Beijing Newspeak

TFS sufferers are advised not to continue.

The Xinhua commentary is propaganda at its most stimulating. A wild, unruly beast of a thing, it has the power to make you cringe, chortle and cry out in disbelieving indignation all in the time it takes to read two sentences.

About a year ago, there was a concerted effort by Xinhua’s English-language news factory to up its production of commentaries. I’m almost certain the motivation behind the move was not to sate its subscribers’ thirst for an opinion fest. Rather, it was seen as a good way to put across China’s point of view ie tell the depraved western media to put a sock in it.

The immigrant polishing community at the time suggested, diplomatically of course, that it was not a good idea. Big Reason number one: a news agency does not publish commentaries. Big Reason number two was slightly more complicated due to Xinhua’s primary role as the Ministry of Publicity’s muck spreader. Any commentary released by Xinhua must surely convey an official opinion from on high. But this wasn’t always the case.

Sometimes Xinhua was told to release a commentary written by the State Council eg a character assessment of the Dalai Lama. The journalist’s task was to translate it word for word. The polisher’s task, well at least how he saw it, was to sign his name on the copy without making any changes (apart from glaring grammatical errors, which if left uncorrected would have constituted a gross betrayal of the English language).

On other occasions, the senior editors would decide on a topic and a writer would be asked to construct a comment piece, which corresponded more or less with the government line on the issue. And this is where it all became a bit ridiculous. The journalist was effectively writing an opinion piece. He or she didn’t always share the government’s opinion but wasn’t allowed to write his or her own opinion. More often, the journalist didn’t have an opinion, which was reflected in the opinionless opinion piece. The polisher then had to do an entire rewrite, chucking in liberal clumps of his own opinion. Of course, there was no point in contradicting central government policy. It probably wouldn’t have sneaked through the political content screening but even if it had, the article would hardly have been reflective of a governmental change of heart. But I do remember one polishing comrade writing his own suggestions for how the one-child policy could be better implemented. Maybe the family planning office read it and took note. Or maybe the article was only read by a couple of perplexed foreign news agency journalists given the glorious task of Xinhua wire-watching.

Luckily, the commentary craze never really caught on, probably because they were always rejected by the polishers and writing one became more hassle than it was worth. But as soon as the Ministry of Publicity decided how to respond to the Tibet ruckus, it was as if someone had set off the whole of Liuyang’s annual explosives output next to the Three Gorges Dam. Now, every day without fail, Xinhua releases a commentary.

The Dalai Lama critiques are of course highly entertaining for the readers, who marvel at how little has changed since the Cultural Revolution. For the journalist writing/translating, it must be a bizarre experience being told to shut down the part of the brain that houses rational thinking and then sign your name to the article. I once asked a colleague how he felt about putting his name to a State Council rant about the Dalai Lama. “I know I’m brainwashed but I still believe 80 percent of it,” was the reply.

As for the current commentaries, I’m not sure whether they are coming from the State Council for direct translation by the Xinhua journalists or if the journalists are being told to write them themselves, at the direction of the Ministry of Publicity. Wherever they originate, I’m finding it disconcerting to see familiar names occupying the byline slots, particularly as the majority of those names belong to the best writers in the department, and with whom conversations are always highly enjoyable, stimulating and informative.

These commentaries have a distinct unpleasantness about them, possessing characteristics that are certainly not relefective of the authors’ personalities. They are snide and bitterly sarcastic, right down to the use of quotation marks around phrases like “simple monk”. Often, they are just plain ugly, descending into acerbic name calling, which is of course why they only succeed in turning their audience against the Chinese government. There also seems to be a policy of tossing in as much first-person content as possible, presumably to emphasise that the author is writing from the heart rather than on order of the propaganda masters. Take this odd concluding paragraph to this commentary:

I have no power to make this “simple monk” truly as simple as a monk. I only know that I have heard sweet words one day and seen them contradicted the next.

Sounds like something from the Bible.

When it comes to Tibet, there are two main targets for the commentaries’ ire: the Dalai Lama and his “clique” and the West (usually media). The victims both have an ambiguity about them. The Dalai Lama’s “clique” has never really been defined and the West is a concept. But last Friday, a Xinhua commentary chose to attack a group of young and very scared monks who had dared to speak out against the authorities in front of foreign media cameras - they believed they would be arrested for their actions but felt their words were worth the risk. And that’s when I felt the propaganda assault plumbed new depths of unpleasantness.

BEIJING, March 28 (Xinhua) — The images of the saffron-robed monks in Lhasa’s Jokhang Temple complaining about rights and freedom and demanding the return of the Dalai Lama certainly grabbed the attention of the world’s media.

It was a very effective intervention by the monks. Yet, what do they know about Tibet’s feudal past, which ended only in 1959?

After all, most of them are young men around 20 and know their spiritual leader only by his name.

The 14th Dalai Lama, like all his predecessors, was the biggest serf-owner. He owned every inch of land and every head of cattle in Tibet and was free to exploit — even sell off — his serfs and slaves.

Had the protesting young monks known this, they would probably know better than to fiddle with human rights now.

Having told the monks they had no right to think whatever they were thinking - or “fiddle” with their own human rights - because they were ignorant it then highlighted their ungratefulness:

They complained of having no religious rights, but the central government has allocated more than 700 million yuan (97 million U.S. dollars) since 1980 to maintain 1,400 monasteries and cultural relics.

That’s a hefty amount even for the world’s fourth largest economy.

Tibet now has more than 1,700 religious sites for Tibetan Buddhism that accommodate 460,000 monks and nuns, four mosques with 3,000 muslims, and a Tibetan Catholic Church for 700 believers.

