the traditional Han style buildings of Han culture. Rather, the ubiquitous western influence in architecture and commerce represented by the American culture is obvious. I do not see the substantial differences between the challenges confronting the Tibetan culture and many other native cultures in China where the needs for conservation of local cultures are very imperative. As the current government leads the country into a new path, China’s policy-makers have to address a social phenomenon of the survival of the traditional cultural heritages. At a time of materialism in a market economy, the lure of economic growth may easily undermine the sustainability of the local cultures. In fact, any type of governments in today’s world should make prominent efforts in finding solutions to meet the cultural challenges, adopting either the Canadian ‘Mosaic’ approach or the U.S. ‘Mincing machine’ concept. In my view, the answer to the protection of Tibetan culture lies in the encouragement of further political reforms in China. We should support a sustainable economic development pattern as well as a more democratic political system that fully recognizing and respecting the basis of native religions and cultures, rather than assist the political rhetoric in seeking independence of one ethnic group.
Premise 3: The Chinese government invaded Tibet, persecuted the Tibetan people, and violated their human rights, so we should support Tibet to seek independence. This popular attitude in the west media and the Canadian Federal Government completely messed up the human rights concepts with the definition of the nation sovereignty. China has received a lot of criticism in its human rights records in the past five decades. However, we should not ignore two important factors. First, the Chinese Communist Party had long engaged in “The Proletarian Dictatorship” or “The People’s Democratic Dictatorship” in China’s modern history. It overthrew the KMT government by force. The People’s Liberation Army not only ‘invaded’ Tibet, but also ‘invaded’ Beijing, Shanghai and the whole country because of the revolution led by Mao Zedong and an outcome of many years of domestic war. Since 1949, China has experienced devastating waves of political turbulence that peaked by a 10-year ‘Cultural Revolution’ when the whole society suffered tremendously with the Han ethnic group as the largest victim. No one specific ethnical group was targeted exclusively during this unlawful and chaotic era. Under its none democratic one-party system, the Communist government has put a harsh hand on anyone who intends to overthrow the government by force or by organized ‘subversive activities’. The freedom of speech is still lagging behind many democratic countries. The violation of human rights in terms of political tolerance has caused outcries by many ordinary Chinese people, not only the Tibetan ethnic group alone.
Second, the past three decades have witnessed dramatic changes in the Chinese government’s policies of ruling the country. With impatience, disappointment, and anger regarding many Beijing’s policies, people like me also have to admit that what are happening in China is very positive. As the economic reforms have led to the endorsement of private ownership, which has already overwhelmed the marketplaces, the opening-up of the country and the shift to the rule by law through numerous newly implemented legislations resulted in abandoning many ruthless and unpopular conducts of governance. The religious freedom in the society has been restored; the continued efforts in economic strives have replaced the radical political movements; and there are now clear government priorities in support of the economically lesser developed western regions. All these sharp departures from the hard-line doctrines of communism have greatly benefited the Chinese people of all ethnical groups who now enjoy much improved freedom and standard of living. Life in Tibet is much better off nowadays than the feudalist slavery society before 1950s and the Cultural Revolution era from 1966 to 1976. It is also evident that the public in China is already openly demanding for new political reforms to ensure the mutual well being of the people. A large majority of Chinese are asking for more democratic freedom to replace the authoritarianism, and sounder legal enforcement mechanisms to cope with the widely spread corruptions under the one-party political system. As a big country and a member of the UN Standing Committee, China is now playing a more responsible and increasingly important role in the international fight against the terrorism and in maintaining world peace.
I strongly believe that the human rights values have already embedded into the Chinese peoples’ hearts. It is not a feasible approach to ‘block’ China’s historic transition by ignoring the amazing social progress, and by accusing the Chinese government as the worst enemy of human rights hence to question the country’s sovereignty over Tibet. Such extreme accusations without historic perspective would not help find the solutions of the Tibet issue.
Premise 4: The Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama in exile only asks for a peaceful solution of Tibet issue, the Beijing government is blatantly wrong not to accept his requirement for the autonomous administration instead of independence. The polarized views concerning the intention and role of the Lama in the Tibetan riots have always been a contrast between the west and China. Whereas the mainstream media in the west constantly believes that the Dalai Lama’s reiterated position in seeking an autonomous status of Tibet is reasonable and peaceful, the Chinese government has frequently accused him as the mastermind behind all violent riots and separatist unrests.
Upon coming to Canada, many Chinese students and immigrants wondered why, after the Maoist era, Beijing government and the Lama still could not reach any consensus to end the unrest peacefully. Many people like me have a lot of respect to this Nobel Peace Price winner and a religious spiritual leader. We have paid serious attention to the Dalai Lama’s t public speeches and positions on the Tibet issue. In fact, most of his opinions translated into the ‘Han’ Chinese language are easily accessible in many Chinese Internet media websites. Until recently, we always hoped that he could and would play a positive role in bringing peace and solution to this lingering problem. My expectations become fading away and my mind often confused after March 2008.
