By Jim Yardley Published: March 30, 2008
BEIJING: Like so many Chinese, Meng Huizhong was horrified by the violent Tibetan protests in Lhasa. She cringed at videos of Tibetan rioters attacking a Chinese motorcyclist. Her anger deepened as Tibet dominated her online conversation groups, until it settled on what might seem like an unlikely target: the Communist Party.
"We couldn't believe our government was being so weak and cowardly," said Meng, 52, a mother and office worker, who was appalled that the authorities failed to initially douse the violence. "The Dalai Lama is trying to separate China, and it is not acceptable at all. We must crack down on the rioters."
For two weeks, as Chinese security forces have tried to extinguish ongoing Tibetan protests, Chinese officials have tried to demonstrate the party's resolve to people like Meng. They have blasted the foreign media as biased against China, castigated the Dalai Lama as a terrorist "jackal" and called for a "People's War" to fight separatism in Tibet.
If the tough tactics have startled the outside world, the Communist Party for now seems more concerned with rallying domestic opinion by using and responding to the deep strains of nationalism in Chinese society. Playing to national pride, and national insecurities, the party has used censorship and propaganda to position itself as defender of the motherland - and block any examination of Tibetan grievances or its own performance in the crisis.
But the heavy emphasis on nationalism is not without risks. With less than five months before the opening of the Beijing Olympics, China's sharp criticism of the foreign media comes precisely when it wants to present a welcoming impression to the outside world. Instead, Chinese citizens, including many overseas, are posting thousands of angry messages on Web sites and making crank calls to some foreign media offices in Beijing.
Chinese state media have also inundated the public with so many reports from Lhasa about the suffering of Han Chinese merchants and the brutal deaths of Chinese victims - but with no coverage of Tibetan grievances - that critics have accused the government of "fanning racial hatred." In the recent past, nationalist upsurges have focused on outsiders, especially the Japanese, but Tibet is part of China, so the effect is to sharpen domestic ethnic tensions.
"When a big crisis happens here, they show their true nature," said Liu Xiaobo, a liberal dissident and government critic. "I am really shocked by the language they used concerning the Dalai Lama. They are talking about a 'People's War.' That is a phrase from the Cultural Revolution."
Analysts have long debated how often the Communist Party steers and inflames nationalism versus how often nationalist public attitudes are beyond the party's control. In the run-up to the Summer Games, the steady attacks against China on issues like Darfur, global warming, air pollution and human rights abuses have increasingly been interpreted by many Chinese, including those overseas, as an unfair attempt to undermine China's Olympic moment.
But the Tibet crisis has touched directly on the raw nerve of separatism at the core of Chinese nationalism. Tibet is usually a low-profile issue within China, especially compared with Taiwan. But most Chinese, influenced by the government, are interpreting the Tibetan crisis as an attempt to split China.
On Sunday, Xinhua, the official news agency, released an article titled "Dalai Clique's Masterminding of Lhasa Violence Exposed." It cited an "unnamed suspect" who confessed that the "Dalai clique" had organized and incited the protests to force China to allow the Dalai Lama to return and achieve more autonomy for "Greater Tibet."
The statement came on the same day that activists disrupted the ceremony in Athens in which Greek officials handed over the Olympic flame to organizers of the Games.
Evading massive security to unfurl protest banners, the demonstrators shouted "Free Tibet!" and charged into a police cordon, trying to block the flame from making its final 100-meter, or 330-foot, run into Panathinaiko Stadium.
Backed by riot squads, scores of police officers detained 10 of an estimated 15 demonstrators, whisking them off to Greece's national police headquarters minutes after the ceremony kicked off.
The torch is scheduled to arrive in Beijing on Monday before taking off on the longest, most ambitious round-the-world relay in Olympic history: a 137,000-kilometer, or 85,100-mile, 130-day route that will cross five continents and climb to the summit of Mount Everest before finally arriving at the National Stadium in Beijing for the Aug. 8 opening ceremony.
In Beijing on Sunday, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao reiterated China's position that it was open to talks with the Dalai Lama if he gave up his desire for independence and acknowledged that Tibet and Taiwan were inseparable from China, The Associated Press reported. |