The Secret Tibet (The Forbidden world)

A Tibetan boy in Dharamshala with his white Tibetan traditional scarf waiting for His Holiness on 24 August 2008. Photo: PTL

SKETCHES By Ana Marie Pamintuan (philstar.com) China couldn’t stop the rain from pouring during the Olympic Games, but it could stop people — locals and foreigners alike — from raining on its parade.

So websites on controversial topics such as Tibet and the Tiananmen massacre were blocked. A few foreigners who tried to stage a protest against Beijing’s policy in Tibet were quickly arrested, sentenced to 10 days in prison, and then freed before the sentence was served. The foreigners were put on planes and booted back to their homelands as the closing ceremonies unfolded Sunday night.

A massive revolving sign of the Beijing Olympics dominated Tiananmen, which could be entered by pedestrians only by passing through security checkpoints in the underground walkways.

More security forces lined the path through Mao Zedong’s tomb leading to the adjacent Forbidden City.

There was not a single anti-Beijing graffiti or streamer in sight. Or if there was, it must’ve been quickly erased or destroyed.

Human rights advocates hate this obsession with national security, believing that it borders on the pathological.

But it is also this kind of obsession with security, this kind of state control, that foreign tourists and investors find reassuring in China. I know certain prominent Filipinos who would not mind seeing, up to a certain extent, this type of state-imposed discipline in the Philippines.

Even when violence erupted in the province of Xianjing, home to China’s Muslim minority, few foreigners believed that the trouble would spill over into the Olympic venues in Beijing and Tianjin.

During the months leading up to the Olympics, the intelligence community was monitoring reports that the Philippines could be a jump-off point for terrorists and other troublemakers planning to disrupt the Games.

None of the threats materialized. China pulled off one of the most successful Olympics ever – many world records broken, no boycotts, no hostage-taking, and no terrorist attack.

When the International Olympic Committee awarded the hosting of the Summer Games to China, one of its justifications was that it would open up the country to the world.

To a certain degree, this has come true. But the Games did not make the communist party loosen its iron grip on the country. And with the success of the Games, the party can argue that its system works.

In its handling of Hong Kong since the handover of the territory from Britain, Beijing has sought to reassure the world that “one country, two systems” is possible.

Certain quarters are now saying that the success of the Beijing Olympics reinforces the view, espoused not just in China but also in several other countries such as those in the Middle East, that “one world, several systems” is possible, and that western-style democracy is not a one-size-fits-all formula for national prosperity.

In China’s successful hosting of the Olympics, human rights advocates see a setback.

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There are countries that do not believe in the universality of all the human rights listed in the United Nations declaration.

Most of these countries are more impressed with the idea that economic liberation comes first before freedom of expression or the right of access to information. They believe that the state’s right to protect its sovereignty, territory and citizens from all forms of threats trumps the human rights of enemies of the state.

This kind of state stranglehold works only when economic liberation is actually felt by the masses. It worked for Singapore, which developed a merit-based society run by a government that puts a premium on transparency, accountability, efficiency and the rule of law. 

If civil liberties are trampled merely to enrich and perpetuate in power a small clique, with only crumbs from economic growth tossed to the masses, then the people will long for freedom.

In China, the central government has seen to it that the benefits of economic growth are felt by the majority of its 1.3 billion people. The country is now considered one of the biggest markets for luxury brands. The bicycles in the streets of Beijing have been replaced by privately owned Audis, Mercedes Benzes and SUVs.

China saw the success of capitalism and an open society in Hong Kong and Taiwan. But the politburo realized that in moving too fast on reforms, it risked self-destructing like the former Soviet Union.

And so market reforms have far outpaced political changes in China. The country has a long way to go in terms of transparency and public accountability in many aspects of governance. As a rapidly growing source of official development assistance, it has avoided imposing conditions on recipients of its ODA, making Chinese aid a godsend for corrupt governments. 

But China can guarantee predictability in the way it enforces its laws as well as in its trade and investment policies.

It can even be predictable in the way it deals with troublemakers, whether local or foreign.

The Chinese people, feeling the fruits of prosperity, are mostly going along with their government. Though they may have complaints about individual freedoms, we have seen how they have rallied to their flag for the Olympics.

Woeser, a Tibetan writer and activist is seen during an interview in Beijing, China, Friday, June 27, 2008. Woeser is a rarity, a Tibetan in China who publicly speaks out. She has been denied a passport for three years. Photo: AP

The detention of Woeser, who, like many Tibetans, goes by a single name, underscores the nervousness of the authorities in the Himalayan city, where 22 people were killed and hundreds of offices and businesses were set alight when Tibetans, restive under Beijing rule, rioted in the streets in March.

Eight police arrived at the home of Woeser’s mother on Thursday and presented the writer with a summons to accompany them for questioning. Her husband, the author Wang Lixiong, said: “They had used the wrong name on the document so I insisted that they correct the name before they could take her away. I reminded them that they had to bring her home within the stipulated 12 hours.”

She was held for questioning for eight hours by several officers who said that they were acting on a tip-off from a member of the public who had seen her photographing army and police positions in Lhasa from a taxi.

Mr Wang, who spoke on behalf of his wife because he was worried for her safety, told The Times: “She told them that it was not illegal to take photographs in a public place and she had not visited any secret areas or military installations. They had no legal basis for holding her.”

The police searched her mother’s home and removed several documents as well as Mr Wang’s laptop. They hacked his password, checked all his documents and required Woeser to erase every photograph that showed a policeman or army officer.

Mr Wang said: “I can’t say whether their intention was to intimidate. But if they can do this to an influential writer who has done nothing more than take photographs, then one can only imagine the kind of threat that ordinary people in Tibet must feel every day.”

The couple decided to return home to Beijing but first organised a reunion party with Woeser’s many family and friends in Lhasa. Many did not attend, apparently afraid of possible consequences after her arrest. The couple flew back to Beijing on Saturday, less than 48 hours after her summons and six days into a planned month-long visit to Lhasa.

Woeser has become one of the best-known Tibetans, first as a poet whose works were approved by the Government and then as a dissident after her first book of prose was banned in 2003. She has not been allowed to publish in China since, but the restrictions have failed to deter her. She was forced to place a blog that she began in 2005 on a server outside China after it was hacked and closed. Her current blog — woeser.middle-way.net — is the most popular site for many Tibetans and has recorded three million hits since she launched it on an overseas server early last year.

The Tibetan capital remains under lockdown. The city is patrolled by police and paramilitary forces, many deployed around the Jokhang temple, the holiest shrine in Tibetan Buddhism in the heart of the Old City. On the pilgrim route that circles the temple at least four teams of paramilitary police are on guard around the clock.

Each comprises five men carrying rifles who patrol a section of the route. Buddhists twirling prayer wheels and performing prostrations wend their way among the armed men. Some of the teams, dressed in camouflage, have recently been replaced by patrols carrying what appear to be teargas launchers in tubes on their backs.

There is little sign of increased security in the areas of Lhasa where most ethnic Han Chinese live.

Literary life

— Born in Lhasa in 1966 to a Tibetan mother and a Han father who was an army officer, she grew up speaking, and mainly writes in, Chinese

— Returned to work in Tibet in the 1990s and made a name for herself publishing collections of her poems

— Her collection of travel stories, Notes on Tibet, was published in 2003 and swiftly banned

— After the March riots, hackers hijacked her blog, removed its content and left an animation of China’s five-star national flag fluttering below the message: “Long Live the People’s Republic of China! Down will [with] all Tibetan independence elements!!!”

Source: Times research.