China and the Credibility Gap

I originally posted the following on April 17. Since then two big events have occurred: The American Censorship incident, and Grace Wang. Both change the terms of the debate a little, but in my view maintain the essential balance. I'll update soon.

I also wish to make a correction-in the 9th paragraph I imply that many Chinese citizens under 20 are not aware of the full scope of events that occurred at Tiananmen in 1989. My source was the PBS documentary The Tank Man. After reading accounts of Grace Wang's persecution I'm now convinced my belief was naive, and that most Chinese of any age know exactly what happened at Tiananmen. I acknowledge that it undermines my argument somewhat. As I've said, expect updates soon.


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I can be silent no longer about the China/Tibet issue. (So allow me to "broadcast" it to the world on my blog, which gets 1 view on good days.)


Today I read an article in the Times that a prominent Tibetan pop star and news reporter was led away by plain-clothes police and not heard from by her husband for weeks after that.
A few weeks ago, Nick Kristof solicited the opinions of Chinese readers about the ongoing crisis in Tibet and its effect on the Olympic torch relay. A slough of writers answered him on quite frank terms. Many Chinese believe Tibet has always been theirs, that the Tibetan people lived as feudal slaves before the Communist Party liberated them in 1950, and that the Dalai Lama secretly organized the protests-protests they believe wreaked havoc on Lhasa and resulted in many deaths and untold damage. Many also believe that the west continues to harbor ulterior motives in discrediting China-ever since the open-door policy, they say, we've stopped at nothing to undermine them. Among the more troubling allegations was that that CNN played a years-old video reel of a crackdown in India as it relayed the "west's version" of events in Lhasa. (CNN has never been a particularly credible source, but if this is true it undermines them substantially.)


Other legitimate "push backs" included the U.S. government's under-the-table complicity with China (who is basically financing our national debt right now) and "equally" dirty hands with respect to human rights. Such comments were stinging to read, as I have no response save shame. It was, after all, Yahoo that cooperated with Chinese authorities to make the cyber-censorship we Americans so love to complain about possible. An American-Chinese New York Times journalist is in jail right now-arguably because of information the US telecoms provided to Beijing.


Account after account continues to surface about the treatment of detainees at the hands of the US government. Nat Hentoff's brilliant column in yesterday's Village Voice detailed the plight of a German citizen who was detained after a trip to Afghanistan and rendered first to a black site, then to Guantanamo. It's hard to know where to begin-the guy was obviously beaten and tortured. The US Gov had evidence indicating his innocence as early as 2002 but he was kept in prison for 3 more years. The US Gov has apparently constructed a "dummy" prison at Gitmo that has nothing to do with the place real detainees are kept-it's purely for tours and photography by the media.


American immigrants within our borders are not safe either. Last week the Times broke a story about legal immigrants who could have stayed in the US for life had they not applied for citizenship, and who are now facing deportation because of minor crimes in their past and broad-brush application by an overburdened USCIS. What's more, any legal immigrant with a crime in his past who has the misfortune to be picked up by the cops may face years in Abu-Ghraib-like conditions before finally being deported, as NPR reported in 2005.


So you could argue the US has little credibility questioning China's practices toward either the Tibetans or its own. The US government, that is. I've personally never rendered anybody. I didn't vote for this administration. I raise my voice in protest every time I have a chance-I can't believe the people in charge don't see just how much they've undermined America's standing in the world. At the most popular moments of the Bush administration, a little more than 50% of the population supported what they saw as cracking down on known terrorists to protect us from another attack. Now that most of us know the gory details-and have been forced to confront our denial of the basic facts-it's more like 30%.


Which brings me back to the central point. Nancy Pelosi came out early in support of Tibetans. Since then Gordon Brown and Angela Merkl have said they would not attend the opening ceremony of the Olympics. Meanwhile one poll suggested 90% of Chinese people support the crackdown in Tibet. And it's more complicated than simply that their media is being censored. Many are indeed able to access western media reports on the incident. Many, in fact, live in the US!


So why would so large a percentage support an action that-if true-is a deplorable stain on China's already dismal human rights record? Replace the word "China" with America and you'll see what I mean. People are easily swept up into a patriotic frenzy that can be used to justify almost any atrocity. In the US we allegedly have a "free" media, and yet Bush was elected twice (or once, depending on whose account of 2000 you believe). How can I as an American citizen-even one not complicit in the policies of my government-claim to have any ground from which to criticize China?


The same reason PBS is a more legitimate journalistic source than Fox News. In 1989, depending on whose account you believe, either (1) hundreds of pro-democracy protesters were machine-gunned, run over by tanks and escorted off by secret police never to be seen again, or (2) some criminals and hooligans with no purpose higher than destroying the Mother Country incited violence that the Army responded to with remarkable restraint. Ask Chinese citizens under 20 which account they believe? What do you mean account-the second version is fact. There has never been an alternate account.


Visit Youtube, type in the phrase "tibet part of China" and you'll see the official State version of the narrative (as above-feudalism and slavery until "liberation", lots of maps, etc.). The anti-Tibet comments I've read from nationalistic Chinese citizens differ little from the offial Party narrative. My question is-if you're such an independent thinker, how come all your talking points come from the Communist Party?


In the end it's all a gray area, but unlike Fox News, PBS generally subjects both sides of a story to journalistic scrutiny, soliciting comment from anyone involved. (I say "generally" because the coverage of the Iraq war has of late been laughably deficient.) Here in the US I can get a group of 100 Chilean widows together in Unioin Square and protest the overthrow of Salvador Allende and subsequent installment of Agosto Pinochet (acts of our own CIA, thanks very much), and as long as I apply for the proper permits I don't have to worry I'll go to jail. (Though many from Nixon to Cheney would probably like to change that.) When the story broke about the "torture memos" that was all over the airwaves. How many journalists got thrown in jail? Not many.
It's hard for me to flatly state I've had access to more viewpoints than someone else, and thus that I'm entitled to more credibility. I was surprised to learn three weeks ago that the version of events in Iraq those of us inside the US have been getting is at best limited and at worst willfully inaccurate-in some cases 180 degrees inaccurate. So I'll issue a challenge-I went through 3 weeks wondering if maybe every bit of "official" information I recieved on Tibet from US sources-from its history to the role of the Dalai Lama to the details of the present "crackdown"-was questionable. I challenge somebody from the other side of the divide to take the same ride-I dare you to assume nothing you've heard from the state news sources is true. (I guess this is for those of you with access to foreign media sources.) Pretend you've never heard of Tibet of China, and read everything you can get your hands on from sources outside of China.
If you still believe the Party's account verbatim, we'll talk.