Tibetan Protesters Face Heated Opposition

I always enjoy how people from totalitarian regimes –as nearly all Chinese students are with their full government sponsorships– come to America and take full advantage of our American Constitutional rights of free speech and assembly when at home in China they would be met with a crack on the head by the local police and a black hole of imprisonment if they did the same actions at home in China.

If the Tibetan advocates lie so much, as these Chinese nationals argued, then why does the government of China prohibit news reports and internets access to a billion Chinese people??

Truth and censorship are the tools of despots.

I am one of the Chinese students.
Please follow the Tibet riot event step by step:
1. Tibetan separatists held demonstration.
2. Chinese government arrested some of them.
(Both sides were not violance in the first two steps, and I do not want to comment on who were right or wrong because I do not have enough information about that)
3. Tibetan terrorists attacked innocent civilians and about 20 civilians were killed. (Notice, this is the most important step)
4. Chinese troops entered Tibet to protect the civilians and crack down the terrorists. (Notice, to crack down the terrorists, not peaceful demonstrators)
5. West media and Dhala Lama blame Chinese government because some terrorists were killed. (I am angery about that not because of Olympics. Olympics is not important when comparing to human rights.)

There are other things that made me angry. Some Tibetan seperation supporters exculpate the terrorism by saying that Chinese government cracked down Tibetan religions. I do not want to comment on whether this is true or not, but it made me associate of Hamas in Palestine and ETA in Spain. Both of them kill innocent people because of their "religion".

The logic that "do not report " equals "truth" makes no sense.
China always prohibit bad words in news, not only for the Tibet event. So what? All rumors are true as long as we do not report it?

On the other hand, you believe that America do not have media control? Till now, CNN haven't report our support of Olympics and China. They even said that SF is full of protesters while the fact was thousands of China supporters are there with noticeable red flags. When we published our video about Tibet history and the evidence that CNN lies on youtube, several of our video was deleted soon by youtube. Do you call that freedom of speech?

Seems like our commenters here from China just verified my point.

When the government of China stops censoring and blocking internet content and websites that are readily available in the rest of the world, then these operatives commenting here on behalf of the Chinese government will have credibility. Until then, they do not, and everything else is desperate spin and deflection.

No wonder the Bush Administration luvs all the bad trade deals with China.

Would our communist Chinese Flag waiving friends there at UCSB yesterday be able to comment freely on an open website like this, under their real name, and also be able to criticize their own national President, Party Chairman, and other government officials??

Hopefully those Chinese students there freely protesting at UCSB will learn a thing or three about democracy and free speech during their time here in America.

Democracy is messy, while government censorship and blaming the news media instead is easy.

And for our Chinese student guests to round out their lessons in democracy and free speech, they are welcome to enter some comments here at these other news outlets that covered this story, and enjoy the response by the Americans:

http://www.edhat.com/site/tidbit.cfm?id=...

http://sbdailysound.blogspot.com/2008/04...

http://www.kcsb.org/?p=670

http://santabarbarasblog.com/?p=1383

http://www.dailynexus.com/article.php?a=...

Another thing that the Tibetan seperation supporters liked to do is that they always tried to distract the topic, whenever they felt that they were unable to defend themselves. For example, they would like to say that Chinese government is not democratic or something related to Tianmen Square event, when they could not defend the terrorism in Tibet.

True, Chinese government is not democratic, it oppress different voices, and it cracked down the democratic demonstration in Tianmen Square. I also blame that.

So what? This is the reason that the terrorists can kill innocent people in Tibet? This is the reason that the west media can be biased? Ridiculous!

It is also interesting to watch how innocent Americans derive their ideas out of nothing.
I and another Indian girl had a little arguement with an American student, a friend of ours whether we intelligent students from abroad made America prosperous or we are only attracted here by the generous scholarships the US universities offered. Apparently, few people in universities would have the romantism to imagine that we Chinese students come here with full government sponsorship to take advantage of American contitutional rights. I guess that's what people would name 'no free lunch' theorem and silently assumes.
We had a seminar in our department on the use of geographic knowledge to influence public opinion about a country or area. The main idea is that when the government is hostile towards an area, it do not reveal geography and history of that area to avoid sympathy. Otherwise, it's geography/history gets publicized to achieve the opposite effect. Again, the international students agreed and a few American students got angry and thought of that talk 'very political'.
Reasoning and guesswork takes over where knowledge is missing.
No offense but just a little bit of a disclaimer, I liked American democracy a lot. Having lived here a few years, I do hear from Americans about General Motors behind five big media, and the 'right wing' media in general. I do not speak about government controling media out of ignorance or memory about China. I do realize that news is censored in China and the it could be better. But I tend to accept the idea that in China the content is censored, and in the US, it is 'colored', e.g. in Jackson's case.
The idea that somebody hit your head on the street because you said something is amusingly -distorted-. I guess that's why it's good to go see what's happening there yourself under that totalitarian government.

