Ways That Are Dark

Without a doubt China is an emerging nation. But when it comes to contentious issues, the government controlled media invariably resorts to name calling. They dish out insults of the variety that would make the meanest of tabloids blush. Well, you’d be embarrassed too if you found yourself repeating today ideological slurs that are reminiscent of the the Cultural Revolution era. You remember that one? The page in history that China doesn’t like to talk about?

China calls the Dalai Lama a “cat’s paw of international anti-China forces.” Protesting monks are labeled the “scum of Buddhism,” and foreign critics are said to have a “dark and despicable mentality.”

In responding to recent anti-Chinese protests in Tibet, Beijing has revived shrill language from past decades, displaying the communist regime’s extreme sensitivity over the issue and enduring authoritarian nature.

Three decades of market-oriented economic reforms and an increasingly vibrant society have little impact when it comes to core issues of sovereignty and state power, experts say. Not even the impending Beijing Olympics seems to have moderated the tone.

“‘China’ is several things,” says Princeton University China expert Perry Link. “The sizzling economy and flashy cities are real, but so is the tired old political-rhetorical culture that sits on the shelf and is pulled out when needed.”

Read more in the International Herald Tribune: China’s anger over Tibet revives harsh terminology of yesteryear

In a sure sign of temerity and unabashed certainty of their moral right, China has lashed out at western media for its bias. As Howard French puts it in the International Herald Tribune:

The Chinese press is similarly full of claims of Western media bias and distortion, a charge made straight-faced in a country that routinely blocks foreign media, strictly censors its own news, and has only allowed the media to cover street violence by Tibetans.

Read the complete article: Rejecting dissent, China exposes its candor gap

It was a perfect photo from a propaganda point of view. China’s Central Television included it in an awards ceremony as one of 2006’s most influential photos of the year. It conveyed exactly what the government wanted to convey to environmentalists about the recently completed Qinghai-Tibet rail line. The Tibetan Antelope, one of the five official mascots of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, is facing extinction and it is feared the new rail line will hasten that extinction. The photo appears to show the animals living in harmony with the high speed train.

It is a fake.

The photographer, 41 year old Liu Weiqing, was under contract with Xinhua to provide photos for China’s largest government-run news service. He faked the the photo using of Photoshop to combine two separate images and create the desired effect.

This is the aim of propaganda anyway, making the unreal seem real.

‘The truth is probably the opposite of what the picture was trying to claim,’ Su Jianping, a zoologist at the Northwest Institute of Plateau Biology, in Xining, told the journal Nature last week. The antelopes are shy and their migration patterns are being disturbed by the trains. ‘There is no such thing as harmonious coexistence between trains and antelopes,’ Jiangping said.

Read more in the Wall Street Journal and The Guardian: Tibetan rail wildlife photograph faked, China Eats Crow Over Faked Photo Of Rare Antelope

The Washington Post writes on China’s offer to resume human rights dialog with the United States. The headline says it all: China’s Offer To Resume Rights Talks Is Discounted. On Wednesday, activists from some of the world’s leading human rights organizations testified before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China.

Robin Munro, research director of the China Labour Bulletin, said China’s official record makes a “mockery of promises made” and warned that the crackdown on dissenters might “become the new normal” once the Games are over.

The China Blog also mentions the irony of Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi’s remarks that public security officers are more likely to offer a protester a “a cup of tea” than arrest them. The remarks were made on the same day another “a petition organizer was seized in Beijing”.

It seems that lying is also the norm.