Latest figures say 100 percent of farmers and herders, who account for more than 80 percent of the Tibetan population, get free medical care.

Remember the migrant would-be father who refused to sign off a Beijing hospital’s request for a Caesarean section last year, and lost his wife and baby? It was all because he had no money!

(Incidentally, I have to confess I’m having difficulty remembering the migrant would-be father story. I blame the cloudiness on the fact that Xinhua’s English-language department refused to release this particular story at the time because “it was just one individual case, the type that happens all the time in China, and the foreign media would only use it to make China look bad again.” The Chinese media covered it widely and it developed into one of the big talking points of the year.)

This commentary sums up perfectly the reasons why it will be a long, long time before the Chinese government gets the Tibetans on board. There is no attempt at understanding anything about what Tibetans are thinking. The argument is based purely on money and statistics. The door to discussions is closed. Funny really, because the Xinhua bosses could feed a similar argument to many of their journalists…

“What do you mean, you hate your job? Just count yourself lucky you didn’t have to whip up public insanity during the Cultural Revolution! You weren’t even born then! We’ve just allocated millions of yuan on a fancy new dining hall to make your TWO-HOUR lunch breaks more palatable. You get free healthcare and if you write lots of meaningless four-par stories you can easily meet your quota! What could you possibly dislike about working here?”

It’s time to admit the commentary made a good point though, which I believe Roland on ESWN mentioned in his entertaining conspiracy theory post:

When they cried out “it’s all lies”, I really wondered who was lying?

The monks, who claimed to be eyewitnesses to the alleged “killing of more than 100 Tibetans and arrests of more than 1,000″,also complained of having been confined at the temple from March 10 to March 26, while the riots took place on and after March 14..

None of the foreign reporters on the scene seemed to have noticed the contradiction — that if confined they couldn’t have witnessed what they claimed he had.

What about asking the authorities to clear this up? Are the young monks being imprisoned in their own monastery? Or are they allowed a modicum of “religious freedom” which would allow them to stumble across dead bodies?

Looks like I’ve developed the sarcastic quotation mark thing …

I’m not planning to develop the habit of reproducing entire articles and passing them off as blog posts. And I’m not exactly sure why I’m pasting the following comment piece from the Independent in full, apart from the fact I’m fairly busy. You can read about the author Mark Steel here and a bit about his other works here, which is advised as it puts the article in its weekly-irreverent-political-comedy-column context. When I read it, I laughed out loud. More than once. In a deathly quiet office. I was also aware that many would think it was wholly inappropriate and irresponsible (the first line being a prime example), particularly at a time when chastisement of western media is very much in vogue. Let it not be said that I shy away from fanning flames. Ah well, I’ll leave it up to you as the article itself was not open to readers’ comments …

Surely no one with a fragment of humanity can fail to be moved by the protesters in Tibet, not so much because of their courage and optimism, but because in one clip on the news they were on horseback. That’s how to arrive at demonstrations. Imagine if there was some protest at the local town hall, and just as it was petering out it was joined by the “Save Luton Library Cavalry”. Then the leader fiddled with his knee-length beard, announced “Councillors, prepare to meet your doom” and laughed with a threatening high-pitched cackle before jumping off his horse to drop-kick the mayor. Then it could all be portrayed in a film called Placards of Fury.

But mostly it seems the Chinese government are working hardest to live up to their stereotype. For example, the Communist Party Tibet Daily described the protesting monks as “Loyal running dogs of the Dalai Clique.” You’d know if someone from the Tibet Daily got a job on the Shepton Mallet Gazette, because the articles would begin “On Saturday there was a demonstration by pensioners who object to the proposed closure of the sub-post office in Wickton Street.

“It was organised by proprietor Mrs Henderson, a poisonous feudal decaying rat, lickspittle bourgeois stooge of her stamp-peddling reactionary camel-dung husband, the so-called Mister Henderson.”

Similarly, if the Communist Party chief in Tibet was seriously trying to persuade neutrals of his case, he might not have referred to the Dalai Lama as “A devil with a human face, but the heart of a beast.” To be fair, this sort of language might be what’s needed to liven up political debate in this country. Then on Question Time, Dimbleby could say: “So Frank Dobson says you’re a devil with a human face and the bowels of a hyena - how do you respond to that, Shirley Williams?”

The Chinese government’s claim that the situation in Tibet amounts to random criminal violence, which the military are trying to deal with calmly, might be open to question, given that one side is protected by armoured vehicles and the other side is protected by loose-fitting silky orange cloth. Maybe the Tibet Daily will inform its readers: “Kindly policemen faced further anarchy yesterday when batty Buddhists tried to DAZZLE them with their blinding robes. A spokesman said: ‘We had no choice but to open fire. Some of them had gongs, and if they’d started using them as frisbees who knows WHAT damage they’d have done?’”

The Chinese government may add its flourishes to its justification for brutality, but in general the language is familiar. It’s similar to the line put forward by any empire when faced with an uprising: “an anarchic minority, opposed to progress, funded by outsiders” and so on. Back in the days of the Cold War, this type of scenario led to the most splendid hypocrisy, such as Western leaders cheering heroic trade unionists in communist Poland but supporting the army that was murdering heroic trade unionists in capitalist Chile. But there was another infuriating side to that situation, which is that most people who considered themselves “on the left” had an affection for the communist countries. Speaking to them about some vile dictator in Eastern Europe was like talking to a woman who insists on going out with a grotesque bloke. You’d say “Can’t you see - he starves his population and there’s no free speech and he puts dissidents in gulags,” and they’d reply “Aah but you don’t see the gentle caring side of him like I do.”

