The world is now aware of the protests during the worldwide Olympic torch relay. I do not claim to know a lot about it, but I will share some conversations I have had recently as well as the blurbs of information I have heard. I do not claim that the content in this posting is accurate and would love to hear other people’s opinions as well. It is a complex topic. I cannot imagine that the Chinese government did not see this coming.
While the business world has clearly accepted China as a mecca of cheap labor and materials despite its lack-luster human rights record, the rest of the population who are not chief executives have never had their say.
Ever since I saw the move “Seven Years in Tibet” in college, I have paid attention to the “Free Tibet” bumper stickers around the world. It is an issue many people are passionate about in my opinion because it is hard for us to understand why a peaceful Buddhist society with a spiritual leader who writes books called “Art of Happiness” would be treated so poorly.
With the spotlight willingly focused on China, this is the first time people have had an international platform to voice their objections to the Chinese occupation of Tibet and more importantly the human rights issues occurring there. They would have to have been completely naive to not have seen this coming.
Now the torch has passed through Paris, London, San Francisco, Pakistan, India and Australia with protests in every city. From a Chinese perspective, the protests were the worse and most damaging in Paris. Commercially, France and China are strong allies and many of the successful multinational consumer companies in China are French. One of the biggest and most well known is the supermarket chain, Carrefour which is a competitor to Wal-Mart and well frequented by Chinese and foreigners alike. The chain has done a really good job localizing their supermarkets to the Chinese market and therefore are very successful.
After the protests in Paris, Carrefour stores across China began to be boycotted and my friend tells me that there is a propaganda campaign in progress to encourage people to boycott the store over the May holiday next week. China is using their people who do not understand the protests to flex its commercial muscle to punish France for protesting at the torch relay.
Unfortunately the Chinese do not know that it is a national past time to protest in France. While all of this logically makes a little sense, there are so many things that scream for clarification in my mind. Why are the Chinese punishing a company that is in full support of China? In a way, it goes full circle because the French protest China, the Chinese punish Carrefour so ultimately the French punish Carrefour for expanding into China? Okay, maybe that is a stretch. I just find these relationships interesting.
What I do wonder is if Beijing has ever stopped and thought, “you know, these protests are really bad for our image…should we talk with the Dalai Lama and change our policies?” For some reason, I doubt it, but sure hope I am wrong.
Why do the Chinese not search to understand what is really going on in Tibet? In my mind, this can be explained by two things: conditioning and fear. I had a conversation with a Chinese friend about it and she said that the torch relay protests are being taken personally by Chinese people. They feel like the rest of the world is protesting against them personally. They do not care or pay attention to politics and think about the deeper meaning to what is going on. Upon explaining the interconnectedness of the world and how I fit into it, I have now had two Chinese friends look at me with a puzzled look and say, “I cannot believe you think about all this!”
While in the US and many western countries, we can easily separate ourselves from our government. This same separation does not necessarily exist in China. You protest China, you protest the Chinese people. I can understand this feeling being an American traveling through this vast world in which many people disagree with US foreign policy. I always hope that people are able to distinguish me from my country. I imagine if I could not make that distinction myself that the world would feel like a very threatening place. The Chinese people are conditioned to learn what they are supposed to think from their government. While Big Brother is not like he was in the incredibly oppressive Cultural Revolution, he is still there.
I find my conversations around Chinese politics turning to a whisper even when talking with other foreigners. The party line right now is that the Tibetans are rioting and causing damage to their country. If this is your belief, imagine your surprise when the rest of the world suddenly shuns your country and thus yourself at its finest, most visible hour. For those people who do see that the party line is not accurate, they have too much fear at trying to go around the censors to find the real information. And to be quite honest the real information is not easy to find, even in the western world. I do not think any news organization has published the full truth, so what does one believe?
What I have heard is that tens of thousands of Han Chinese people are flooding into Tibet by the trainloads each day. The Han get preferential treatment including the best store fronts, homes, etc. If my store on Main St. was given over to a person because of their Han heritage, I would be pissed too.
When I asked my friend if Chinese people think that Tibetans wanted China to take them over she said that they are taught in school that the Tibetans were very poor and had very rudimentary tools and a very undeveloped country. China came in to help the Tibetan people. When I think to my own country, I cannot say that we haven’t done the same to other countries over the years. The difference is, like everything in China, they are behind and doing what we did in the past, now, in today’s day and age…and getting heavily scrutinized for it.
Should China be allowed to make the same mistakes the rest of the world made 10, 20, 30, 50, 100 years ago while they were closed up to the outside world? This applies to so many things in China including manufacturing, the environment, human rights, etc.
I asked a Chinese friend if she would like to be able to elect her President. Fifty questions and answers later I think I convinced her that we really do elect our President in the US and that it is not just pre-determined where voting is simply a charade…but I left the conversation less confident of that understanding myself.
She could not believe that our system really worked and that there was a way to have your voice heard. My best response was that the difference between our two systems is that you can stand out on the street corner saying almost anything and not get arrested in the U.S. but you will surely be carted away quickly in China. In neither scenario am I convinced you are necessarily heard…
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