Beijing Newspeak

Last month, Angela Merkel became the first German chancellor to hold an official meeting with the Dalai Lama. The Chinese government’s response was standard enough. The Dalai Lama is not simply a religious figure, he is a longtime political exile engaged in separatist activities. China said the meeting could damage trade ties.

Then came the announcement that President Bush would become the first sitting US president to appear with the Dalai Lama at a public event when the Tibetan leader is awarded the Congressional Gold Medal on October 17. News filtered through that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper will also meet the Dalai Lama at the end of the month and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is expected to meet him next year when the DL embarks on a UK tour. It is not as if China is in a position to alter its trade relations with Germany, the US, Canada and Britain. There is nothing it can do about the torrent of state-level meetings involving its age-old foe except make loud noises. The time, days before the CPC congress, was therefore ripe for China’s propaganda chiefs to make the situation a whole lot worse for the motherland.

Beginning last Friday, the powers that be released four commentaries - one every two days leaving us just enough time for digestion before another barrage is rammed down our throats - with more bite than one of those rabid dogs we hear about in Beijing, shortly before the government launches a crackdown on pet pooches. They can be read here, here, here and here. Anyone who reads all four gets a lollipop.

Criticism of the Dalai Lama does not solely emanate from the Party bods of course. Victor and Victoria Trimondi’s book “The Shadow of the Dalai Lama” proves that and I found the snippets that I have read fascinating. But no one can match the Chinese propaganda machine in its ability to rub people up the wrong way with tirades that often verge on childish. The first two articles I have linked to above weren’t that bad but things fly rapidly downhill with the article “Carrying forward Buddhism or fueling evil cults”, which was picked up, and picked apart, by Reuters. Here is a taster (love the aha):

Why would the 14th Dalai Lama openly violate the teachings of Sakyamuni that urge his followers to get rid of demons and uphold truth and laws to favor Aum Shinrikyo? Why would he flout the tenets of Buddhism urging the masses not to do evils but to do good deeds? The 14th Dalai Lama had confessed in a letter to the cult, appreciating the Aum Shinrikyo Sect for its “generous donation to our Buddhist collective in exile”. Aha, it turned out to be that the “leader” even bartered away the sacred tenet of Buddhism as a cheap bargaining chip in money deals.

It ended with a liberal helping of undignified exclamation marks, that were actually removed by the China Daily (as was the “aha”), one can only assume, out of embarrassment:

As one Chinese saying goes: Birds of a feather flock together. The real reasons for the collusion of the 14th Dalai Lama and Li Hongzhi are their shared situation. They are both in exile after their illegal acts to subvert the Chinese government and the Chinese people ended in constant failures under the august Chinese Constitution and laws; Shared nature–They are both not resigned to failures and attempt to hoodwink and manipulate their few domestic followers to carry on making turbulence and to hold back the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation; Shared intention–They are both hostile to their motherland and regard the 1.3 million Chinese as enemies, dreaming a pipe dream of returning to China, with the support of their masters, to materialize their evil objective of splitting China. Imagine the 14th Dalai Lama, the self-proclaimed “religious leader”, even condescended to associate with Li Hongzhi who has been labeled by the United International World Buddhism Association Headquarters as a preacher of evil cult and a swindler! This obviously reflects that the 14th Dalai Lama has cornered himself into a dead end!

As an English-language polisher, what do you do when you receive something like that, translated word-for-word from the Chinese? Well, nothing of course, apart from ensuring it is just about grammatically correct.

Further credibility is lost when this kind of “signed article” is written by someone we have never heard of (he might be more well known in the Chinese-language press of course). The author in question is “Shi Shan” but we are given nothing about his background, leaving Reuters with little option but to say, in rightly sceptical fashion, the article was written by “somebody calling themselves Shi Shan”. Two days later, we learn that Shi Shan is “a research fellow in Tibetan Buddhism who used to work in Tibet for a long time” and actually accompanied the DL and the 10th Panchen Lama to Beijing:

In 1954, I accompanied the 14th Dalai Lama and the 10th Panchen Lama to Beijing. Till now, the zealous and respectful manner that the Dalai Lama demonstrated during that visit is still vivid in my mind. In the eulogy he presented to Chairman Mao Zedong in both Tibetan and Chinese, he extolled Chairman Mao as the “red sun”, which “glorifies the whole nation, drives away invaders, and brings peace and blessing to people of all ethnic groups”. However, when he fled abroad, he went back on his words and broke the precept of no lying by wantonly attacking and defaming his home country and calling on the so-called free world to unite to block the development of his own people and motherland.

I have found it fascinating to follow the relationship between the DL and the Chinese government through previous state media reports. In February, 1951, things appear hunky dory, with the headline: “Tibetans initiate peaceful liberation movement”. Four months later in June, the less catchy: “Congratulations sent to Dalai Lama by government of TAR on signing of measures for peaceful liberation of Tibet”. In November, the Dalai Lama is presenting gifts to PLA soldiers.

Leap forward to 1954 and the DL has reached celebrity status. Dalai Lama does this, Dalai Lama does that, Dalai Lama goes here, Dalai Lama greets someone else. In 1957, “The Dalai Lama worships Buddha in Lhasa”, something he does quite regularly I would imagine. In 1958, he is even “warning American imperialists they would be courting certain doom if they fail to recognise the strength of the Chinese people”. But then we get to March 28, 1959, when the “Order of the State Council of the Chinese people’s republic” arrives (apologies for the offense to the eyes but this was before the era of capitalization and correct punctuation):

most of the kaloons of the tibet local government and the upper strata reactionary clique colluded with imperialism,assembled rebellious bandits, carry out rebellion, ravaged the people’s congress, and premier chou en-lai.the message was addressed to wladislaw gomulka, first secretary of the central committee of the polish united workers party; aleksander zawadzki president of the council people, put the dalai lama under duress, tore up the seventeen article agreement on measures for the peaceful liberation of tibet and, on the night of march nineteenth, directed the tibetan local army and rebellious elements to launch a general offensive against the people’s liberation army garrison in lhasa.such acts which betray the motherland and disrupt unification are not allowed by law. in order to safeguard the unification of the country and national unity, in addition to enjoining the tibet military area command of the chinese people’s liberation army to put down the rebellion thoroughly, the decision is that from this day the tibet local government is dissolved and the preparatory committee for the tibet autonomous region shall exercise the functions and powers of the tibet local government. during the time when the dalai lama dantzen-jaltso, chairman of the preparatory committee for the tibet autonomous region, is under duress by the rebels, panchen erdeni chuji-geltseng, vice-chairman of the preparatory committee will act as the chairman.

Credit to Xinhua’s masters, they published (in English) the full text of the Dalai Lama’s statement made on April 20 after he fled to India, which included the line:

the dalai lama would like to state categorically that he left lhasa and tibet and came to india of his own free will and not under duress.

China’s reaction came on the same day:

the so-called “statement of the dalai lama,” issued through an indian diplomatic official in tezpur on april eighteenth, is a crude document, lame in reasoning, full of lies and loop-holes.

(Apologies in advance for the last-line cliche but I’ve got to rush to work). The rest, as they say, is history.