The latest move by internet search behemoth Google is to pull the plug on its Chinese operations. The tech outfit had a hissy fit when it discovered the Chinese government had infiltrated its servers – fair enough, but Google’s complaints might be easier to stomach if the company showed some respect for its users’ privacy in the first place.
The fact that the Chinese government took an interest in the communications of dissidents is hardly surprising – states significantly more liberal than China, such as the United States and United Kingdom have been known to monitor the messages of their critics, both domestic and foreign.
China, like Russia under Putin, is a bogeyman figure for liberal Westerners. Russophobia largely stems not from Putin’s tendency toward authoritarianism but from his rebuilding of the country’s economic strength and national pride. Sinophobia, meanwhile, has a long and inglorious history, from Britain’s Opium Wars to stereotypes of Dr Fu Manchu but today’s Sinophobia has taken on a more socially acceptable face.
Pick an issue: human rights violations, Tibet, China’s ‘conspiring’ to ‘destroy’ the Copenhagen climate change talks in December 2009 and barely a millimetre below the surface you are guaranteed to discover the ugly face of prejudice.
For all the Free Tibet-love in the West, remarkably few Dalai Lamaites seem to understand that the Tibeten regime was on perfectly good terms with China for years. In fact, it only started complaining years after the Chinese arrived. By a not entirely unsurprising coincidence, the Tibetan theocrats who claim the Dalai Lama is literally God only started to complain when China began to build roads and schools, opening their Medievalist Shangri La to development and, horror of horrors, the outside world.
Western celebrities have been notably silent on the issue of the persecution of Tibetan Buddhists who worship the deity Dorje Shugden. Perhaps it’s because it happened in India – and was orchestrated by followers of the Dalai Lama rather than by “communist China.”
It is clear that there is more than a tinge of old-fashioned racism in Western attitudes to China: the Netherlands has a much higher population density than China, but no-one ever compares the Dutch to insects.
Mostly though, latter-day Sinophobes don’t like the fact that China is the engine driving the world economy.
China is far from paradise: the recent execution of mentally ill British man Akmal Shaikh is but the latest reminder that the country has a lot of work to do before it meets the standards we might ask of it in terms of rights. Nevertheless, the reaction of the foreign press was strange to say the least. Equally vicious state murders in the United States go unremarked upon unless the convicted meets a newspaperman’s idea of an interesting story. One British commentator, writing about Shaikh’s murder, went so far as to construct the bizarre conspiracy theory that he was executed because the Chinese government wanted to send a message to the West that it was unhappy with being pilloried at the Copenhagen COP15 climate conference.
The idea that people are murdered by states in a fit of pique is so ridiculous that it barely deserves a response. Even the most ardent abolitionist would step back from the idea that Texas executes people for the fun of it or simply to outrage liberal opinion.
Britain once prided itself on being the workshop of the world. Today it’s barely even the world’s call centre. Likewise, the United States, drunk on the dogma of the ‘weightless’ post-material economy has allowed vital and viable industries to rot from the top down and left potential new ones to wither on the vine simply because financialisation of the economy produced quicker returns than longterm productive investment did. The inevitable collapse? Well, let’s not think about that too much, regulation will sort it all out. Won’t it?
Other Western nations were not so delusional. Germany has been the world’s largest exporter by value since 2003, proving that being a modern, first world economy is not incompatible with manufacturing.
One obvious consequence of China’s astonishing economic growth in recent years is that the country has seen a massive growth in demand for electricity. This has not gone down well in the West, where many would rather see the Chinese live in “unspoilt” but picturesque poverty than enjoy the 22,500 megawatts of electricity produces by the water turbines of the Three Gorges Dam.
If you think the complaints about a renewable energy source like hydropower were loud, what about the endless wailing and gnashing of teeth over China’s building of coal-fired power stations?
