They are ready

Last night we had an interesting discussion with a Chinese friend about Tibet. According to her, Tibet is much like Taiwan, it has always been part of China, and Europe is evil for interfering in such an "internal" issue. Moreover, the United States should be lauded for NOT interfering in the issue. Finally, she also shared a rumor indicating that China shipped SWAT teams from other provinces into those provinces which were experiencing unrest in order to help quell the violence. So, up until last night, it seemed as if the issue was pretty much under control here in China, at least from the perspective of the "Old Hundred Names."

That may have changed today. The official Chinese government news agency, Xinhua, published a piece this morning entitled, "Stop Irresponsible Clamor for Boycotting Beijing Olympics." Earth times published a report concerning public support for economic sanctions against China within the German Citizenry. And Reporters without Borders published a leaked internal government memorandum outlining China's strategy for managing foreign journalists during the Olympics. So it's beginning to look like the Europeans are having an impact.



What's most interesting about this issue, to me at least, is the Chinese perspective. When we asked our friend about Tibet, she put the question back on us by asking us to think of ways in which China is hurting the world. Naturally, we thought of several, but what's most interesting to me about the question was the underlying premise--that China somehow has a huge fence up around it, notwithstanding pollution, globalization, and international affairs. That's Beijing, I suppose.