Catshanghai

Yesterday I had a great chat with a friend about the Tibet issue. She is a member of the Chinese Communist Party.

She explained the Chinese point of view, but it sounded much more reasonable than the propaganda I see on CCTV 9, which makes me switch off. It was not the content of her views that impressed me, but her willingness to listen to and consider other perspectives.

According to her, Tibet has been on the Chinese map since the Qing dynasty and is an integral part of the country. She regards the PLA 1950 arrival as liberation. It upsets her that the protestors tried to put out the Olympic flame and that the western press is so biased in favour of Tibetan separatism, but she knows that the Chinese media is also distorted so she tries to find out the truth that lies somewhere in between.

I told her that it is quite normal for the press to appear biased when they make mistakes or present a range of views. Western journalists can be very hard when interviewing senior politicians, especially in the UK. Jeremy Paxman is famous for making public figures look like idiots on tv. We don’t like politicians in my home country and we work on the assumption that they are trying to mislead us. At least I do. This will never happen in China as long as the CCP maintains its grip on the media.

I told her it is also very normal for westerners to express dissent about anything and everything. It’s all fair game. In the UK we have folks campaigning for an independent Scotland and there is a sizeable Catholic minority in Ulster who want to leave Britain to become part of Ireland. Seeing pictures of protestors tussling with the police is also nothing new. This time British and French were getting angry about the Olympic torch.

My friend is disappointed that the idealism of the Olympics has been tarnished by politics, but this is another rehash of past events. Hitler refused to shake hands with gold medallist Jesse Owens. The 1968 Olympics are famous for the Black Power salutes and The Americans refused to attend the Moscow games in 1980.

My friend said she feels that her country is being embarassed by unfair coverage abroad. She reminded me about the campaign to boycott Carrefour, because President Sarkozy of France refuses to attend the Olympic opening ceremony. This is seen as a huge loss of face for China. However, today I spoke to a student whose father is a senior manager for Carrefour in China. Blaming Carrefour for French policy seems similar to holding me responsible for the actions of Gordon Brown. Mr Brown may be the UK’s Prime Minister, but should I punished for his actions? It’s not as if he would ever ask me for advice before making a decision.

Her final point was that the Western world does not understand what is happening in Tibet and China. Anyway, she said it’s an internal matter that has nothing to do with foreigners. She may have a point about this, but I told her that the Dalai Lama is greatly admired in the West and it’s widely believed that Tibet was an independent country that was invaded by China in 1950. That view may be up for debate and I am aware that I do not know enough to give an informed opinion about this issue. I need to read more about Tibetan and Chinese history.

Tibetan culture, religion and politics are murky areas of investigation. I used to be a practicing Buddhist of The New Kadampa Tradition, which comes from the same Gelugpa tradition that is practiced by the Dalai Lama. There is a schism in this school over a worship of a deity called Dorje Shugden, which the Dalai Lama banned in the 1990s after he declared that this religious icon was actually an evil spirit. There were claims at the time that Dorje Shugden practitioners were being persecuted by Dalai Lama devotees. It’s impossible for outsiders to understand and appreciate politicised issues focusing on finer doctrine about whether a mental continuum is an enlightened being or an evil spirit. It’s all very confusing.

I have a good friend from school who is a disciple of the Karmapa, the head of the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism. He used to live at a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Le Bost, France where he completed a three year meditation retreat. He is now teaching English to Tibetan refugees living in Darjeeling, India. I will ask him for his opinion when I see him, because he is fair and open minded. I have known him for nearly twenty five years.

I am witnessing a strong reaction towards the Tibetan issue. I saw a friend had added an (L) before her contact name on MSN to show her love for China. This is China’s tech meme of the week. I understand that many Chinese are intensely patriotic, but in my country open displays of nationalism will arouse suspicion that you are bigoted. I know Chinese patriotism is not intended to be negative, but I would like to think that we are living in the first truly international century.

Anyway, I was very happy to share views in a candid way with my Chinese friend. To be honest, I have always been shy to bring up this issue in case I cause offence, but she listened with an open mind and understands that Westerners and Chinese have very different views about the media, politics and Tibet. She brought up this topic and it’s great to have a conversation with someone you like, but who looks at the world in a very different way.

Update
I have just read an overview of this issue on the BBC website, which was endorsed by local blogger Wang Jian Shuo who has recently been quite critical about the western media. The article confirms and amplifies many of the ideas I discussed with my Chinese friend.

Link: BBC News

Please note that I don’t want to identify my Chinese friend, because I don’t want to embarrass her or put her in an uncomfortable position.