Having analyzed the Dalai Lama’s positions, many Chinese immigrants have two major concerns. First, is he a real peacemaker or not? In a poignant public address, the Dalai Lama repeatedly uttered “no independence, no independence, and no independence” and claiming that he supported the Beijing Olympic Games. He was also found applying a long strategy to ‘occupy the monasteries as bases’ in combating with the Chinese authorities through well organized ‘protests’ that increasingly started with violence instead of peace. The Dalai Lama openly asked his followers and supporters to use the ‘last opportunity’ before the Games to start a “Cooperated Tibet People’s Uprising”. In the Chinese term, ‘uprising’ traditionally meant to overthrow a government by force. After the most recent violent and coordinated Tibetan riots, the Dalai Lama has sent the world even more confused messages. This weekend all popular Chinese websites reported a same topic about the Dalai Lama’s own dilemma: after he denounced the violence by the monks and threatened to resign two weeks ago, he now used one color photo to accuse the Chinese government sending soldiers who disguised as monks and started the tragic riots. Soon this picture was proved untrue. People found this photo was actually taken in 2001 when a Hollywood movie crew from Hong Kong was shooting a scene in China, a small group of invited armed police holding a few borrowed red monk ropes were lining up for the camera. Thus, this accusation is unfounded. In the eyes of Han Chinese and ordinary Tibetan people, one of his allegations of “the planned genocide of Tibetan race and destruction of Buddhist religion by the communist government” was never substantiated. On the contrary, the latest news disclosed that his caucus of exile government (including his brother) had smuggled lethal weapons and tons of ammunition into some Tibetan monasteries. If this news is only a Chinese government’s propaganda, then the well-planned, violent attacks to the overseas Chinese embassies and the scenes of disrupting the Olympics torch relay all viewed as coordinated sabotage activities that added common distrust for the Dalai Lama’s true intention.
Second, many scholars of Chinese ethnic origin have carefully studied the Lama’s proposal for the “high degree autonomous administration of Tibet instead of independence”. A shocking finding was, the ‘Autonomous Tibet’ that Dalai Lama referred to actually includes not only the Tibet area where the Dalai regime traditionally had jurisdiction under the central government’s administration before 1950, but also other vast areas of 4 provinces wherever and whenever the Tibetan ethnic group had set foot on in history. Of this proposal, which demands more than 25% of current territory in China, the Dalai Lama even asked that the residents should be only Tibetans. This is a very unrealistic land claim because even in the weak reign of Qing Dynasty the Lama’s power was never that far reaching.
Under these circumstances, the Dalai Lama and his supporters infuriated an overwhelming number of Chinese populations. Even many previously sympathetic Chinese immigrants become very suspicious of the Dalai Lama’s true attempt. A common view is that the Chinese government cannot and would not reconcile the Tibet issue under such a framework. Some American scholars of Chinese origin quickly pointed out the fact that over 70% of the Dalai Lama’s Caucus members of the exile government are the Tibetan descendants whose ancestors were born outside of Tibet thus they may have given the Lama profound pressure for this unapproachable request, and this may not be his real attempt. Nevertheless, it is the first time in history that more and more people start to doubt the Dalai Lama’s Saintly image as a peacemaker. While the Beijing government starts to openly link him with all available evidence for the recent violent ‘uprising’ in Tibet amid China’s preparation for the Olympics, the Lama is forced to be on the defense. In his latest interview by an overseas Chinese reporter, he admitted that the current violence had caused dangerous antagonism between the Tibetan and the Han people, which was not his attention. However, this time, the majority of Chinese is supporting Beijing’s denouncement. This has never happened in the past three decades.
Premise 5: The Canadians with Chinese ethnic background who support the Chinese government’s stand in the recent unrest of Tibet are either the sympathizers of communism or being brain washed by the Chinese government. The Tibet exile leaders in Toronto stated this view and some media commentators hinted in the similar tone publicly. They forgot one import fact: over 99 % of the immigrants from China are traditionally either anti-communism or people who hate the Chinese government’s none-democratic ruling. They ‘voted with feet’ to embrace a democratic life in Canada. They have become an important force of criticism to the Chinese government through their linkage with their birthplaces. Many thousands of these people have helped to penetrate the Chinese government’s blockade of the western media’s criticism about China via Internet. With insightful understanding of both cultures and obvious advantage in both Chinese and foreign languages, these immigrants are much better informed about the Chinese events than most of the western journalists. However, their attitude towards the Chinese government’s handling of the Tibet problem changed dramatically amid the most recent ‘media frenzy’ on the Tibet violence. The reason is simple: they can no longer tolerate the continued, irresponsible, and openly untruthful reporting on the Tibet unrest that failed the democratic news principles.
