Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake and Erick Erickson of RedState have a very interesting discussion of what’s going on in Tibet and China on Bloggingheads TV. Erickson argues that Bush should boycott the Olympics, while Jane pushes for action ahead of that, including efforts to ensure that China does not violently crack down in Tibet in connection to the torch relay. It’s an interesting discussion that moves on to America’s moral standing in the world.
Category: Tibet & China
Fear & Courage in Tibet
Glenn Hurowitz, author of Fear and Courage in the Democratic Party, has a forceful op-ed in Politico today on Tibet, China, and the imperative for the US to “bring China to its knees” a la Congressman Charlie Wilson’s work to stop the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Hurowitz challenges Tibetans to take a stronger stance than the Dalai Lama’s Middle Way in response to Chinese brutality.
Mahatma Gandhi was never as restrained as the Dalai Lama. Whereas the Dalai Lama renounced the goal of independence and even defends China’s right to hold the Beijing Olympics (and said he would like to attend the opening ceremonies), Gandhi moved in the opposite direction during his career. He first advocated for mere autonomy, but then, horrified by the British army’s massacre of hundreds of peaceful Indian protesters at Amritsar, embraced the cause of independence and never backed away until India achieved it. What’s more, he actively sought out confrontation with the British army: His march to the sea, his boycott of imported fabric and his general strikes were in large part intended to provoke a British reaction — and lay bare to the world the cruelty and immorality of the British occupation of India.
I agree with Hurowitz that the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Government in Exile need to reevaluate the benefits of continuing to seek autonomy at a time when an uprising in Tibet extending more than a month demands freedom. Autonomy has not even produced negotiations – only mere “dialogues” – despite 30 plus years of nonviolence. The brutality the Chinese government has displayed in quashing Tibetan protests, coupled with the international smear campaign the Chinese government has waged against the Dalai Lama and nonviolent Tibetan support groups, should compel the Dalai Lama and the TGIE to demand more, not less, for Tibet.
Hurowitz concludes his piece:
Given the kind of government we’re dealing with, it would be wise to look to Gandhi’s acknowledgments that not every government had the same humanitarian side as the British. Although Gandhi taught that nonviolence was “infinitely superior to violence,” and even suggested that nonviolence could have stopped Nazi atrocities, at other times he admitted that violent resistance to foreign invasion can be appropriate in situations in which peaceful behavior would equal defeat.
“I would risk violence a thousand times rather than risk the emasculation of a whole race,” he wrote. “My method of nonviolence can never lead to loss of strength, but it alone will make it possible, if the nation wills it, to offer disciplined and concerted violence in time of danger.”
To save Tibet from China’s crackdown, the Tibetans will need more than just rhetoric and cheek-turning in the face of a brutal, unfeeling crackdown and ongoing ethnic cleansing — they’ll need real support, real confrontation and a real Charlie Wilson to be their hero. And when that happens, we might just see not only the end of Chinese repression in Tibet but also the end of China’s cruel regime.
I think Hurowitz understates the degree to which the actions by Tibetans inside Tibet in the last month – almost exclusively nonviolent, but in a few instances violent – are in fact an exercise in profound strength of the Tibetan people in the face of Chinese repression. The acts of nonviolent protest, from the display of the Chinese flag to the hoisting of pictures of the Dalai Lama to publicly assembling and singing the national anthem or chanting “Free Tibet” is a quite real confrontation with China’s repressive power. It has lead to thousands of detentions, hundreds of deaths, and an untold number of disappearances. Tibetans are publicly and fearlessly committing acts that they know may be death sentences.
What is missing, as Hurowitz points out, is international leadership to support them in both words and actions. In that regard, Hurowitz is 100% correct. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a handful of US Congressmen have been supportive of Tibet, but I don’t think this is what Hurowitz seeks. Leaving aside the power of outside support for armed resistance in Tibet, unequivocal international condemnation from governments and corporations around the world would strike a massive blow to the Chinese regime. That this has been substituted by a series of press releases and weak-worded requests for China to let international observers into Tibet shows how generally unwilling the international community is to take meaningful action on behalf of the Tibetan people. There is a real leadership gap between the needs of Tibet and what they are receiving in response; this must change if the international community is going to play a positive role in the resolution of China’s occupation of Tibet.
