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China-Japan-Koreas
ChiComs Flex Rice Muscles inside the Great Wall
2008-03-24
In China, a Show of Force
By Shai Oster

CHENGDU, China -- Heavily armed police have been patrolling in Chengdu (home to 10.5 million), the leafy, usually calm capital of Sichuan province, in a significant show of force and concern by the Chinese government about the spread of unrest from neighboring Tibet.

Ten days after Tibetan protests against Chinese rule turned violent in Lhasa, reverberations are being felt here, 1,250 miles away. Last week, Chinese authorities deployed troops to contain unrest that spread across mostly remote ethnic Tibetan villages in neighboring provinces, including Sichuan.

The Tibetan protests and the government crackdown threaten to embarrass China just months before the Summer Olympics are expected.

•What it Means: Extensive troop deployments show how nervous Beijing is about this challenge to its rule.

Reporters have been unable to get in to verify conflicting accounts of violence and death tolls even as China's government has stepped up its attacks of some Western media for what it contends is as anti-China bias reporting the deaths.

Page 2

An attempt by a Wall Street Journal reporter to converse with a group of Tibetans who said they were from Ganzi, a heavily ethnic Tibetan region in the western part of Sichuan, abutting Tibet proper, was quickly interrupted by police Sunday. About a dozen men wearing helmets and holding their fingers on the triggers of machine guns surrounded the group and ordered the Tibetans aside while they checked the paperwork of the foreign reporter. Any photos showing monks or police were ordered erased.

Rumors of suicide bombings and stabbings in Chengdu by Tibetans against the majority Han Chinese bubbled across the streets and Internet forums.

The Beijing government has released "most wanted" photographs of suspects captured on film during the recent riots
Posted by:Icerigger

#28  Why would market forces threaten them? They own most of the big profit-making companies, either outright or via family members.
Posted by: Abdominal Snowman   2008-03-24 23:34  

#27  True, Zhang Fei. But force can have different manifestations, beside police apparatus or military might. For example the market forces may one day crush the Chinese communist government, if they stubbornly refuse to miror them in their institutions.
Posted by: twobyfour   2008-03-24 23:14  

#26  DV: Methinks the Communist government is a wee bit weaker and paranoid than is given credit for.

They're not weak. Weak is when they don't give orders to shoot because they're afraid the troops won't obey them, and might, instead, mutiny. Strong was when Lenin slaughtered his opponents. Weak was when the Politburo couldn't have Yeltsin killed. Forget all counter-intuitive Freudian* crap you've been told. The use of force is not a sign of weakness. The non-use of force is not a sign of strength.

* The idea that all of our psychological problems can be explained through Greek mythology is a laughable one, anyway.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2008-03-24 22:24  

#25  pb: Chinese attitudes toward ethnic minorities make 19th century British attitudes toward black and brown colonials look positively progressive.

Let me remind you that British attitudes did not merely "look" positively progressive. They were positively progressive. 19th century Chinese military practice was to massacre entire rebel cities after their surrender (typically after the safety of its inhabitants had been guaranteed during surrender negotiations). The massacre of tens of thousands of the Yunnanese nobility is a case in point. The massacre of Nanking at the close of the Taiping rebellion is another. And yes, both of these events happened in the 19th century.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2008-03-24 22:13  

#24  I have to side with Zhang on this. The Chicom government has ruthlessly exploited the strong Chinese chauvenism toward non-chinese untermenchen.

Chinese attitudes toward ethnic minorities make 19th century British attitudes toward black and brown colonials look positively progressive.

Remember, almost all of what the Chicoms say is for domestic consumption. And what they are saying reflects what most Chinese think - the Tibetans should be pathetically grateful for the benefits of Chinese culture and progress and those who aren't deserve to be shot. Anything else is a Western conspiracy.
Posted by: Phil_B   2008-03-24 20:19  

#23  The ChiComs have $1.5 Trillion in U. S. debt, T-Bills. They're adding about $0.06 Trillion per month. Every month. Real money. Even in Texas.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble   2008-03-24 19:40  

#22  I don't know for sure, but I think a lot of that "surplus" isn't really there; I think over the years it's been used to subsidize the costs of the raw materials (both energy, metals, and plastics feedstocks) being used to keep the factories fed. But since it's done in the forms of loans that "in theory" will be paid back someday (but, rather like a lot of the mortgages here, probably won't) it doesn't get counted as subsidies.
Posted by: Abdominal Snowman   2008-03-24 17:14  

#21  TW: I think I recently read that China has more a US$1,000 billion -- with a B -- stash from their trade surplus. That can keep the country going for a while, can't it?