China’s growing “carbon footprint” is a sign of a county lifting millions of its citizens out of grinding penury. All the Red Scares and Green Panics in the world can’t change the fact that economic development improves lives and leads, however slowly and unevenly, to greater freedom, things we in the West have no right to deny the Chinese. We have a word for the practice of pushing other countries around: it’s called imperialism.
There are a lot of assumptions in this article, and that tends to make for bad reporting.
The idea of ‘the East’ and ‘the West’ as diometrically opposed entities is clumsy and old fashioned, and in the real world, it’s almost as redundant as the idea of imperialism itself. We live in a world economy these days, where the big boys like China and the US will always do whatever they can to monitor political opponents.
But this is not the key factor- everybody knows they are being watched, and the point is not what is seen but what is done. In China, netizens are not allowed to discuss certain issues; Tibet, Tiananmen, human rights and democracy being among them. Outside China, people are able to discuss alternative viewpoints, regardless of their government. Ideally, governments only intervene when there is a concrete threat, and it is fundamental to progressive societies that citizens are able to challenge instances when governments act against individuals without such evidence being present.
Yes, China and Tibet got on well in the past… IE before the former invaded the latter. It may also surprise you to know that contrary to the materials you may have been reading (Xinhua, perhaps?) most Tibet groups have little connection to the Dalai Lama and no opposition to Shugden or other religious persuasions.
This is not about Sinophobia, it is not about liberals vs. communists, East vs. West or imperialism vs. whatever-you-think-China-practices-in-comparison. Sorry to sound old fashioned, but human rights activists care about one thing- human rights. You’d be hard pressed to find a legitimate Tibet group who claims that the pre-Chinese system in Tibet was a good one, just as you would be hard pressed to avoid the fact that China continues to practice horrific human rights abuses TODAY, when it matters, despite being a developed nation.
A very good going over of sinophobic hypocrisy. Or hypocritical sinophobia. Plenty of both.
http://madammiaow.blogspot.com/2009/12/sinophobia-and-copenhagen-open-letter.html
Human rights, GDS? Like Guantanamo, Iraq, Blackwater …
I always am skeptical when any writer tries to preemptively seize the moral high ground by crying racism. The other bogeyman that is often employed in defense of China is moral relativism, the argument that because the U.S. doesn’t have an unblemished human rights history criticism of China (or any other dictatorship) is unwarranted. The fact is, the U.S. is among the freest countries in the world. We have, from our basic human rights enshrined in the Bill of Rights to our access to the courts to our ability to criticize the government more freedom than most other nations. China, conversely, is a one-party political dictatorship where the judicial system is rigged in favor of the state. Internationally, the Chinese regime aggressively pursues its interests in maintaining a global economy and environmental rules which favor growth in China — at the expense of the rest of the world — in order to perpetuate the regime. China is definitely not “the engine driving the world economy,” as Jason Walsh ignorantly claims. Anyone notice an uptick in economic activity in the U.S. or Europe because of China’s domestic growth? Of course not. Our unemployment is still at 10% because, among other factors, China’s $584 billion stimulus package explicitly directed recipients to only buy Chinese goods! China’s protectionism barred the benefits of its stimulus spending from creating jobs worldwide, unlike our Cash for Clunkers, which permitted foreign car makers to participate. In that program, about 1/3 of the benefits went to foreign carmakers and workers. No, China is not the engine driving the world economy — China is destroying the world economy. Read Nobel-prize winning economist Paul Krugman on this subject. If you missed him in the New York Times, the link is on my blog at FreeingTibet . China did, in fact, wreck the Copenhagen climate change conference. China did, in fact, manipulate its currency at the expense of the rest of the world’s economies, causing the global financial crash and cannibalizing jobs around the globe. China’s cyber-Gestapo has hacked computers, not just to read email accounts, but to be able to remotely turn on the audio and recording components — so that the computer becomes a listening device for real-time live-voice eavesdropping of everything that is said inside the room where the computers sits! This cyber-spying by China is far more extensive than simply prying into an email account. It has been well-documented in many places. On my blog at FreeingTibet you can find links to many authoritative articles about China’s predatory business practices, the damage China is doing to the world economy, and China’s efforts to suppress human rights activism in the U.S. through its cyber-Gestapo. Read more at FreeingTibet.
