The smearing campaigns of the class struggles and cultural revolution never ended. It is now part of the Chinese gene. Long live smearing campaigns. May they never die in China.

Where is that Western PR firm that was hired by the Chinese government? They're not doing such a good job.

The second link is interesting - it talks about 400 casualties from the riots in T'bet last month. Weren't those figures supposed to be evil Western lies? I'm sure the official Chinese figure was something like 19.

I wonder if this is an admission by the government that their numbers were hugely understated, or if the columnist had just been smoking too much crack to remember the official position.

The Western PR firm where responsible for almost stopping the proliferation of the hyjacking story. However, Wang Lequan got his own way and the media machines went to town on it. The need for a percieved threat outstripped the need for percieved stability before the games... I spoke to someone last year in Dalian who first came to China as part of a government initiative to essentially fix up all the terrible engrish of official communiques... too much face was lost and his team were terminated. Bet my lucky socks those PR consultants are either feeling quite useless or have given their return tickets already?

*After reading my post they can come work for me!!!

"The need for a percieved threat outstripped the need for percieved stability before the games..."

Thanks for these words Jimba - spot on. Regards,James

The smearing campaigns of the class struggles and cultural revolution never ended. It is now part of the Chinese gene. Long live smearing campaigns. May they never die in China.
----------------------------------------------

Donot forget during the cultural revolution period, most common chinese ppl suffered a lot from it, too. Donot call it as a Chinese gene. plz seperate the government and the party from the common ppl. Thanks.
common Chinese ppl r very nice and kind, what you dislike is the government and the party.

Dead Right. Its a pity the majority of Han chauvinists who infiltrate this blog dont understand this - cant seperate the two before they accuse any one who challenges China as being opposed to the Han - of being anti-Chinese. Tho-Han chauvinism I have found also in the back blocks of China among the usually nice and kind and friendly. It is China's greatest enemy next to the party. It especially emerges when the notion of the nation is challenged. I.e. Tibet and Xinjiang are not "Chinese" places but new colonies. Thanks again for pointing out the grand assumption of Jimba - that such madness as the Cult. Rev. was to do with a Chinese gene.hmmm...What has never been explained clearly and satisfactorily tho is how did Mao manage to manipulate so many minds at the time- How come so many Chinese bought into that time of mad, fascist, ultra nationalist, communist euphoria and violence? James?

Chinese Gene huh? so i guess the european/american gene brought about slavery, gas chambers, nuclear weapons huh?
funny the americans supported the cultural revolution bc it was aimed against pro soviet chinese.

Of Course Jimba may have meant that the smearing campaign' mentality is now an intractable feature of the Chinese Communist way of life? (read: gene).

James

Jimba never mentioned anything regarding "smearing campaign(s)" ol boy.

That second link hurt my brain.

@Lucas: What's the problem? It's just simple math. Ha!

From the second article:

"The police recently found 178 guns, 13,013 bullets, 359 swords, 3,504 kilograms of dynamite..."

Hold on, rewind: "The police recently found 178 guns, 13,013 bullets, 359 swords..." Pause that.

The hell?

My apologies Jimba- twas Tina- hmmm...getting weary. James

All hail the conqueror of the new frontier

http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1148&Itemid=31

Maenwhile in Gansu...

By Lucy Hornby

XIAHE, China (Reuters) - Fifteen Tibetan Buddhist monks interrupted a state-sponsored media tour of a restive region of western China on Wednesday, demanding the return of the Dalai Lama and yelling that they had no human rights.

In the second such incident in as many months, the monks, carrying a banned Tibetan flag, burst out of a building at the Labrang monastery in the town of Xiahe, in the northwestern province of Gansu, and rushed across a plaza to a group of 20 visiting Chinese and foreign journalists.

"The Dalai Lama has to come back to Tibet. We are not asking for Tibetan independence, we are just asking for human rights. We have no human rights now," one monk told the reporters in Chinese.

Many of the monks had covered their heads in robes. One monk, with his robe over his head, kept pushing his right hand over his left fist and saying "China - Tibet", implying that China was suffocating Tibet.

They said eight monks were still being held by authorities, but did not specify if they were from Labrang or elsewhere, and that plainclothes agents of China's paramilitary armed police force were stationed throughout Xiahe.

Some of the monks threw prayer shawls over the shoulders of photographers.

Officials leading the tour did not appear to try to intervene during the incident, but a number of older monks persuaded the protesters to disperse after about 10 minutes.

Hundreds of monks from the Labrang monastery led a march through Xiahe in mid-March, after riots erupted in the Tibetan regional capital Lhasa on March 14.

Xiahe is one of the biggest centres of the Dalai Lama's Gelukpa branch of Buddhism.

China poured troops into the region to restore order in the wake of the protests. Xiahe was still under heavy armed guard earlier this month, a Reuters eyewitness reported.

On Wednesday, the main street of Xiahe showed a few buildings with broken windows but little other obvious damage.

The incident is the second disruption by protesting Buddhist monks during a stage-managed tour organized for reporters.

In late March, Chinese authorities were embarrassed after about 30 monks stormed a briefing by a temple administrator for a select group of foreign journalists at the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa, shouting that the reporters were being lied to.

Monastery officials played down Wednesday's protest.

“What you journalists just saw was a very small minority of people who disrupt our harmonious and peaceful life and religious activities, said Gongqihujinba, vice-director of the Labrang monastery's management committee.

“We will take care of them under national law. What they did was not consistent with national security laws, or rules on religion,” said Gongqihujinba, who is also a member of an advisory body to Gansu's provincial parliament.

Guomangcang, dean of religious affairs at a provincial Buddhism academy attached to Labrang, suggested that the monks may have been put up to the protest.

“Maybe the young ones were not acting of their own accord, maybe someone influenced them,” Guomangcang said.

China has said Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, and his associates are behind the unrest. The Dalai Lama, who fled into exile in India in 1959 after an abortive uprising against Chinese rule, has denied the accusation.

That second article was a bit ridiculous. I can't believe I read it for that long... that's five minutes I'll never see again.

Will someone please wake me in September when everything returns some state of normal? And if it doesn't, just put me on a plane to somewhere that doesn't have news.

I spose one redeeming feature of the article could be that it shows Tibetan monks are not lying down. Despite the crackdown they are still willing to voice their opoinioins in face of possible arrest and well yu know what happens inside those rooms with green painted walls- spose this is of no interest to an old China hand...james

Hi Michael and everyone,
of course Chinese Press is using propaganda tones, tends to exagerate and do not provide any useful link, unfortunately the TYC has helped the chinese press in a lot of ways (including providing the link between protests in Tibet and in Xinjiang, check the part of my post about Tenzin Tsundue), if you're interest you can check out my post about tibetan independence movement on my blog, it's in italian but there are lots of useful links and english quotes, and you can translate it by babelfish directly from my site.
http://cinasconosciuta.blogspot.com/2008/04/ripercorrere-le-tappe-della-crisi-in.html

The weird paranoia that is illustrated by the ChinaView link is showing up around the world in comments made by Chinese students and ethnic Chinese. The same phrasology gets repeated so often that you have to think people are parroting the propoganda they get from the state media of China or are being given talking points by the Chinese embassies and consulates. In fact Startfor, an independent intelligence thinktank has a report out giving details of how the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco mobilized the Chinese community for pro-China anti-Tibet demonstrations during the torch relay. They even had people taking photos of pro-Tibet protesters in an effert to bar activists from entering China.