Thanks for American Government and Nationals to call for Human rights, freedom in China. We appreciate your gold hearts. However, as one Chinese grown up in the poor coutryside, witnessed the improvement of people's living and development of people's freedom. We, Chinese, like your guys are eagle to live in a democratical society with peace and wealth. But the fact is that China needs to improve the living standard and education of nationals at her current stage. If American Government and nationals are indeed trying to bring Human rights and freedom to Chinese, please join me to help Chinese people to get better lives and educations. And stop trying to inhibit the development of China and separate the United China into pieces. Then you will see the appearance of democracity in China.

The Chinese contingent from UCSB, who are not only misinformed, but also obedient followers of Communist party line, have organized a letter writing campaign, thus making it look as if the majority of opinion represented in the Independent is sympathetic to their cause.

It is also blindingly obvious that the Chinese government does not want Western media to have any access to what is really happening in Tibet. If everything was above board, then the Chinese authorities would invite any and all media in to make their own judgement calls, and tell the world the truth, knowing that they had nothing to lose.

But no... the Chinese authorities, in their decades long thuggish tradition, have placed a stranglehold around the truth. This is the classic tactic of any rogue authoritarian government, answerable only to itself and their cronies. This sad state is uncomfortably reminiscent of our own Bush Administration; the difference being that the American people have the US Constitution to provide some degree of protection against the ravages of a bunch of evil psychopaths, whereas all the Chinese people have is the mandate to be obedient..... or else.

And, since when does the US Constitution allow for a team of foreign (Chinese) nationals to operate within our borders as a security police force, using violent or threatening tactics to repress lawful dissent, as happened in San Francisco? The same thuggery happened in London. This is beyond outrageous.

When the American people suffer the equivalent of our own "Tianenmen Square massacre of thousands," at the hand of our rulers, then we are in real trouble. Actually, we might be already there.

Dear Friend, calm down a little. Look at both sides' history of America and China. You will find out that America was, has been a very aggressive country. Please go to review how many people were killed during the wars ignited by American troops. Where are these poor people's rights? Please do not tell me they should go to the hell, and American should go to the heaven.

In addition, I am here to represent my own opinion. Nobody organized and asked me to compose here. Please do not so skeptical without any evidence! Do not learn from CNN. This may cause many misunderstanding, then many troubles. Later on, you will need to apologize for your discrimination. Hopefully, you are the one who loves peace and wants to keep in the peace instead of wars, violences, riots. Otherwise, you are not the one who deserves my time to write to.

Since it is independent medium, I think everyone should have their right to express their experiences and feelings.

The Chinese claim to Tibet rests on dubious history. Aside from that, we all know that something wonderful, warts and all, was killed off when the Chinese moved in and pushed the Tibetan culture aside. Anyone with the least bit of sensitivity and objectivity can listen to the Dalai Lama and understand that he is the real deal, and his exile from Tibet along with efforts to replace him with a Chinese puppet when he dies are criminal at best.

rivercxu,

Unfortunately there have been reports by British intelligence as well as the Dalai Lama that Chinese soldiers worked as provocateurs in order to try and incite riots. They wanted to incite a small resistance and squelch it before the Olympics, but then it got out of hand.

I see no reason or evidence for the peaceful Tibetans to actually cause terrorism, I would think it is more likely the work of a provocateur in order to give an excuse to use force against the peaceful resistance.

To loonpt

Thanks for your comment. Generally, I do not believe some unconfirmed rumors, unless you can provide evidence. I read BBC and USA today, and I did not find any evidence as you have said, though I believe BBC is not neutral.

Some Chinese friends told me that CIA is possibly behind the riot. I do not believe that unless they can provide evidence, do you?

Regarding CIA involvement in Llasa: this is tinfoil hat territory. The CIA has a long history of only getting involved where there is an economic/natural resources/ military/intelligence/ political/strategic advantage to be gained : they have no interest in the promotion of freedom/human rights and other parameters of "decent civilized conduct". Tibet has few natural resources in which the US has an economic interest....

~

Recall when communism was considered by the US to be the "evil empire"? We went to war against North Vietnam for 13 years to "prevent the inexorable spread of communism" (yes, the Pentagon lied about Tonkin, but thats S.O.P.). The US even led a boycott of the Moscow Olympics in 1980, because they were being hosted in the USSR, a communist state. Even small communist nations which pose zero threat to the US such as Cuba, are regarded as evil enough that we still pursue a trade and travel embargo against them...

What about China? A nation which has one of the worst human rights records on Earth, environmental irresponsibility, commits regular atrocities against their own people, commits ethnic cleansing in Tibet, and more... (!!!!) But *this* communist nation are the US' 2nd largest trading partner, and are on the Most Favored Nation trading status....

Commies, we hate them... no we love them!! Go figure

(?!!)