Op-ed

Hypocrisy and Face: An Open Letter

The China-Tibet Olympics commotion depresses.

We all knew CCTV was a joke. Now we are disappointed to learn that the BBC has a political agenda as well, joining what Mick Hume of The Times calls the newest Olympic sport—”China bashing.” No Pulitzers for this mess. CNN will win the gold medal in “China bashing” for mislabeling Nepalese crackdown pictures as Chinese (the single most effective Chinese propaganda tool in years—good job CNN!); the BBC will have to settle for the silver for their coverage of the London Olympic relay.

On the other side of the coin, overseas Chinese lead the anti-Western media wave online—a movement tacitly supported by the Chinese government—by exposing the Western world’s erroneous coverage. These precocious and patriotic Chinese students, many of them my brilliant colleagues, often neglect to mention their own country’s shortcomings in this area, and the fact that China does not allow Western media to freely cover China. This is apparently logical because, according to the Chinese ambassador to London, Western journalists need to “earn China’s respect.” My dear, talented Chinese friends: for the longest time, Chinese media listed only 16 Han Chinese dead and did not mention Tibetan casualties. Did you really believe that only 16 Han Chinese were killed in this chaos?

It has long been in vogue for Westerners to “Free Tibet.” Yet when I ask my Western friends, “What about Xinjiang?” I am met with a confused stare. Yes, what about Xinjiang? A province north of Tibet with a parallel situation in all but religion: Muslim. If we can “free Tibet,” why not “free Xinjiang” while we’re at it? Unfortunately, the Uighurs of Xinjiang do not have the Dalai Lama’s PR engine, or perhaps their Muslim status makes Westerners cringe. Are Muslims not as cuddly as Buddhists? Whatever the reason, Westerners shrug at the name “Xinjiang” while raising their Free Tibet banners higher and higher.

Ignorance is bliss.

And Western politicians announce loudly and proudly that they will not attend the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony—thereby implying that they agree with “Free Tibet”—yet these same politicians will attend the closing ceremony. And there’s the rub: would a single one of these officials recognize Tibet as a country or vote for them to join the UN? As in the case of Taiwan, the answer is a resounding “no.” Money talks.

Meanwhile, Chinese students abroad oscillate between healthy patriotic fervor and unhealthy militant nationalism (such as in the case of crucified Duke University negotiator Grace Wang). These students rarely address the issues at the heart of the matter, instead they (mis)direct the debate to criticisms of the West. Friends: why are the Tibetans—and please don’t argue that it is a minority protesting, the group is sizable—so upset? Being modernized, being well-fed, having jobs, and not being subject to the one-child policy might be the Han Chinese ideal of happiness but it might not be the Tibetan one.

One example: in a conversation with a Han Chinese student, I mentioned the situation in Alaska—there is no sales tax, no income tax, and on the Permanent Fund Dividend, Alaskans receive money from the government. I asked if Tibet has similar economic incentives. She tells me it does—for the Han Chinese. She is unsure about other employment areas, but she knows Han teachers receive double wages. When I ask her about Tibetans, she laughs and says that of course they do not receive double wages due to the logistical impossibility and because the average wage in Tibet is lower than in Eastern China. She hastens to add that Tibetans get into schools with lower scores, are not subject to the one-child policy, have plenty to eat, etc. But I would remind the Chinese—these Han-biased tax incentives only breed hierarchy, comparison, and dissent.

And then there is this rise of ironically anti-Tibet, pro-China hate propaganda on the web. If one believes Tibet is part of China, is a Chinese person, and also hates Tibet, doesn’t that person hate themselves? And by hating Tibetans, doesn’t that Chinese person hate fellow Chinese? These YouTube videos and anti-Tibetan websites (like FuckTibet.com) are disturbing in that they seem to conceal potentially extensive Chinese racism leveled at Tibetans. It makes me wonder if the Tibetans aren’t on to something. If you hate a group of people or the land they live on, do you deserve to call those people your countrymen and their land your land? Not to mention the fact that religion—one of the issues most ignored by the Han—is quite obviously the most important matter to Tibetans. It is the Buddhist elephant in the Chinese living room.

Yet how do we deal with these issues? First of all, the West needs to abandon one-sided characterizations of China and truly espouse our proposed ideals of “journalistic integrity.” We pride ourselves on “the facts” and should endeavor to deliver what we promise. Otherwise, our mistakes are recorded, broadcast and rebroadcast on thousands upon thousands of blogs and television sets in China, destroying Chinese faith in Western media and entrenching the Chinese in a defensive nationalistic stance. Our mistakes have already made Tibetan negotiation nearly impossible. We also need to get off our superior “cultural high horse” and abandon blind cultural assumptions—we, too, occupy sovereign nations, and “Western” does not necessarily connotate “right.”

Meanwhile, the Chinese need to realize that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd of Australia’s reference to “zhengyou” (a friend who dares to disagree) applies to everyone, including Westerners and Tibetans who disagree with Chinese policies, as well as Han negotiators like Grace Wang. China simply cannot accuse everyone of being terrorists, separatists and traitors or bring up the Opium War every time there is conflict. In other words, increasing economic ties with France does not mean that France cannot criticize you; boycotting Carrefour is simply a childlike, sullen response to “losing face.”

I support China’s hosting of the Olympics but recognize the right of Tibetans, academics and Western hippies to protest. I detest “China bashing” as much as I detest Tibet bashing. I support patriotism but I abhor nationalism. There is a solution to these problems, but it does not lie in passively “giving face” to avoid Chinese embarrassment, nor does it lie in hypocrisy. As a “zhengyou” of both China and the West, I implore you all to take a minute and listen to the other side.

The author of this article is a researcher in a British institution. The author requested that the article be published anonymously. Any e-mails responding to this post will be forwarded to the author.

© 2008 The Hypermodern.