Jackie Chan’s Olympic Laugher
Chan insists anyone trying to protest on his watch can expect short shrift, warning: ‘Demonstrators better not get anywhere near me.’
And the 54-year-old, speaking at the launch of latest movie Forbidden Kingdom, claimed many of the protestors are simply publicity seekers.
‘They are doing it for no reason. They just want to show off on the TV,’ he said. ‘They know, “if I can get the torch, I can go on the TV for the world news”.’
I think you’re engaging in what psychologists call projection, Jackie. A movie star complaining about political protesters doing it to get on TV is just too rich. Apparently the irony of him doing it at a big budget movie premier was lost on Jackie. Well, I guess I don’t have spend $10 going to see Forbidden Kingdom.
More on Cyber Attacks from China
Business Week has followed up their previous story on cyber attacks from China on US military and intelligence agencies and defense contractors with another detailed piece on how similar attacks from China are being directed at Students for a Free Tibet and other Tibet support groups. The piece discusses a specific, targeted attack disguised as an email from a member of the Tibetan independence movement, sent with a hidden virus aimed at damaging SFT’s efforts.
When Conall Watson resigned from the board of directors at activist group Students for a Free Tibet UK in June, 2007, someone—not a friend—was watching on the Web. The 25-year-old British pharmacist, who worked for the free-Tibet movement in his spare time, had sent a mass farewell e-mail mentioning his departure and a change in his e-mail address. “I’m stepping down from the SFT UK organizing group,” part of the message, reviewed by BusinessWeek, reads.
Nine months later, Conall Watson’s name—and parts of that same 2007 sayonara e-mail—returned to haunt the activist organization in the form of a stealthy cyber-attack the group believes was launched from China. On Feb. 19, Students for a Free Tibet Executive Director Lhadon Tethong and other board members found a new message in their in-boxes. The note, addressed from Conall Watson, mentioned that he planned to pass along the résumé of a potential new activist.
“Dear Alex, Ben and all other SFT friends,” the message, also reviewed by BusinessWeek reads. “What a pity I can do little for the Tibetan cause, while I know you are all still fighting bravely for it. Yesterday a Tibetan friend came to my office and asked me to recommend his nephew Rinzen Yeshe to join the SFT UK.… I will email his [résumé] very soon. Best wishes, Conall. p.s. He is a Tibetan friend of mine who I trust, so I trust his nephew.”
An hour later, the résumé arrived. But suspicious SFT UK members called Watson to ask if he had sent the message. He had not. An alert was sent out, say SFT officials, and nobody opened the résumé. How did the unknown attackers learn so much about Conall Watson? “Either the message was intercepted, or it might have been an inside job,” says Watson. SFT UK members have received harassing phone calls in the past, he says. “But the Internet was new.”
These attacks are quite common. I hear regularly from friends in the Tibetan independence movement about new viruses and email attachments that must not be opened. In recent weeks, this has been happening daily. The Business Week piece doesn’t make the conclusion that the attacks are authored by the Chinese government, but it’s clear that the Chinese government is a beneficiary of digital attacks on Tibetan groups in exile. In any case, whoever is sending messages like the one described above has dedicated serious resources to learning about the individual members and activities of Students for a Free Tibet. Separate from any blame being assigned to the source of the attacks, it has simply raised the awareness of the Tibetan independence movement to not trust attachments, even when they know the sender. These attacks don’t work when the recipients are cautious and thoughtful about their e-communications.
Tibet & P.R. Strategy
The New York Times has a good article on how effective the Tibetan independence movement, lead by Students for a Free Tibet, has been at creating the sort of public relations narrative that has drawn global interest and support for Tibet in recent months. The ironic thing in this is that the Beijing Olympics were and are meant to be a public relations coup for the Chinese government. The response by groups like SFT has developed out of the need to communicate better and more effectively than China. So far, it looks like SFT has succeeded.