Then they’d cheer heroic trade unionists in capitalist Chile but support the army that was murdering heroic trade unionists in communist Poland.

So yesterday, with a touching hint of nostalgia, the Communist Party paper the Morning Star told us anyone who supported the Dalai Lama was “A fool or a rogue,” and the fact that there have been riots in several cities “is evidence they were put up to it by someone”, and suggests “someone who had fundamentalist power over these people.” So Tibetans are defying a powerful army because they’ve been brainwashed by a 72-year-old with glasses who presumably chants his orders up a mountain, and as they echo round the valleys his followers stare into the distance and say robotically “Orders - from - master - must - get - crushed - by -tank.”

The marvellous modern twist, however, is that now Western leaders and Rupert Murdoch want to be friends with the Communist leaders of China as well. What a feel-good story it is, communists and captalists finally settling their differences, and realising they have so much in common, such as the desire to shoot teenagers protesting for freedom - and all in the name of freedom.

Yesterday, Xinhua released this story which highlighted a number of foreign media sources condemning the riots in Lhasa and accusing the Western media of showing the bias of a crown green bowl.

A precis: Pakistan Television said Pakistan opposed any attempts to violate “China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”, Indonesian Chinese-language newspaper Guo Ji Ri Bao accused some western media or groups “harbouring evil intentions” of seizing upon the riots in Lhasa to tarnish China’s “image of peaceful development” and the LA Times quoted tourists describing the ferocity of the rioters. Singaporean paper Lianhe Zaobao said the Western media was playing its part in attempts to “sabotage” the Olympics, New Zealand TV3 relayed the anger of Chinese citizens in New Zealand at Western media bias and NZ’s Dominion Post published a reader’s letter saying people should stop labouring the human rights point and look at the actual situation in Tibet. The Albania-China friendship association said the riots were “premeditated splittist activities” and the Western media’s reporting was a “manifestation of their traditional prejudices”. And the former director of Romania’s national news agency said the riots were “elaborately planned” to discredit China.

Xinhua, forget about all that. Lay off the Tibet subject for a moment and make hay like you’ve never made hay before with this piece from Britain’s bastion of respectable journalism, the Daily Mail.

The headline goes: “I’m off to China to be with my bride: the food’s fresher, living is cheaper …. and bins are emptied TWICE a day.” Here it goes:

In just 18 months of marriage, Ken Miller and his bride have found the road to wedded bliss rather rocky.

There is their 25-year-age gap, the fact that they live 6,000 miles apart - not to mention the small matter of neither speaking the other’s language.

But when 70-year-old Mr Miller managed to secure his 46-year-old Chinese wife Lei Genxiou a place in his sheltered accommodation near Swansea, it seemed they would at last be together - until she was refused a visa.

So now he is turning his back on Britain and moving to China to be with her … and he can’t wait to get there.

Mr Miller will set up home in the south-western Chinese city of Nanning, where the couple married in 2006 after meeting on the Internet.

“The quality of life over there is much better than it is here,” he said. “The food is fresher, the lifestyle is cheaper, and you get your rubbish emptied twice a day.

“The British have an old-fashioned view of China. It is a great place to live. I know of people who have come from Nanning to live here, and hated it.

“In China, there are 14-lane roads in the middle of town lined with shrubs and trees which are never damaged by vandals.

“They’ve got shops that women over here would die for. I am very excited about going to live with Lei, and she is too. I have just been talking to her on the computer. We have never been closer.”

He has visited his bride three times since they married and says he will have no regrets about leaving Britain.

Recalling a recent visit to Nanning, he added: “We went out to a restaurant which served 30 different dishes of food. The bill for seven of us was £14, and we drank 35 pints of beer.

“So they haven’t got an NHS, but on practically every street there are doctors and dentists which are open 14 hours a day, seven days a week. And yes, they eat dogs there - but we eat deer and rabbits.”

Mr Miller, who has been married twice before, said they can live well off his pensions. “And my wife has a job as a buyer for a restaurant so I will definitely be well-fed.”

He dismisses anyone who might be tempted to question the basis of their relationship.

“People have said to me that she’s just after a visa. I say, ‘Yes, of course she wants a visa. Of course she wants a better life. And who can blame her?’ But it works both ways - I get companionship, so I think it’s a fair gamble.

“And now she has been refused a visa and we are still together, so what does that prove? This is my life and after all my years, I’ve earned the right to do as I please.”

Asked if he is nervous about moving to a country without understanding the language, he said: “Lei’s not taking English lessons, and I can’t say five words in Mandarin. But when we’re together, we communicate a lot through touch.

“I’ve been around long enough to know I’ll get by. You pick up the language more easily if you live in a country, and I might take some lessons.”

Their romance began after Mr Miller saw an advert in a local newspaper for a dating agency which specialised in matching British lonely hearts with Chinese brides.

After paying £300, he was put in touch with Lei and they began communicating via the internet.

He described the lifestyle he is seeking abroad with a younger woman as “every old man’s dream”.

Describing their mutual attraction, Mr Miller added: “She is absolutely gorgeous. She says I’m handsome. But whether or not she loves me, I don’t know. What is the definition of love anyway? I’ve only got a few years left, so I’m going to China and I’m not coming back.”

You could develop quite a few lines of argument here. Britain’s draconian visa laws? Carnivorous double standards? Or just proof the Western media is indeed Satan incarnate.

(Jim from Indianapolis makes a good point in the comments section. How do Ken and Lei communicate on the Internet given their language predicament?)