Even though they are very critical of the CNN and other media organizations, this facts-based change in attitude would not prevent them from their continued monitoring and criticism of the Chinese government human rights records. Any generalized and stereotyping of the people with Chinese ethnic origin will only contribute to more public misunderstandings that may lead to racial tensions. We should have ‘zero intolerance’ toward this absurd accusation.
Premise 6: The recent media coverage reflects the western ‘value’ and moral support to Tibet. It is clear that the Chinese government has been under great pressure since March 15, 2008 when Tibetan unrest started. While denying the ‘crackdown’ of the riots by excessive force, the Chinese government started to evacuate the foreign reporters from the rioting regions, and blocked some western websites such as the YouTube and BBC web. Under this situation, not only the western media took side with the Dalai Lama’s exile government, many young Chinese people became very skeptical of the government’s explanations. However, this seemingly perfect opportunity for pressing a more open media environment in China had a sharp turn quickly. Whereas some remaining western tourists and reporters sent back first hand news to disclose the well-organized riots with brutal mobs that killed 20 innocent people, most of the already opinionated western media recourses refused to change their stand. Despite of the newly available resources indicating that this time the government was not cracking down the ‘peaceful demonstrators by force first’, the mainstream media chose to emphasize their traditional view of the Chinese government’s ‘brutality’ with or without substantiated facts. This consequence led to the worst fabricating and twisting in news report in the media history that I know of.
After checking out various web resources and by watching CNN, BBC reporting alive, I was shocked to see so many obvious ‘errors’ in reporting and commentating were not able to match the genuine facts at all. Not only the scenes from the India and Nepal were ‘stolen’ to repeatedly illustrate the ‘Chinese violent force against the monks’, often a tele-interviewed victim woman speaking in mandarin to recall how the mobs brutally killed civilians without pre-warning was captioned in English as “ the Chinese government pepper-spray at my face”. CNN insisted that their cutting and erasing the picture of monks attacking the police vehicle with rocks was “due to the size limit”. Nevertheless, I watched, and clearly heard the CNN commentators changed the Chinese government’s report of “18 innocent people were killed by the rioters” as “the Chinese government said only fewer than 20 people are killed by the police”. I was speechless. Some young Chinese students found out more pictures taken by the locals when the police were rescuing the victims and carrying the wounded into the ambulance had been shamelessly distorted as the “Chinese army arresting the peaceful Tibetan monks”. The news reports inundated with this kind of ‘special treatment’ have largely sent a wrong and unbalanced image of the event to millions of western viewers. Surprisingly, almost none of the media stations even bothered to interview the returned tourists or use their video clipping and pictures, let alone the bloody views of the violence later provided by the Chinese side.
Ironically, one of the most popular Chinese political jokes in 2006 was “you are so CCTV”, meaning, the central TV station of China has been very stubborn and arrogant. Right now the most quoted saying in China becomes “You cannot behave too CNN”, this time it means that one should not drop moral standards to forge facts shamelessly. Apparently, this situation largely alleviated the Chinese government’s pressure. What it did then was to remove the block of YouTube and BBC websites to let millions of the viewers be their own judge. As time goes by, more and more ordinary Chinese aware of the western reporting chaos are very irritated and started to support the government by denouncing the western hostility and ‘anti-China propaganda’. In the information age, the news resource is indeed a double-edged sward; only the correct use of it will serve the purpose. Or it is the other way around. What a pathetic scenario, isn’t it? Now, the nationalism in China is on the rise in a way I have not seen in the past 20 years.
Many Chinese immigrants are starting to take a second look at the fairness and legitimacy of the western media, with CNN at the focal point. Some of my friends conclude that we all know the CCTV in China is infamous in cutting out the negative scenes such as the pro-Dalai Lama protests during the Chinese leader’s visits to the foreign countries, but at least it does not have the guts to fabricate false news. Never could we have imagined that the worse things happen with the media in the democratic countries. The worst thing for me is that most of the media professionals here still feel nothing is wrong. This ‘value-added’ reporting style however, could only hurt the principles of our democratic society and tarnish the good faith we have in media. Justice was not done as we all hoped. I think we should all learn a lesson this time.
Under this circumstance, I would like to plea to you, Prime Minister, Canada as an important democratic country that has a traditional close tie with and influence in China should avoid any vague and politically shortsighted approach on the Tibet problems. Rather than a sentimental disengagement with China, we need more understanding of the roots of this issue and a better assessment in our foreign policy. Along with the trade considerations, I hope the Canadian government will continue to keep high-level contacts with Beijing, including the 2008 Olympic opportunity. Some of the proven effective activities, such as CIDA’s human rights and environment projects should be continued. Only by so doing, Canada will play a constructive and powerful role in China’s transition.
Sincerely,
John Hong ZHANG
Toronto
fithong2007@yahoo.ca
