China In Focus - Number 17

Help Make A Difference

Asia America Initiative is a 501c3 nonprofit supported solely through private contributions.
We do not receive government funding.
Your donation is
100% tax-deductible.

Contact Details

Washington DC Office
1523 16th St., NW
Washington, D.C. 20036
Telephone 202.232.7020
Fax 202.232.7023
admin@asiaamerica.org

Map of DC Office

Get directions

Metro Manila,
Philippines Office

China In Focus - Number 17
TIBET STRUGGLES UNDER BEIJING'S "PATRIOTIC EDUCATION"
March 24, 2008 | Editor Al Santoli

The Chinese government, fearing unfavorable pre-Olympic publicity, has offered a lucrative contract to Western publicity firms to launch an international support campaign for its violent occupation of Tibet. In addition, while imprisoning cyber pro-democracy dissidents, Beijing has called on Chinese cyber "netizens" -- banned from free speech in their home country -- to flood international internet news sites with pro-crackdown and anti-Tibetan postings. In an effort to convince world powers to accept their tyranny, on April 3rd, in a meeting with US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Chinese officials urged the United States to support its position on the Tibetan crisis. According to the official Xinhua news agency, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi told Paulson to ignore Tibet's exiled leader, the Dalai Lama, and respect Beijing's "truth."

In Tibet, Chinese officials have stepped up "patriotic education" campaigns, especially in monasteries, to pressure Buddhist monks and nuns to denounce the Dalai Lama and declare their loyalty to Chinese communist rule. On April 6th, Associated Press reported that the much-reviled propaganda campaigns have fueled public unrest despite the presence of thousands of Chinese security forces.

Depite media controls, stories of violent suppression leak out

On April 4th, Radio Free Asia.com and the BBC reported that Chinese soldiers fired into a crowd of several hundred monks from the Tongkor monastery in Kardze (in Chinese, Ganzi) and several hundred residents. Witnesses claimed between eight and 15 persons were killed and others are unaccounted for. Tongkor monastery, located in the eastern area of Tibet -- annexed into Sichuan province -- was unaffected by recent unrest until Chinese authorities tried to launch a "patriotic education" campaign. The campaign, ordered by the Chinese Government, was aimed at suppressing widespread Tibetan loyalty to the Dalai Lama. The Tongkor head lama, Lobsang Jamyang, was said to have told the authorities: "We cannot criticize the Dalai Lama, but I will discourage any incidents of protest here."

Jamyang also pledged to consult with the roughly 400 monks in his monastery. He called a meeting at which one monk, Yeshe Nyima, said: "We cannot criticize the Dalai Lama, even at the cost of our lives." The other monks agreed, witnesses said. When Lobsang Jamyang told this to the police officer in charge, the official replied: "We can use the challenge. Tell anyone who wants to rise up to go ahead and rise up, and we will crush them."

The police also searched the monastery, finding and destroying photos of the Dalai Lama and taking down photos of the monastery's previous head lama, Tongkor Shabdrung, the witnesses said. Police then arrested a monk named Tsultrim Tenzin, 74, and a lay person identified as Tsultrim Phuntsok, 26, witnesses said. In response, 350 local people gathered to join the monks in demanding the men's release. The crowd refused officials' orders to disperse and at 8 p.m. police opened fire, witnesses said.

A sustained and systematic attack on Tibetan culture

Since the invasion of Tibet in 1950, persistent Chinese reeducation campaigns emphasizing denunciation of the Dalai Lama and other pillars of Tibetan culture and religious beliefs have been mandatory in Tibetan monasteries and nunneries. As reported in the April 6th Washington Post, for Tibetan Buddhists, the education campaigns undermine their core beliefs and are a hated humiliation. Refusal by monks and nuns to denounce the Dalai Lama or to pledge loyalty to Chinese Communism is met with expulsion from their monasteries, imprisonment and torture.

Zhang Qingli is the Beijing-appointed Chinese communist party secretary [governor] for the Tibet Autonomous Region. He has called the Dalai Lama a "wolf in monk's robes, a devil with a human face but the heart of a beast" and dismissed the exiled leader's supporters as the "scum of Buddhism." On April 3rd, Zhang ordered not just monks but students, government workers and business people throughout Tibet to participate in patriotic education sessions and sign denunciations of the Dalai Lama.

Tsering Wangdu Shakya, a professor at the University of British Columbia, told the Washington Post, so many monks have fled in the past five decades that there are no more senior monks living in Tibet itself. That makes it nearly impossible to pass on core Buddhist teachings and provides little buffer between Chinese government officials who control the monasteries and the increasingly restive young monks attempting to study there. Those conditions, he said, are what feeds the "social instability and creates tension in Tibet."

Beijing's Olympic broken promises cast shadow over games

Members of the internal community have asked Beijing not to transport the Olympic torch through Tibet, while human rights organizations are calling for a boycott of the Olympics by democratic countries. To the contrary, Beijing has not only violated its pledge to permit more media access to international reporters. It has stepped up a pre-Olympics crackdown on its own dissident "netizens" and other peaceful human rights activists. For example, on April 1st, Chinese dissident Hu Jia, 34, was sentenced to three and a half years in prison for testifying to the European Parliament and publishing a letter linking human rights conditions in China to its hosting the Olympics.

In his September, 2007 letter, co-authored with Teng Biao, Mr. Hu Jia wrote:

"To clear space for Olympic-related construction, thousands of civilian houses have been destroyed without their former owners being properly compensated... It has been reported that over 1.25 million people have been forced to move because of Olympic construction; it was estimated that the figure would reach 1.5 million by the end of 2007. No formal resettlement scheme is in place for the over 400,000 migrants who have had their dwelling places demolished. Twenty percent of the demolished households are expected to experience poverty or extreme poverty... in Qingdao, the Olympic sailing city, hundreds of households have been demolished and many human rights activists as well as "civilians" have been imprisoned. Similar stories come from other Olympic cities such as Shenyang, Shanghai and Qinhuangdao.

"In order to establish the image of civilized cities, the government has intensified the ban against -- and detention and forced repatriation of -- petitioners, beggars and the homeless. Some of them have been kept in extended detention in so-called shelters or have even been sent directly to labor camps.

"Religious freedom is still under repression... On September 30, 2006, Chinese soldiers opened fire on 71 Tibetans who were escaping to Nepal. A 17-year- old nun died and a 20-year-old man was severely injured. Despite numerous international witnesses, the Chinese police insisted that the shooting was in self-defense. One year later, China tightened its control over Tibetan Buddhism. A September 1, 2007, regulation requires all reincarnated lamas to be approved by Chinese authorities, a requirement that flagrantly interferes with the tradition of reincarnation of living Buddhas as practiced in Tibet for thousands of years.

"Since 1999, the government has banned many religious beliefs such as Falungong and the Three Servants. Their followers have experienced extremely cruel and planned persecutions. Many died from abuse, suffered torture, brainwashing, imprisonment and labor camp internment for persisting in their faith.

"Please be aware that the Olympic Games will be held in a country where there are no elections, no freedom of religion, no independent courts, no independent trade unions; where demonstrations and strikes are prohibited; where torture and discrimination are supported by a sophisticated system of secret police; where the government encourages the violation of human rights and dignity, and is not willing to undertake any of its international obligations.

"As the Beijing Olympics slogan says, we live in "one world" with "one dream." We hope that one day the Chinese people will be able to share universal human rights, democracy and peace with people from all around the world. However, the preparations for the Olympics have provided the perfect excuse for the Chinese government to restrict civil liberties and suppress human rights!"

See Hu Jia's Full Letter