UPDATE: I can’t believe I’m updating this post but anyway … it appears the Daily Mail found the story in Wales on Sunday. The original article has a couple of amusing snippets and the answer, as kindly pointed out by Chris Crook in the comments section, to the how-do-they-communicate conundrum. Here are a few pars:

“I’ve heard all the knockers saying things like ‘she’s only after your money, Ken’, but we’ve been together 18 months now and if that was her intention she would have done it by now,” said the passionate pensioner, before pausing.

“Hang on, wait. I’ve got to put my teeth in.”

Ken continued: “Right, as I was saying, we’re even stronger than ever now so the doubters can get stuffed.

“I’ll admit the language barrier can get a bit frustrating, but we have a machine that can translate English to Mandarin and vice versa, although it tends to get things a bit wrong sometimes,” laughed the twice-married former Royal Navy man.

“One time she was trying to tell me she loved me, but it came up with, ‘you are a big elephant’ instead.

But the real answer as to how they communicate lies here:

Ken’s been investing in new technology so he can get to see Lei every day.

“I bought one of those web-cams and we get together two or three times a day.

“Actually, it’s surprising what you can do on those!”

It’s still going to be a few days yet before it feels acceptable to write about anything non-Tibet related. I was mulling over the possibility of tackling the reemergence of “thought liberation”, touched upon by the Economist, bellowed from the rooftops by Guangdong Party Secretary Wang Yang and planted in question format by a Xinhua journalist at Wen Jiabao’s parliamentary press conference this week. I’ll put it on ice for now, particularly as this idea of “emancipation of the mind” is hardly reflected in China’s propaganda strategies on Tibet: namely to “incite patriotism and hatred of the Dalai Lama clique” among the Chinese people, according to the Ministry of Publicity’s internal directive.

With Tibet hoovering up the column inches, Tuesday’s predictably farcical trial of human rights campaigner Hu Jia received limited coverage, understandable given most China correspondents were playing hide-and-seek with police in Tibetan areas of Gansu, Sichuan and Qinghai. No verdict was given at the end of a trial that lasted a few hours, the typically brief period of time allowed for a defendant on “inciting state subversion” charges. Strange really, seeing as the government could have regarded the issuance of a prison sentence as one of those good-days-to-bury-bad-news moments. Could that mean the government is waiting for the Tibet furore to die down before showing Hu Jia leniency in a spectacular, although painfully unsubtle, pre-Olympic PR stunt? Hu’s lawyer doesn’t seem to think so, according to the Reporters Without Borders press release:

One of his lawyers, Li Fangping, was pessimistic when he left the court at the end of the hearing, saying his client faced the possibility of a five-year prison sentence.

On a personal note, it has been a different week. I have done very unexpected interviews with four different BBC radio channels and NPR, discussing China’s propaganda tactics on the Tibet issue in my capacity, I presume, as a blogging ex-propagandist. In between these, I was working on an article on the short-term effectiveness of China’s propaganda on the domestic front which involved speaking to people much more qualified than myself to speak on national radio. I was going to post in detail about it but Will “Imagethief” Moss, clearly juggling recent fatherhood and analytical thought rather well, wrote a superb piece that covers all the points I wanted to come out my mouth during a three-minute radio slot and a whole lot more. (Shameless ode to new media coming up …) Print media rarely has such comprehensive, measured and intelligent commentary. Instead, national newspapers fire out opinion in brief, emotive editorials, adopting a simplistic black-and-white approach that does nothing to encourage creative thought on issues like Tibet. (Blimey, I thought I was going to bang on about ”emancipation of the mind” for a minute there).

During my research into China’s propaganda strategies, I contacted the China Media Project’s David Bandurski, who made an interesting observation on the type of images screened on CCTV of the riots in Lhasa. Obviously, they focused on Tibetans attacking Chinese, survivors talking about their friends being killed and both Chinese and Tibetans lying injured on hospital beds. Powerful stuff and highly effective as propaganda tools when context is absent. Yet, they stopped short of allowing the more graphic shots such as cars being torched or overturned. According to David: “This is because party leaders do not want Chinese with different kind of grievances, like stolen farmland, to get any ideas.”

I also spoke to a Chinese friend of a friend, a marketing manager who studied for a year and a half in the UK, about what she thought of the government news shaping. Her answer was something I have heard many times before and I always find it a depressing opinion.

“I know the government cuts all the negative information and we can not see the true story. But it has to do this. Most Chinese are poor and not well educated. They are not capable of independent thought or making their own judgements. They need to be guided by the government.”

We could almost get back to “thought liberation” here …

Xinhua journalists are also well aware of the ugly nature of government propaganda and have wide-ranging access to foreign media reports. But I’m sure the majority are fully committed to their current work on Tibet. Behind all those ludicrous commentaries vilifying the Dalai Lama, stories of Tibetan grannies receiving birthday cake from the government and tales of genuine tragedy in which innocent Han Chinese civilians have died, are journalists trying to do a good job. “Xinhua is doing some good work on Tibet,” a former colleague told me the other day. In some respects he is right. In terms of information gathering and following the Ministry of Publicity directives, they are being highly efficient. Some are working until 4am to pump out stories onto the wire, others have been sent to Lhasa to bolster the story-hunting operation. But Dui Wai Bu journalists face a disheartening reality. While their colleagues in the Chinese-language department for domestic consumption believe in what they are writing and strike a chord with their audience, the English-language writers believe in what they writing and only succeed in turning the stomachs of their audience. Such is the rift between the effectiveness of the propaganda on the international front and at home.