Intresting points.
You can find out more on the Dalai lama and his ban on Dorje Shugden here http://www.westernshugdensociety.org/ or check out the new book on the subject “A Great Deception” http://www.agreatdeception.com/. Which also exposes all the open secrets about the Dalai Lama – the mixing of religion and politics, the cia connections, the betrayal of the Tibetan people, shady finances etc.
With reference to ‘A Great Deception’ which is mentioned in these comments, I have read the book and i must say that i found it rather hard going because of the emotional and biased style of writing and presentation. I also thought that it was very schismatic by criticizing the Dalai Lama and the lama policy. If novices were to pick up this book, it is unlikely that they would be interested in Buddhism, especially as the most popular face of Buddhism i.e. The Dalai Lama, is so denigrated.
On the flip side, I thought that this book was well researched, with strong citations, which also made the claims appear to be backed up with facts. The historical account of the Dalai Lamas was useful information. The style of writing was also quite well crafted to achieve its objectives, which was mainly to destroy the reputation of the Dalai Lama.
There was a lot of repetition throughout the book, which was not necessary. With the richness of facts provided, I personally would have preferred it to be more objectively presented. I believe it would have held its own.
I had read this book as I was mistakenly hoping for more information on Dorje Shugden but that was rather scarce. In hindsight, the book gives what it promised, which was a critique of the ruling lama’s policies.
Although I found this book disappointing, I would recommend people to read it as it does give one perspective on the Dorje Shugden ban.
Do write to me and share your views on Dorje Shugden!
With reference to ‘A Great Deception’ ,
the book is backed up by an extensive compilation of news stories, documents, personal accounts, and chronologies, that make up to about 400 references! They really researched well and did a lot of homework.
But, I strongly feel that this book is for those who likes reading about politics, as they have included much political-related “stories” of Dalai Lama’s supposed complicity in illegal arms trading, his dealings with the CIA, and how Dalai Lama was involved in a conspiracy to overthrow the government of Bhutan (that would have involved assassination!)
Check out all the political vocabulary: persecution, corruption, dictatorship, coup, hypocrite, communism, arms trade, Nazism…
From a religious practitioner (REAL BUDDHISM) point of view, I have been taught that I cannot and do not know the motivations of others; yet, this book makes repeated claims to know the intentions and motivations of the Dalai Lama, asserting among other things that he constantly schemes to gain power because he is “self-serving” and a “troublemaker.”
I’ve also been taught not to focus on the “faults” of others, but to look at my own delusions and explore the nature of my own mind. Yet, the book’s focus is on the alleged “faults” of the Dalai Lama, whom they claimed was a “god-King” whom Tibetans blindly follow.
If you are interested in learning REAL Buddhism, I advice you to steer clear of this book as it is a product that will create more political pollution in Buddhism.
Tibet and China’s problems are for them to work out between themselves.
Just as Israel and Palestine.
The only difference is there are no people crying for Free Palestine and the cultural and social genocide Israel is committing there.
“The only difference is there are no people crying for Free Palestine and the cultural and social genocide Israel is committing there.”
Kev, I don’t know where you are from, but I have seen quite a bit of criticism toward Israel, some of which I think is justified, but some of which I think is blown completely out of proportion. Mind you that I am not very supportive of quite a few of the policies carried out by either the government of PR China or Israel, but I do feel that the media often go too far and blow things out of proportion, and I am quite sympathetic to the people in both countries who are unjustly maligned because of the way the media portray the government of both.
John Roberts, I was quite interested in your post until you started to blatantly advertise your blog, which judging from the title is clearly biased with an agenda and likely not interested in presenting any more than a single, narrow perspective, and that is to condemn China for everything it does. All you have done is make me not want to read it.