Chinese Youth Sentiment
Matthew Forney has a very interesting op-ed in today’s New York Times about the loyalty Chinese youth show towards the Chinese government and how unlikely it is to find seeds of dissent in the educated elites in China. Though Forney doesn’t go into it, the same loyalty seen inside China is likely even heightened amongst Chinese students pursuing graduate degrees in the West. Forney’s analysis points towards a tremendously successful state-run pedagogy that teaches Han Chinese that they are ascendant victims and outside forces critical of China (Tibetans, human rights groups) are not to be treated seriously. In this regard, it’s clear that the Chinese government has created a brilliant propaganda machine that reaches into the educational system and ensures that dissent is less likely today than it was twenty years ago.
The main problem that this creates down the line for China is that it is never shocking that elites are complacent under the current regime. They are, after all, elites. The economic underclass in China, however, does not necessarily harbor the same feelings of ascendancy. China has averaged over 75,000 annual instances of mass protest in recent years – coming almost entirely from laborers, farmers, and fisherman. Nationalism may help shift the underclass’ attention off of their economic woes, but it’s hard to imagine a situation where internal political turmoil in mainland China originate from the educated elites and not the working class.
Next Generation Activists
PBS’s Frontline had a feature on Students for a Free Tibet a couple days ago which I’m just finding now. It’s a great piece, with both video and text at the following link. The intro by Alison Satake really captures the essence of SFT and the Tibetan independence movement today.
It’s the night before the highly anticipated Olympic torch relay in San Francisco, and I am watching a training session for protestors led by Students for a Free Tibet, the group who scaled the Golden Gate Bridge to unfurl two banners the day before. A stream of young Tibetans files into the back of a Berkeley church until the room is filled. Lhadon Tethong, the executive director of the organization, arrives with a caravan of weary protesters who had attended a candlelight vigil in San Francisco. Nobel Peace laureate Bishop Desmond Tutu had spoken there. So did actor and activist Richard Gere. Draped in Tibetan flags, with their face paint reading “Free Tibet,” the protestors look like sports fans after a long tournament.
But the outcome of this event is still to be decided.
The organizers of Students for a Free Tibet are sophisticated. In their black American Apparel tracksuit jackets with “Team Tibet ’08” on the back, they immediately plug their white Apple laptops, iPods, and Blackberrys into the available jacks in the room and get wired. One organizer, a tall Tibetan in a black leather jacket said I could subscribe to their Twitter account to receive text message updates on my cell phone. He shows me how.
The leaders are recent college grads, who are savvy when it comes to the media and technology. They immediately begin drilling the group of mostly teenage immigrants about “message discipline” and “how to talk to the media.” The trainer, Gopal Dayaneni, tells them “Free Tibet” has been a useful message, but he encourages them to trade it in for a stronger catch-phrase: “End the Occupation.”
This is definitely the next generation of Tibetan activists.
The ironic thing with this description is that SFT is not a new organization. It has existed, with many of the same members and leaders, since the mid 1990s. The level of effectiveness that SFT has achieved in recent years is not a product of youth, but experience. Core organizers have done and seen many actions, trained many students in nonviolent tactics, found new ways to fund raise, and stayed in tune to new technologies that make their organizing more effective. But it is true, this is the next generation of activists, defining themselves in a moment brought on by the global spotlight of the Olympics in China and the imperative of human rights and freedom for Tibet.
Satake’s piece goes on through her experience in San Francisco during the protests of the torch relay minute-by-minute. It’s a detailed retelling of the actions and activities surrounding the relay and it’s worth a read.
Japan Refuses Chinese Torch Guards
Japan has now joined Australia and refused to allow the Chinese People’s Armed Police guard the Olympic torch while it is in Japan.