The ultimate aim of the news output is to incite anger and resentment. But I’m sure the blood of many Xinhua journalists would have been boiling well before the first Xinhua story was released about Tibet. And it wasn’t just because of the presence of a particular image on the database: the charred shell of Xinhua’s Lhasa bureau, its doors ripped off their hinges (there’s a pic somwhere on ESWN). After all, the Ministry of Publicity had done what it does best and bumbled around for a few days after the riots broke out, unsure of what strategy to follow. This allowed the western media to get a headstart and convince Dui Wai Bu journalists of its deep-rooted bias. One major motivation behind the department’s work (and I do have a small amount of sympathy for this) is a perceived duty to protect China’s international image in the face of what is deemed one-sided, critical reporting from the whole of ”the West”. The fact that some of India’s newspapers can be the most biting is always overlooked for some reason.

I had an interesting conversation with one former colleague, who said he didn’t need the agency’s propaganda ouput to make him feel irate.

“We are angry not because of the news stories but because we can see the facts. It’s not just pictures from Xinhua. When I see photos from foreign news agencies, I also feel hatred towards the people who are carrying out the violence.

“Before the riots I was neutral towards the Dalai Lama, despite the government’s criticisms. I heard he was a calm, spiritual leader. But now I realise he is two-faced. He orchestrated the riots in Lhasa and all around the world. Premier Wen (Jiabao) said he had ample evidence to prove this. It is obvious. Why else did Tibetans all around the world start demonstrating?”

On a crude level, the Ministry of Publicity has done a good job.

The foreign ministry official whose signature granted the Economist a week-long reporting trip to Tibet beginning March 12 must be nibbling his nails.  It was an incredibly generous act given the 49th anniversary of the Dalai Lama’s escape into exile fell just two days earlier and those chummy reporting regulations introduced last year for the foreign media do not cover Tibet. Quite spectactular journalistic timing. As a result, the magazine’s correspondent, the only accredited foreign journalist currently in Lhasa, has been adding a bit of firsthand flavour to the news coverage of the BBC and Channel 4 (UK) in addition to writing his Economist piece and stories for the Times. But hang on, maybe I’m not giving the foreign ministry enough credit for its decision making. After all, the magazine’s presence in Lhasa has so far been to China’s advantage; an objective voice (as I’m sure you’d agree if you read the story) which offers an additional - and crucial - source of information to the likes of Radio Free Asia. Those people who like to equate the bias of the “foreign media”, viewing it as a single entity, to the propaganda of Chinese state media, which is a single entity, are urged to read the Economist’s eyewitness account.

Moving off the topic of objectivity for a moment, this story released by Xinhua entitled “Dalai-backed violence scars Lhasa” was a valiant effort at masquerading as an international news agency, if you disregard the headline. Plenty of “witnesses said”, “sources told Xinhua” and “Xinhua reporters learnt”. It’s as if the fax machine belonging to Tibet’s propaganda chieftans was power off. Note to writers (with whom I get on very well): please forgive my playful jesting. From the story, it would appear local authorities in Tibet are having difficulty maintaining an united front, presumably because of the distance between Lhasa and Beijing. On Saturday morning, Xinhua were told to say “police were forced to use a limited amount of tear gas and fired warning shots to disperse the desperate crowds”. About an hour later, the chairman of the Tibet government Qiangba Puncog was speaking on the sidelines of the current parliamentary jolly in the Great Hall of the People. “We fired no gunshots,” he said. He also went on to say something foolish:

In regard to western criticism on human rights in Tibet, he expressed his invitation to the critics. “Seeing is believing. They should go to Tibet themselves to feel the improvements.”

Tourists are currently barred from entering Lhasa, non-Economist foreign correspondents have even less of a chance. It’s also worth noting a regulation was introduced last month which further restricted foreign tourists in Tibet: they are now required to sign up for a tour to visit places in the vicinity of Lhasa, according to a tour company I contacted recently, as well as needing an extra permit to travel deeper into the region.

I seek no forgiveness for lightly spanking this Xinhua commentary, headlined “Stop the hand behind Lhasa terror”, with my well-worn mockery stick. Even I was surprised by the author’s predilection for poetry with his politics. This piece reminded me of the kind of verse I used write in English lessons at the age of 12 when I would toss together a motley assortment of florid, polysyllabic adjectives, as many as my Oxford Young Person’s dictionary would allow, without worrying too much about the meaning. I’m sure my general grammar skills were a tad more proficient though but, hey, what are polishers for. Ah yes, polishers aren’t allowed anywhere near such mighty opuses:

BEIJING, March 15 (Xinhua) — The Nobel laurel was tainted, and the U.S. Congressional Gold Medal proved nothing but a fig leaf of the Dalai Lama when on Friday rioters, backed by the self-proclaimed peace preacher, turned the tranquil holy city of Lhasa into a land of terror.

And the intention harbored behind the monk’s claim of seeking “real or greater autonomy” of Tibet also proved hypocritical when hundreds of his followers yelled independence, attacked police, smashed windows, robbed shops, and set cars and a mosque ablaze.

Yet, this impudent politician did not show any sign of shame when he disassociated himself from the conspiracy as an innocent monk, leaving his followers standing as cat’s paws by persuading them, in a canting manner, “not to resort to violence” reportedly in a statement after the serene abode of the gods was disturbed.

I was under the impression any notion of tranquility and serenity disappeared from Lhasa a long time ago, especially after polishing a few stories about traffic congestion which featured this fine statistic: there are nearly more vehicles per capita in Lhasa than there are in Beijing. Anyway, such a romantic image of Lhasa doesn’t really correspond with the Party line: before Tibet was liberated, it was an oppressive, feudalistic society which needed to be civilised.

