Immediately following the March 14 unrest in Lhasa and other Tibetan areas, headlines about China’s “violent crackdown” on Tibetans’ “peaceful protest” appeared across all major media outlets. The way the event was described in these reports led to an outpouring of anger and criticism directed at China. Often, shoddy journalism was utilized to make the stories more inflammatory. Unable to gain first-hand information, a number of Western media outlets resorted to using images and videos of Nepali police beating Tibetan protesters as visual complements to their stories. In the extreme case of the German media, a photo taken by Reuters of what was apparently the police rescuing an attacked Han Chinese was captioned: “insurrectionist taken.”
By forbidding Western reporters from entering Tibet, the Chinese government is initially to blame for this blatant use of misinformation. But the presumption of guilt inherent in the coverage of the Western media was so strong and uniform as to be unmistakable. This perceived bias against China, first protested in a YouTube upload, caused a huge backlash both within China and among the Chinese overseas. Anti-cnn.com, a Web site that is now internationally famous, collected evidence of Western media’s misreporting. The Chinese state media quickly seized this opportunity to discredit its Western counterpart, even briefly unblocking access to Web sites like CNN, BBC and YouTube. Exposure to Western media “lies” served to boost the credibility of the government’s story for its domestic audience.
The Chinese public singled out CNN not because they deemed it most unfair, but because it is a (banned) household name in China. CNN, to its credit, subsequently made effort to give voice to both sides as more information trickled in. For example, it interviewed James Miles, a correspondent for The Economist. Miles, who was possibly the only Western journalist present on the ground during the peak of the unrest, recounted the violence exhibited by the protesters as well as the unusual restraint shown by the Chinese security forces.
While CNN at least made an attempt to be evenhanded, the German media exemplified the worst aspects of the Western portrayal of the events, truly distinguishing itself by their fervor of its coverage, as well as by its level of manipulation and sensationalism. In response to a spate of unprintable condemnation from angry Chinese, a German newspaper dismissed the critics as “brainwashed” and most probably “hired guns of the Chinese propaganda machine.” With emotional bickering like this from both sides, any hope for mutual understanding is lost.
The Chinese have reasons to feel besieged. In a year in which they hoped to bask in international praise, they have gotten unprecedented media attention from the West. This focus, however, has been almost uniformly negative, from defective toys to Darfur, and now Tibet. But none is as injurious to China’s collective sensibility as the desire to link the Olympics with these issues. Some Chinese feel betrayed because, despite their enthusiasm and effort to stage a successful event to impress the world, the international community has reciprocated with threats of a boycott. Even though official boycott is politically impossible for any country wishing to maintain relations with China, private agitation by activists and the media will do damage to various countries’ bilateral ties with China by turning the Olympics into a forum for contention and criticism. While those who are convinced enough of their cause to risk a soured relationship have correctly picked an effective weapon to push China, they should be motivated not only by opinions but also by an understanding of the cause, and the effects of their advocacy.
In this lamentable state of affairs, how should we as Amherst students feel about the Tibet issue and the fairness of the media scrutiny? Certainly, accounts of the protests have touched many of us. If, after reading the news, you feel strongly about Tibet, you should go beyond what’s said in the media. The Tibet issue is more complicated than the simplistic version of the “violent crackdown” on “peaceful protesting” presented by journalists. But such is the nature of media and politics—we cannot ask more of them. We can and should, however, ask more of ourselves. The onus is on those of us who feel strongly about this controversy—and other contentious debates—to educate ourselves on the background facts, lest we become mere tools of mass opinion-makers. It is easy for someone to voice support for “freedom” or “national unity,” since these ideals are attractive and do not require a great deal of analytical effort. However, when lives are lost in causes like these, it is all the more incumbent on us to understand the facts behind the appealing slogans that we profess.
To this end, a group of concerned students in Amherst are organizing a Tibet-China forum in the coming days to reflect on the history, facts and motives behind this contentious issue. Let us join the Amherst professors who are knowledgeable in the subject and start from this campus to bridge the gap of understanding that has been doing nobody good.