If you've got 100m unemployed, that's $10,000 per person. It's a good chunk of cash, but it won't shield China from the consequences of interrupted trade ties for very long. The export sector is the productive sector of the economy. A lot of the domestic sector is engaged in inflating the stock market and real estate bubbles.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2008-03-24 16:55  

#20  I think I recently read that China has more a US$1,000 billion -- with a B -- stash from their trade surplus. That can keep the country going for a while, can't it?

Separately, while I would need solid proof that the Han Communist government is not lying as much as it thinks it can get away with, I would be shocked to learn that the corps of foreign correspondents are not, in this rare case, working from a narrative. It would be very helpful to have some satellite pictures for Old Patriot and other trained experts to interpret for us.
Posted by: trailing wife    2008-03-24 16:38  

#19  g: OK man, I give up - you've definitely got a horse in this race. I don't. All I have to say is that the Western media (once again) got caught red-handed in a lie, a lie which reinforced their existing prejudices. Those of us who know the Western media will find nothing new in this report.

If you don't have a horse in this race, it's not apparent from your ceaseless covering for the Han rulers of Tibet. You can't even tell the difference between a lie and a mistake resulting from ignorance/confusion. This is compounded by your decision to ignore the fact that the Chinese are covering up what's happening in Tibet by not allowing foreign journalists to interview locals.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2008-03-24 16:31  

#18  OK man, I give up - you've definitely got a horse in this race. I don't. All I have to say is that the Western media (once again) got caught red-handed in a lie, a lie which reinforced their existing prejudices. Those of us who know the Western media will find nothing new in this report.
Posted by: gromky   2008-03-24 16:21  

#17  Given the ban on foreign journalists, the only question here isn't whether the Han (government and civilians alike) are lying - it's what the extent of the lies are.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2008-03-24 16:18  

#16  g: Zhang Fei, your responses have become quite nonsensical. The plain fact is, the Western media have been caught red-handed in the act of baising news. This is something that they are famous for, and rightly so. There is no love lost for the Han Chinese (and frankly, I have no love for them, either - they screw me over on a daily basis). It is only the fact that bloggers exist who can catch them in their lies that makes this incident any different from hundreds of others. Think about Dan Rather and the memos that CBS unwisely released in their native formats.

Actually, it is your claims that have become nonsensical. The bias against the Bush administration exists in an environment where journalists can come and go as they please, and ethnic bigotry isn't an issue. The situation in Tibet is one where no one really knows what's happening, because the Han have banned coverage by foreign journalists, and non-governmental Han narratives are colored by an overweening sense of racial/cultural superiority and entitlement to rule over Tibetan lands, not to mention censored by the Han government.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2008-03-24 16:13  

#15  Zhang Fei, your responses have become quite nonsensical. The plain fact is, the Western media have been caught red-handed in the act of baising news. This is something that they are famous for, and rightly so. There is no love lost for the Han Chinese (and frankly, I have no love for them, either - they screw me over on a daily basis). It is only the fact that bloggers exist who can catch them in their lies that makes this incident any different from hundreds of others. Think about Dan Rather and the memos that CBS unwisely released in their native formats.
Posted by: gromky   2008-03-24 16:07  

#14  g: Wishful thinking, y'all. The Chinese are treating the Tibetan situation with kid gloves. If they had wanted to stomp the rioters like a bug, they would have done so already.

You're right - they could have killed hundreds of thousands of Tibetans, the way they did when they "liberated" Tibet from the Tibetans. The problem is that the backlash would have been severe, and might even have led to severe trade sanctions. I understand the Han are really feeling their oats, but China is still a pretty poor country, with porters (underemployed men) on many street corners. It still needs foreign markets so it can import foreign equipment and other things necessary for industrial development.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2008-03-24 15:16  

#13  DV: I would believe the western press over this before I believe the Chinese controlled press.

It's not simply the question of a Chinese-controlled press - individual Chinese are parochial to a fault, and their narratives are colored by their bigotry. Think the Serb mentality about the Bosnian massacres - cubed.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2008-03-24 15:00  

#12  g: Zhang Fei, I have no idea what you're talking about. All I know is, his screencaps show obvious lies, the kind of which we are all too familiar with in the West. Photo cropping, selective quoting, viewing the situation through filters, and the like.