Oh go on then, let’s have some more, seeing as some serious enthusiasm has gone into the piece:

When a woman who dared not to step out of her office near a looted and burnt supermarket told me through mobile phone short messages that Lhasa was cloaked in an atmosphere of horror, I believed the hand behind the cat’s paws was a master terror maker.

and:

Now the blaze and blood in Lhasa has unclad the nature of the Dalai Lama, and it’s time for the international community to recheck their stance toward the group under the camouflage of non-violence, if they do not want to be willingly misled.

Stunning.

On a more sympathetic note, this story headlined “Ethnic Han survivors: Tibetan folks saved us”, while painfully obvious in its agenda, does contain an important point that is not coming across in many foreign media reports. Take this excerpt:

The four-storey Landun shopping mall in the old city center, which sold children clothes, was devoured by flames instigated by the horde.

Its owner, Ye Danping, and her 20 Tibetan employees barely survived after scrambling onto the roof of the building. “Some of my local Tibetan employees have been working with me for years, and they offered to protect my commodities in store,” she said.

“My employees and I cried at what we saw and what we experienced. I was shattered when I saw years of hard work was lost to the fire.”

The divide between Chinese and Tibetans in Lhasa is not clear cut and a fair few must be neighbours and friends. There have been reports both from Xinhua and international media of indiscriminate attacks by Tibetan youths on the Han Chinese. Shops have been torched and Xinhua reported ten “innocent civilians” were killed, although that figure is under dispute. From a cold PR point of view if nothing else, the Dalai Lama would do well to keep reminding the wilder Tibetan youths of his opposition to violence, particularly when it is being directed at innocent Chinese. Back to the Economist piece, I thought this paragraph was notable for its poignancy:

As your correspondent spoke to a monk in the backroom of a monastery, a teenage boy rushed in and prostrated himself before him. He was a member of China’s ethnic-Han majority, terrified of the mobs outside. The monk helped him to hide.

Quick aside about something that has just caught my eye … the Guardian website is classifying all its breaking news about Tibet as sports stories. While, undoubtedly related, that’s just Olympics mania gone mad.

Oh, and ridiculous tangent number two … Check out this video clip featuring CCTV-9’s James Aitken reading a Dalai Lama bulletin. Obviously, as a former state media slave myself, I’m in no position in point a finger and mimic Woody Woodpecker. Neither is this kind of thing anything new but for some reason this tickled me more than those tiny fish at spa resorts that are supposed to gnaw off the dead skin on your feet but sometimes stray into the armpit region. I saw many of these Dalai Lama criticisms, all identical of course, at Xinhua but they were just routine words on a screen, incapable of commanding even fleeting attention. It was an absolute pleasure, then, to see them take on a life of their own with some artful news-reading-style word emphasis. I hate to sound terribly British but I particularly enjoyed the delivery of “distort facts”.

Defiant Tibetans, annual U.S. human rights reports and asthma-suffering marathon runners; China is getting it from all sides. But a modicum of pity did come last week from a most unlikely source: the dear old BBC, whose website is famously blocked in China unless you go to the outrageously inconvenient lengths of typing the word “vote” in the browser (ie newsvote.bbc.co.uk for the uninitiated).

I’m referring to the first episode of BBC4’s A Year in Tibet documentary that was screened about ten days ago under the title “The Visit”, revolving around an official visit to a monastery in Gyantse, western Tibet, of Gyaltsen Norbu, the Chinese-approved Panchen Lama . It provoked a furious response, covered by the Guardian’s media pages, from the Free Tibet campaign. Anne Holmes, the director of the campaign, said the programme was a “grievous misrepresentation” of the Panchen Lama issue as it failed to discuss the disappearance of Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, who was selected by the Dalai Lama as Tibet’s 11th Panchen Lama in May 1995. The six-year-old and his family went missing soon after and have not been heard from since. Human rights groups contend that Nyima is under house arrest; Chinese officials say he and his family are being kept in a secret location for their protection. This what Holmes argued:

In her letter (to the BBC 4 controller), Holmes said the programme made no mention of Nyima’s disappearance and did not explain that “for Tibetans there are two Panchen Lamas - Gendun Choekyi Nyima, the real Panchen Lama, and Gyaltsen Norbu, the Chinese Panchen Lama or Panchen Zuma (’false’ Panchen Lama)”.

Holmes added that the programme would leave viewers with the “impression that Tibetans have accepted Gyaltsen Norbu as the 11th Panchen Lama and as their spiritual leader”, but said this was “simply not true”.

“Unprecedented access should not mean agreeing to film an event stage-managed by the Chinese authorities and presenting less than half the story as the truth,” she added.

“Tragically, in its wish to record a photogenic and unique series on Tibet in Olympics year, the BBC has fallen into China’s trap and misrepresented the deeply held beliefs of the Tibetan people.”

The counter argument went as follows:

A BBC spokeswoman defended the programme, saying it was an observational documentary on ordinary Tibetans and not a “detailed examination of its history or politics”.

“As is made clear from the outset, the purpose of A Year In Tibet, as an observational documentary, is to learn more about the every day lives of real people living in Tibet today; it is not intended as a detailed examination of its history or politics,” the spokeswoman added.

“In the film we witness the preparations of monks before a visit by the Panchen Lama Gyaltsen Norbu and in this scene we repeatedly refer to the controversy surrounding Norbu’s appointment. We leave the audience to draw its own conclusions about the way the Chinese government functions in Tibet.”

I was delighted to hear I could watch the programme myself thanks to http://www.uknova.com/ as recommended by a former polishing comrade and fellow Brit. He has managed to cling onto sanity by creating an alternative Beijing life governed by episodes of Eastenders and Grange Hill.

