China pans Dalai Lama, detains alleged arsonists

AGENCIES, BEIJING, NEW DELHI AND PERTH, AUSTRALIA
Tuesday, Apr 01, 2008, Page 1

China stepped up attacks against the Dalai Lama yesterday as authorities apprehended suspects in four arson and murder cases stemming from anti-government riots that engulfed the Tibetan capital last month.

Jiang Zaiping (江再平), vice chief of the Public Security Bureau in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, said investigators arrested the suspects thought to be responsible for arson attacks on three shops -- including a clothing outlet where five young women were burned to death -- and one in nearby Dagze County, the Tibet Daily newspaper reported yesterday.

A total of 414 suspects have been arrested in connection with the anti-government riots, Jiang was quoted as saying.

Another 298 have turned themselves in, he said.

The Tibetan regional government also announced that the families of two of the women killed were given compensation of 200,000 yuan (US$28,170) each, Xinhua news agency said.

A commentary by Xinhua said yesterday that if the Tibetan leader "really wishes to be a simple Buddhist monk, it's high time for him to stop playing politics and cheating people, Westerners in particular, with his hypocritical `autonomy' claims."

"The self-proclaimed spiritual leader has obviously forgotten his identity, abused his religion and played too much politics," the commentary said.

Hundreds of Tibetan exiles in New Delhi yesterday burned Chinese flags and enacted street plays of Beijing's recent crackdown on protesters in Tibet.

In the street plays, some Tibetans beat up their colleagues -- draped in the yellow, red, white and blue Tibetan colors -- and then dragged them off.

Other protesters broke crockery allegedly made in China as they shouted "Free Tibet!" and denounced Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) at a site designated for protests in the heart of the Indian capital.

Australia's foreign minister said yesterday diplomats who visited Tibet were told that monks who interrupted a visit by journalists with an anti-China outburst would not be punished.

"The delegation received an assurance that monks who protested effectively in the presence of international journalists a few days prior to the diplomat's arrival would not be punished," Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith told reporters in Perth.

In Kathmandu, Nepali police beat pro-Tibet protesters with sticks yesterday and detained more than 100 people for demonstrating against China, police and witnesses said.

Beijing performs mass hypnotism

Tuesday, Apr 01, 2008, Page 8

When a trick works, you do it again. Thus Beijing's approach to international media coverage of the Taiwan issue.

The global media's lack of understanding of the complexities involved in the Taiwan Strait, its carelessness with historical facts or, worse, its ideological, commercial and political beliefs, have often led wire agencies and the news organizations that depend on them to take a position that, wittingly or not, benefited China and belittled Taiwan.

The instances of abuse are rife and repetitious, including -- but sadly not limited to -- the contention that Taiwan and China "split in 1949 after a civil war," that Taiwan is a "breakaway province" waiting to be "reunited with the mainland," that it is a "competitor" to China, or that President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and the Democratic Progressive Party are nothing but "troublemakers," "splittists," "extremists" or responsible for the "terrible" state of the economy in the past eight years.

Like coverage on other complex issues, the repetition of simplistic stock phrases soon results in them taking over reality, even if the premise is misleading or altogether false. When reductionism gives the illusion that we can make sense of what is otherwise a complex and intellectually demanding subject matter, the tendency is usually to adopt it. The media does that, and so do governments and the masses.

Misleading "facts" have played in Beijing's favor (mostly because it initiated them) and the Chinese leadership has become a master at using the key words the global media is intoxicated with to cast Taiwan as a "troublemaker" that should be blamed for the "tensions" in the Taiwan Strait and for "endangering the peace." So powerful has the grand illusion become that, by accepting the argument that Taiwan threatens (and China seeks) peace, consumers of news have become hypnotized into believing that the 1,400-odd missiles that bristle in Taiwan's direction are irrelevant.