I am saying is that they might be mistakes rather than lies. Lying has to do with representing something you know is factually incorrect to be true. A mistake is when you don't know it's factually incorrect.

Roland Soong (the website's Han supremacist author) goes on and on about how he's able to read Chinese and therefore see things that only readers of Chinese can access. But the fact that it's only accessible in Chinese doesn't mean it's accurate. Why aren't foreign journalists allowed to cover this event, if there aren't things that might contradict the lies of Tibet's Han conquerors? We know what captions are being attached to Xinhua's photos. The question is whether these captions are correct. It's not simply a question of a government narrative - it's also that only Han narratives are being spread around in Chinese.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2008-03-24 14:58  

#11  I would believe the western press over this before I believe the Chinese controlled press.
Posted by: DarthVader   2008-03-24 14:52  

#10  Zhang Fei, I have no idea what you're talking about. All I know is, his screencaps show obvious lies, the kind of which we are all too familiar with in the West. Photo cropping, selective quoting, viewing the situation through filters, and the like.
Posted by: gromky   2008-03-24 14:50  

#9  More to the point, why are the Han threatening journalists with guns for interviewing Tibetans? Could it be that the Han habit of lying reflexively might be contradicted by Tibetan testimony? Could it be that the shiny, happy Tibetans of Han propaganda might not be lining up to kiss Han feet and strew flower petals in their path in gratitude for the Han confiscation of Tibetan lands?
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2008-03-24 14:44  

#8  g: Woops, sorry, please check http://www.zonaeuropa.com/200803c.brief.htm#008 for screencaps of the Western media getting caught in their lies. This stuff is all over the Chinese internet.

Zona Europa is run by a Chinese American Han supremacist who - for some reason - hasn't given up his American passport. The "lies" he points out could just be honest mistakes due to the difficulty in getting material given that Tibet's Han masters are keeping foreign journalists out of the area. Why are they doing this if they don't have anything to hide?
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2008-03-24 14:38  

#7  g: Western media, as is their wont, has woefully misrepresented the situation on the ground in Xizang autonomous region (Tibet to the rest of you). The media has been wilfully complicit in several distortions and misrepresentations, and the Chinese have caught each and every single one of them. The Chinese message boards and blogs are afire with these calumnies. We're used to it, as a matter of fact, we expect our own press to lie, but to the Chinese raised on a diet of "the Western press shows it as it is", this comes as a rude shock, and an anti-Chinese shock.

What do you perceive to be inaccurate? The fact that the Chinese are using live ammo on monks carrying out demonstrations? Or that Chinese troops are threatening to shoot reporters who speak to monks? Or that reporters are being expelled from Tibet? Or perhaps that the Tibetans don't see themselves as Chinese?
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2008-03-24 14:31  

#6  Woops, sorry, please check http://www.zonaeuropa.com/200803c.brief.htm#008 for screencaps of the Western media getting caught in their lies. This stuff is all over the Chinese internet.
Posted by: gromky   2008-03-24 14:11  

#5  Wishful thinking, y'all. The Chinese are treating the Tibetan situation with kid gloves. If they had wanted to stomp the rioters like a bug, they would have done so already.

The real issue here is the "us vs. them" mentality being perpetrated. Western media, as is their wont, has woefully misrepresented the situation on the ground in Xizang autonomous region (Tibet to the rest of you). The media has been wilfully complicit in several distortions and misrepresentations, and the Chinese have caught each and every single one of them. The Chinese message boards and blogs are afire with these calumnies. We're used to it, as a matter of fact, we expect our own press to lie, but to the Chinese raised on a diet of "the Western press shows it as it is", this comes as a rude shock, and an anti-Chinese shock.
Posted by: gromky   2008-03-24 14:08  

#4  A lot of the Chinese leadership is going to die or be dethroned because of losing face in the Olympic debacle. They are probably already wishing that they hadn't vied for it in the first place.
Posted by: Anonymoose   2008-03-24 14:02  

#3  The unfortunate part of having a Sec. State named Rice is one could interpret that headline in the wrong way.
Posted by: ed   2008-03-24 13:38  

#2  It still has enormous resources at its command. The energy crunch may have it off balance though. People in china aren't going to want to give up their new found luxuries and go back to riding bicycles and eating white rice once a day.
I hate to think of how ugly the regime would get on its way out.
Posted by: bigjim-ky   2008-03-24 10:31  

#1  Methinks the Communist government is a wee bit weaker and paranoid than is given credit for.
Posted by: DarthVader   2008-03-24 10:20  

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