The documentary, which is beautifully shot by the way, features a hotel owner’s battle with his blocked drains, a pregnant mother with a suspected penchant for the local firewater and a shamen who banishes evil spirits by spitting on his patients’ faces. But the main thread, and the most intriguing, of the first epsiode was the preparations for Norbu’s visit by the monks of the monastery in Gyantse.

At the beginning of the film, the deputy head lama is asked to organise the “most important event in Gyantse for a generation” - Norbu’s visit. The narrator then says, “It is effectively a state visit by the most senior Buddhist living in China today but the security surrounding the visit is so tight that the authorities won’t even tell the monks which day he is coming.” Now would seem like a good idea to put the Panchen Lama in political context. But it cuts to the deputy Lama talking: “It is rare for the Panchen Lama, the leading Lama in Tibet, to visit the Baiju monastery. I was still an ordinary monk when the previous Panchen Lama last came. I think that was in 1989.” Interestingly, he makes no distinction between the previous Panchen Lama selected by Tibet and Norbu, chosen by the Communist Party.

The narrator then says: “The 11th Panchen Lama was only six when the Chinese declared that he was Tibet’s new spiritual leader and his position has been very controversial since. The inevitable tensions surrounding his visit are going to make Tsultrim’s (deputy lama) job even more difficult over the next few weeks.” Bizarrely, that’s it. Why the controversy? Why the tension? If you had no knowledge of the Panchen Lama saga, you would be very confused.

Forty minutes later, cue spooky music and images of the Chinese police. The narrator: “The atmosphere in town is tense. The relationship between the monasteries and the government has always been strained. The authorities are worried that somebody might sabotage the visit so they’re taking no chances.” Cut to grinning monks being briefed by Chinese security chief about arrangements for the visit and then suddenly we’re back at the hotel owner’s sodding blocked drains (from the stuff that’s being removed from the pipes it would appear someone shaved an entire yak and flushed the trimmings down the toilet). Why would someone sabotage the Panchen Lama’s visit? the uninformed viewer is asking. Still no answer.

Ten minutes later, the narrator again: “It’s almost 20 years since the previous Panchen Lama made a visit to Gyantse and today is a rare public appearance of the new Panchen Lama.” Spooky music returns as bags are searched by police. “Gyantse has never seen security at this level before.” And then the wait for enlightenment is over …

Narrator: “It’s all because of the controversy that surrounds the choice of the new Panchen Lama.”

But no! Denied! Cut to young monk getting dressed. Two minutes later, the explanation finally arrives:

 ”Gyaltsen Norbu is the 11th Panchen Lama and he’s now 17 years old. In the past the new Panchen Lama was selected from a list of several candidates by the Dalai Lama. But the Chinese government rejected the Dalai Lama’s choice and appointed one of the other candidates. And this is what the controversy is all about. Gyaltsen Norbu also happens to be the son of two Tibetan Communist Party members.

Gyaltsen Norbu has been living in Beijing since the age of six, all part of his “education” (quotation marks reflect word emphasis) to be Tibet’s new spiritual leader … Despite heavy censorship in the country, ordinary Tibetans know all about the controversy surrounding the choice of their young leader. But, as good Buddhists, they accept the situation and show appropriate respect, even to a Panchen Lama of doubtful origins … But whatever the controversy surrounding the young Panchen Lama, the devotion of ordinary Tibetan people is clear to see and there is little doubt that today is a very special one for the people of Gyantse.

The narrator then tells us it is traditional for monks to make a wish after being blessed by the Panchen Lama. The head lama has three: “That Buddha’s teaching may flourish, that people enjoy peace and happiness, and that our People’s Republic of China will become more propserous.”

And that’s it - fascinating stuff but ultimately a total and utter rejection of journalistic principles by the programme’s producers. Firstly, there is absolutely no mention of abduction. Secondly, they failed to ask monks and local residents a raft of obvious and essential questions. What do they think about the puppet Panchen and his visit? Is he a puppet or is that a disrespectful term? What do they think about the hordes of policemen, plainclothes PSB etc that are accompanying the Panchen? Where do they think Gedhun Choekyi Nyima is now? What is life like under Chinese rule? What’s good about it? What’s bad about it? Why are the monks so visibly delighted to be kissing up to the authorities when relations are supposed to be strained (and this would have been asked before Lhasa started burning)?

The thing is, the Tibetan people did look genuinely delighted to have the opportunity to meet Norbu. Lines of residents giggled at the metal detectors, strained for a first glimpse of the Panchen when waiting for their blessing and clutched photos of him which were being handed out by the monks. The viewer is desperate to understand the reasons for these reactions but analysis was absent. 

The BBC’s justification was woefully inadequate. The documentary’s purpose was to learn about the everyday lives of Tibetan people and “not a detailed examination of history or politics”, it said. But surely a huge part of Tibetans’ daily lives is influenced by what has happened in the past and the current political climate. The documentary says as much itself. After just 30 seconds of the programme, the narrator said, “For some Tibetans, the harsh reality of living cheek by jowl with the Chinese is a daily experience.” Maybe in return for subservient journalism, the Chinese government could consider removing the need to add “vote” into our BBC web addresses.

PS I just have to highly recommend Mutant Palm’s coverage of the fascinating Tibet tweeting going on over the weekend. I have to confess I’m new to this tweeting malarkey but I’m going to give it a try. Every so often a post is written that just emphasises the beauty of blogging and this is one of those occasions.