“We should not violate the principle that the Japanese police will firmly maintain security,” Kyodo news agency quoted Shinya Izumi, head of the National Public Safety Commission, as saying.
“We do not know what position the people who escorted the relay are in,” Izumi was quoted as saying. “If they are for the consideration of security, it is our role.”
Security is the province of a sovereign nation? What a radical idea. It’s a shame that no one thought of it in the US, the United Kingdom or France.
Will There Be More Blood on Their Hands?
Lhadon writes:
The photos in this video are hard to look at. They are of Tibetans shot and killed inside Tibet over the past month. This is the reality of Chinese rule in Tibet and what Chinese authorities do to Tibetans who dare to protest. This is what we can expect if the IOC allows China to take the torch through Tibet in May and June. The IOC doesn’t seem to get it?! Maybe this video will help them see the reality.
The IOC has once again refused to stop the torchwashing of China’s occupation of Tibet. The relay through Tibet will likely produce protests and those protests will likely be met with violence by Chinese security forces. If and when that happens, the IOC will bear just as much responsibility as the China Chinese government.
Cyber Attacks From China
Business Week has an in-depth, cover article on cyber attacks originating from China on top US defense contractors and military and intelligence agencies in the American government. Tibetan support groups like Students for a Free Tibet also receive frequent cyber attacks.
Peng’s 3322.org and sister sites have become a source of concern to the U.S. government and private firms. Cyber security firm Team Cymru sent a confidential report, reviewed by BusinessWeek, to clients on Mar. 7 that illustrates how 3322.org has enabled many recent attacks. In early March, the report says, Team Cymru received “a spoofed e-mail message from a U.S. military entity, and the PowerPoint attachment had a malware widget embedded in it.” The e-mail was a spear-phish. The computer that controlled the malicious code in the PowerPoint? Cybersyndrome.3322.org—the same China-registered computer in the attempted attack on Booz Allen. Although the cybersyndrome Internet address may not be located in China, the top five computers communicating directly with it were—and four were registered with a large state-owned Internet service provider, according to the report.
A person familiar with Team Cymru’s research says the company has 10,710 distinct malware samples that communicate to masters registered through 3322.org. Other groups reporting attacks from computers hosted by 3322.org include activist group Students for a Free Tibet, the European Parliament, and U.S. Bancorp (USB), according to security reports. Team Cymru declined to comment. The U.S. government has pinpointed Peng’s services as a problem, too. In a Nov. 28, 2007, confidential report from Homeland Security’s U.S. CERT obtained by BusinessWeek,
“Cyber Incidents Suspected of Impacting Private Sector Networks,” the federal cyber watchdog warned U.S. corporate information technology staff to update security software to block Internet traffic from a dozen Web addresses after spear-phishing attacks. “The level of sophistication and scope of these cyber security incidents indicates they are coordinated and targeted at private-sector systems,” says the report. Among the sites named: Peng’s 3322.org, as well as his 8800.org, 9966.org, and 8866.org. Homeland Security and U.S. CERT declined to discuss the report.
It’s hard to say whether the Chinese government is organizing these attacks themselves, or if they’re done by intrepid nationalistic Chinese hackers. But one source in the Business Week piece cites the People’s Liberation Army – China’s military – as having “”tens of thousands” of trainees launching attacks on U.S. computer networks.”
The attacks SFT, defense contractors, and the US government get are real. They seek to intimidate, threaten, and disable the targets of the attacks. When the target is a Tibet support group like SFT, the goal is to globalize the oppression found inside Tibet. When the attack is on governmental agencies and defense contractors, the goal may be something with far more deadly repercussions. In both cases this is a serious problem that needs to be addressed. If the Chinese government is organizing or funding these attacks, that should be a matter of international diplomatic debate. If they are done by private citizens, the Chinese government has an obligation to stop the source of the attacks. As there is massive censorship and tens of thousands of full-time Chinese government internet monitors, the continued propagation of attacks, even if done by private citizens, must be assumed to be taking place with at least the tacit approval of the Chinese government.
Hold Fast 