Reactions to story from The New York Times

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  Article: Tibet uprising

  http://cagney.edublogs.org/2008/04/02/article-tibet-uprising...
  37 days ago in Mrs. Laberge's Blog site · No authority yet

  Here is an article on the Tibet uprising. Please read and complete the Current Issues chart. ALSO…Do you think these events will affect the world’s participation in this summer’s Olympic games in Beijing?? Put your answer on this site. Authored by cagney. Hosted by Edublogs.
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  China celebrates April Fools!

  http://whydoyoucare.wordpress.com/2008/04/01/china-celebrate...
  37 days ago in Why Do You Care? · Authority: 2

  Imagine my shock and awe when I saw this quote in a bloomberg.com article this morning: ““To our knowledge, the next plan of the Tibet independence forces is to organize suicide squads to launch violent attacks” around the time of the Olympics, Wu Heping, the Public Security Ministry spokesman, told reporters today in Beijing. He declined to say what measures police are taking to prevent such assaults.” (check out the whole story here. It’s also all over the AP.) I mean, are we taking this seriously? This, coming from a government who has such a tight control on the press surrounding the Tibetan protests that, after shutting down the country to foreign visitors entirely, it only allowed a relatively small handful of foreign journalists - not including the New York Times - to come and “witness” the “atrocities” that the Tibetans are perpetrating on the Chinese army? Buddhism is the only religion in the world that has not been the source or reason for war or violence. And now the Chinese government is trying to tell us all that monks are jumping on the Jihadist bomber wagon? Then it hit me - it’s April Fools! Ha-ha, Chinese government! I get it, the jokes on me. Boy, did I suddenly feel like I had egg on my face. I mean, no way everybody’s gonna treat this like real news. It’s April Fools Day… right? Hey, wouldn’t Tibetan Suicide Squad make a pretty kick ass band name?
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  Monks Protest During Press Tour of China

  http://newsfromchina.de/index.php/links/2008/03/29/monks_pro...
  41 days ago in News From China · Authority: 2

  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/28/world/asia/28tibet.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
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  http://transfigurations.blogspot.com/2008/03/monks-protest-d...
  43 days ago in Transfigurations · Authority: 20

  “Tibet is not free! Tibet is not free!” yelled one young Buddhist monk, who then started crying, according to an Associated Press correspondent in the tour. the rest image
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  Dalai Lama leads prayer for victims of Tibet unrest

  http://antidictatorship.wordpress.com/2008/03/29/dalai-lama-...
  41 days ago in Home « Save Burma · Authority: 22

  StarPhoenix Dalai Lama leads prayer for victims of Tibet unrest Monsters and Critics.com - New Delhi - Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama on Saturday led an inter-faith prayer meeting in New Delhi in remembrance of Tibetans who lost their lives and were injured during the recent protests in China. China Promises Tibet Compensation The Associated Press Dalai Lama says wants time for preparation of ‘next life’ AFP Guardian - New York Times - Voice of America - Reuters all 2,856 news articles »
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  China Don’t Get PR

  http://cupofcha.com/2008/03/28/china-dont-get-pr.html
  42 days ago in Cup of Cha · Authority: 60

  Considering the fact that virtually everyone under 35 that I meet in China is working in PR, you would think the government would be able to run a halfway decent campaign. And yet this T1bet situation has shown the stunning misconceptions that the country has about what will create good press coverage. As I’ve mentioned before, the absolute dumbest thing that they did was kicking all of the journalists out of the t1bet, something that has set off a chain reaction, resulting in the stunningly embarrassing events of yesterday. For those of you who missed it, a hand-picked group of reporters went to T1bet with lots of handlers, and they still saw T1betan m0nks shouting about how they were not free. What China did was screw this up at every single level. And if they had even the faintest sense of self legitimacy, they would not have created this mess. First they gave the impression that something was going horribly wrong and that there was something to hide. They did this by evacuating reporters and foreigners from the area. This led to bad press coverage and bitter reporters who had to write stories from afar. Never a good idea. Second, they attacked…the press. This is not a brilliant strategy if you are trying to get the press to give you better coverage. The only time this works is when reporters are covering a presidential election and, even though the coverage is pretty even-handed, all of the press members deep down prefer one candidate over the other and are then tricked into believing that they have been biased because of their secret love for a potentially great leader. I’m just saying. Third, they print tons of propaganda that doesn’t even seem vaguely credible. However after everyone calls them on it, they concede the tiniest of points, as if that will convince anyone: A top T1bet official Thursday corrected a misconception that the recent riots in Lh@sa targeted only Han residents, saying the notion is meant to undermine ethnic unity. T1betans also fell victim to the March 14 riots, said Baema Chilain, vice-chairman of the T1bet autonomous region. And I thought the issue was about police, military, autonomy and nationalism. I guess it was just about rioters. Fourth, they set a ridiculous propaganda mission, which inherently means that foreign reporters are going to be looking for the slightest sign of problems, and even if they don’t see problems, they’ll assume that they are just being sheltered from the real problems. So basically there is no point of even having the trip because you’re either going to get bad press because the focus will be the restrictions or because some incident occurs and the whole mission blows up in your face. Of course, this second option is really unlikely because why would an authoritarian regime worth its salt allow itself to be shown up on a controlled press outing? But of course they did fail to control the environment, which is almost impossible to imagine. Plus every story had a bitter line like this: Several American news organizations were invited to send representatives on the three-day press tour, but The New York Times was not. The really sad part about the whole thing is that in a normal, rational society, no one would make a big deal about a few m0nks protesting their government. It is the fear of self-illegitimacy that has driven the Chinese Government to take this series of absurd and foolish steps. In the West people protest all the time. Last week Americans protested the five-year anniversary of the Iraq war…and the country continued to exist! Amazing! The Chinese Government has long struggled to believe in its own legitimacy, and its recent PR blunders have done nothing to convince the world to see it any differently than it sees itself. [I have changed this post’s title back to its working name because I felt that the title I had posted it under, “If They Only Had a Brain,” did not have the effect or emphasis I intended.] Share This

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