Apologies for the long absence to anyone who is still bothering to check this page. (And to the person who arrived at this site while searching ask.com for “criticism of Xinhua”, fear not for this blog is not defunct and I’m sure I’ll be able to assist your research further at some point.)

I have been busy with being astounded by new and highly unfriendly China visa regulations in Hong Kong, doing very little in the Philippines (El Nido in Palawan - what a spectacular place), giving a portion of my Xinhua ”bonus” to the Casino Lisboa in Macau, visiting ghostly factory towns in Guangdong during the Spring Festival, making the odd propagandic “confession” to prove I’m really just a one-trick pony and devising new ways to replace Xinhua’s incredibly generous pay packet. My god, I’ve mentioned Xinhua three times (make that four) already - it really is a grubby obsession.

This is the first time I have lived in Beijing without working in the labouring heart of China’s propaganda outfit. It is a beautiful thing. However, I didn’t appreciate how just sitting at a desk surounded by government edicts, all the major news wires and a treasure trove of a database (former Xinhua comrades if you are reading and know how I can access it please do tell. Without it I am nothing …) enabled me to have such a wide knowledge of Chinese current affairs. Drooling over Google News just isn’t the same - and I don’t get paid for it.

It has happened only once but I actually found myself wishing I was back at Xinhua the other day when I read Richard Spencer’s post on “The strange case of the disappearing news story”, which told of inconsistencies within the Chinese media in its reporting of the “Olympic terror” story. Again, former comrades feel free to comment and enlighten while you bask in the warm glow of anonymity! My tender reminiscences disappeared, though, when I saw this sentence from a Xinhua ”two sessions” story:

“Andrew Kirillov, Beijing bureau chief of the Itar-Tass News Agency in Russia, appeared joyous when registering to cover China’s upcoming “two sessions ..”

The sad thing was that I correctly guessed which journalist had written it without needing to read any further.

Still, if I ever feel lonely, I can rest assured there will be always be a steady trickle of anecdotes leaking out of the Xinhua tower. Last month, Roland at ESWN flagged up a story released by Xinhua on February 21 about Premier Wen Jiabao’s visit to the “AIDS village” of Wenlou, Henan, back on November 30. He pointed out that the old news had been re-released three months later in a laughable attempt to refute a story published in German by AFP on February 19, which said many of the villagers with whom Wen shook hands were amateur actors and actresses. (For more on this see Black and White Cat’s previous translation of a blog post from Hu Jia, the rights campaigner awaiting trial on charges of “inciting subversion of state power”.) Roland went on to say:

A proper piece of journalism would be for Xinhua to send a reporter immediately back to Wenlou village to identify the person shaking the hand of the Premier, check his background (amateur actor? or vegetable grower?) and interview him.

Well, apparently, a Xinhua journalist had already returned to the village a month earlier and confirmed what had been reported in November to be true. Who knows who the Xinhua journalist spoke to or if he had also been duped by local officials. However, every story involving Wen Jiabao has to be approved directly by the Premier’s office and the journalist was told by the secretary that he couldn’t write his new story, even if it did reflect favourably on the government. Much better to stick to the November visit he was told. Safer. There was much annoyance in Xinhua of course as no news agency, albeit a highly dodgy one, likes to report three-month-old news, particularly if there is new information. Clearly another case of govermental stubbornness making everyone look stupid.

ESWN then had a post saying AFP had apologised for the report and recalled it. It was written by a freelancer who hadn’t noted the source (Hu Jia’s blog perhaps?).  How I long to be able to transform my lanky foreign frame into a passable Henan native, allowing me to indulge in some undercover reporting in Wenlou. It’s just one of those infuriating mysteries that looks like it will never be solved.

Despite not being able to access the wire, I’m lucky enough to receive some Xinhua news on my mobile phone. A text I received from a former comrade the other day merely said: “Just polished one about a Chinese company building a block of flats in Free Press Square in Bucharest.”

That’s the kind of irony that would tickle blogging British Foreign Minister David Miliband. I was taken by the nature of Mr Miliband’s posts regarding his recent visit to China - the trip during which he was told the “cup of tea” joke by his opposite number Yang Jiechi. On the day of his departure from the UK’s fair shores, he was most sincere, writing under the heading “Look East, Young Man”:

“Today I head to China - specifically Hong Kong, Shanghai, Chongqing and Beijing. I am immensely looking forward to my visit, which I expect to be instructive, thought-provoking and inspiring in equal measure. I will follow up the Prime Minister’s highly successful visit to Beijing in January, and have the time to see how Chinese engagement with globalization is changing the face of the world’s largest country. My aims are simple: to try to understand the country better, to compare notes on the challenges of equality, security and sustainability in our two countries, and to forge relationships that foster Anglo-Chinese cooperation at an international level in the pursuit of shared goals.”

Five days later, he wrote a post that was very different in tone under the heading “China Travels”, which, bizarrely, was sent out via email by the British Embassy to all the registered Brits in Beijing, many of whom got over the ironies of Communist China a long time ago.

Irony of the day; Tuesday:

Long exegesis from representatives of the Communist Party about the lessons of the City of London’s big bang and the importance of deregulation.

Irony of the day: Wednesday:

Magnificent car to take us from the airport to the stunning Olympic site and the “water cube”, designed by Arup as a translucent energy efficient water sports centre - and the car was a Cadillac.

Wake up at the Wall:

The Great Wall has served over the centuries to try and keep the World out of China - so there is symbolism in meeting for dinner with the Chinese Foreign Minister at the “Commune Hotel” at the Wall. We are about to go for a walk on the Wall itself.

Oh dear, he’s got a lot of catching up to do with Kevin Rudd.