One would think that the election on March 22 of Beijing's favorite, Ma Ying-Jeou (馬英九), would have made Beijing cease its campaign of disinformation. But Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's (溫家寶) "peace" offer over the weekend shows that this isn't the case. While it was perfectly orchestrated to appear like a sincere and reasonable peace offer to a recalcitrant Taiwan, Wen's remarks were based on, and called for the resumption of, something that anyone who knows anything about Taiwan would know is a lie -- the so-called "1992 consensus." Even the former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator who is responsible for the term, Su Chi (蘇起), whose flexibility when it comes to handling factual information is legendary, has openly admitted that the consensus was his fabrication.

But Beijing doesn't care about such little details as the truth. If the "1992 consensus" opens up a new front in its propaganda war against Taiwan and if it allows it to successfully portray itself, through gullible global reporting, as the "responsible" side in the conflict, then so be it. It knows it can count on wire agencies and the news outlets that recycle that information to skirt the complexities of the subject and proliferate that belief until the world is convinced that there is, indeed, such a thing as the "1992 consensus" and that a refusal on Taiwan's part to recognize it would yet again be proof of its "irresponsible" behavior.

Following recent developments in Tibet, Beijing has repeatedly accused Western media of being biased and irresponsible, of twisting and misreporting the facts. Oddly, when that irresponsibility plays to its advantage, Beijing doesn't seem to mind.

Time for the nationalists to repackage the ideology
　

By Lee Li-wei 李立偉
Tuesday, Apr 01, 2008, Page 8

There is no doubt that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is a nationalist party. During the 1990s, the party had two roads to choose from: the social democratic one toward a welfare state, or Taiwanese nationalism. The DPP chose the latter and remains uncertain on the former.

However, the DPP is not a full-fledged nationalist party. Taiwanese nationalism, which was an important factor behind the party's accession to power, is now one of its heaviest burdens. Over the past eight years, the DPP has used up all the nationalist resources that had accumulated in civil society and academic institutions -- Taiwan first, cultural self-awareness, language equality, historical reconstruction and so on -- by opportunistically applying them toward election campaigns without deepening the nationalist discourse and opening up a more advanced pro-localization path.

After president-elect Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said he would be "Taiwanese to the death," voters were no longer able to tell the difference between the DPP and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). The reason was that the DPP's nationalist language -- love Taiwan, protect Taiwan -- was simplistic and empty, and although it could temporarily arouse the fervor of its supporters, it could not be turned into an agenda for social reform.

A greater disaster for the DPP, however, has been that apart from its nationalism, it had nothing to say. During the presidential election campaign, we saw how the problem of inferior Chinese products developed from a problem of failing market mechanisms to a nationalist issue, and how the cross-strait common market went from being a conflict over economic positions to a war between Taiwan and China. In this process, the DPP built its attack along nationalistic lines by badmouthing China and instilling fear -- though it is true that the KMT did its fair share of fearmongering with all its talk about "the bad state of the economy."

It is not that the DPP lacks good ideas. DPP presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) proposed his "happy economy" concept, which had a distinct flavor of social democracy. Hsieh stressed that GDP growth should not be the only indicator of economic growth, a new perspective on development that is necessary as Taiwan faces environmental disaster and social inequality. However, DPP leaders only understand nationalism; if they are aware of other issues, they are only capable of dressing them in the language of nationalism.

During the presidential election campaign, it was obvious that all the KMT's talk about fighting for the economy was filled with hackneyed cliches and only meant fighting for a benchmark economy -- the economy of the wealthy -- and an economy that doesn't care about its impact on the environment. Despite this, the DPP was incapable of launching any effective criticism.

The election tells us that the nationalist party of the past is dead. The DPP's post-election realignment must include adjustments to its nationalism. As most media outlets are inimical to the party, and since current public sentiment does not seem to be very open to ideological or systemic reform, the DPP must be cautious and pragmatic when it plays the nationalism card and focus it on building social forces rather than on political struggles.

More important, the party must move quickly to clearly explain its position on social fairness and environmental justice. This is the only way voters will be able to differentiate between the DPP and the KMT. If the DPP wants to continue calling itself a progressive party, it should lead its supporters to think about something else than nationalism.

Lee Li-wei is a graduate student in the Institute of Sociology at National Tsing Hua University.