By Richard McGregor and Jamil Anderlini in Beijing
Thursday, March 20, 2008
 
 
Outside
China, especially in western countries, the violent unrest in Tibet has been seen as a people spontaneously rising up after years of religious and cultural oppression by a ruthless ruling party.

Inside China, the contrast could not be more stark. The protesters have been portrayed as a thuggish mob, ungrateful for years of support from Beijing and manipulated by the exiled Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, to split the country.

The gulf in perceptions has created deep resentment in China, and anger about how the issue threatens to overshadow and taint the 2008 Olympics, which open in August in Beijing.

 

Shi Yinhong, of Renmin University, said China had made great efforts to develop Tibet and guarantee religious freedom after mishandling the region in the early years of communist rule. Western countries ignored such developments, he claimed, in favour of a simple focus on a “romantic” view of the remote Himalayan kingdom.

“I don't think what was happening in Tibet in the last week was very romantic,” he said. “Every government has to be able to provide a minimum of law and order and safety for its citizens.”

The government propaganda, which can seem staggeringly crude to foreigners – Zhang Qingli, China's party chief in Tibet called the Dalai Lama “a monster with human face and animal's heart” – does not appear out of place at home.

Mr Zhang's tirade is at one with comments permitted on internet bulletin boards, such as the one hosted by sina.com, China's largest portal. “Add countries supporting Dalai Lama to the blacklist of terrorism!” said one of the milder postings yesterday.

Calibrating public opinion is difficult in China because of strict controls on the media and internet – especially on topics deemed sensitive – and the absence of public polling and elections.

But a group of Chinese citizens, all well-educated, well-off Beijing artists and businesspeople, who gathered to discuss the issue with the Financial Times this week were uniformly unsympathetic to the Tibetan cause. Sending in the army was “the only response” possible, they said.

The group admitted all the news they had seen was on state television, which showed graphic images of Tibetan protesters, including scarlet-clad monks, looting, burning and beating ethnic Chinese people in Lhasa. There were no pictures of the Chinese response.

“America and foreigners always want to hurt China,” was a typical response from this group after watching a live broadcast of premier Wen Jiabao's annual press conference this week.

Almost every foreign reporter allowed to ask a question raised Tibet, drawing an audible groan from the large audience of mostly Chinese journalists and officials at the press conference.

One intellectual from Beijing, usually vehemently opposed to the party, said Tibetans had been “slaves” before China “liberated” them, an act repaid with ingratitude and violence. “How could Tibet be a country without China?” this person said. “They didn't have anything to eat before they were liberated.”

The issue of sovereignty goes beyond support for the party and touches the core of national identity. To suggest to most Chinese that Tibet should be independent from China is like telling an American that Texas should secede from the Union.

A profanity-laced video posted on YouTube, the video-sharing website, entitled “Tibet WAS, IS, and ALWAYS WILL BE a part of China” angrily tells viewers that China will not leave Tibet until all Europeans leave Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the United States and return it to “the natives”.

Robert Barnett, a Tibet expert at Columbia University in New York, said the gap between Tibetan and Chinese perceptions had been narrowing in recent years because of the growing popularity of Buddhism, and religion in general in China.

“What is happening now is going to widen [that gap] again,” he said, adding that it was a disaster for the Dalai Lama's own strategy

Mr Barnett added: “He has always said that the most important thing is support from the Chinese people. But he is now fighting a political wave in the other direction.”

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中国人看西藏

 
英国《金融时报》马利德(Richard McGregor)、吉密欧(Jamil Anderlini)北京报道
2008年3月20日 星期四
 
 
在
中国境外，尤其是在西方国家，西藏暴乱一向被视为在多年遭受执政党无情的宗教与文化压迫后，人们自发的起义。

在中国境内，对这个问题的看法却截然不同。抗议者被描绘成暴民，他们非但对中国政府多年来的支持不领情，还受到流亡西藏精神领袖达赖喇嘛(Dalai Lama)的操纵，企图分裂国家。

这种认知上的鸿沟在中国引起人们深切的不满，他们对这一事件可能给2008年8月北京奥运会带来的阴影与污点感到气愤。




中国人民大学教授时殷弘指出，虽然共产党在统治初期对西藏地区管理不当，但是中国在发展西藏、保障西藏宗教自由方面已经做出了巨大努力。他宣称，西方国家无视这种进步，却只是把注意力放在一个遥远的喜马拉雅王国的“罗曼蒂克”看法上。

他表示：“我不认为上周发生在西藏的事很罗曼蒂克。每个国家的政府都必须有能力为国民提供起码的法律、秩序与安全保障。”

对外国人而言，中国政府的宣传可能非常粗鲁——中共西藏自治区党委书记张庆黎把达赖喇嘛称作“人面兽心的恶魔”，但在中国，这一说法似乎没有什么不妥。

张庆黎的激烈言辞与允许在网络公告板上公布的言论很一致。比如在中国最大的门户网站新浪网主办的网络公告板上，昨天一条还算比较温和的帖子提出：“把支持达赖喇嘛的国家加入恐怖主义黑名单！”

在中国，由于媒体和互联网受到严格控制（尤其是在敏感话题上），而且没有民意调查与选举，要了解公众舆论并非易事。

但是，当一群受过良好教育、生活富足的北京艺术家和商人本周聚在一起，与英国《金融时报》讨论这一问题时，他们一致对西藏事件不予同情。这些中国公民表示，“唯一的应对措施”只能是派遣军队。

他们承认，自己看到的新闻都出自国家电视台，在电视画面上，包括身穿深红色僧袍的僧侣在内的西藏抗议者在拉萨抢劫、焚烧和殴打汉人。电视台并没有播放中国政府如何应对的画面。

这群中国公民看完国务院总理温家宝本周举行的记者招待会现场直播后，普遍的反应是：“美国和外国人总是想伤害中国。”

在记者招待会上，几乎每一个被允许提问的外国记者都会提到西藏，令主要由中国记者与官员组成的众多观众发出不满之声。

一位向来激烈反对共产党的知识分子也说，西藏人在“解放”前一直是“农奴”，但他们对“解放”的回报却是忘恩负义和暴力。这位人士表示：“没有中国，西藏怎么能成为一个国家？他们在解放前什么吃的都没有。”

主权问题超越了对党的支持，触及到国家认同的核心。对大多数中国人说西藏应该从中国独立出去，就如同对美国人说德克萨斯应该正式退出美利坚合众国一样。

视频共享网站YouTube上，上传了一段夹杂着粗话的视频，题目叫“西藏过去、现在、将来都永远都是中国的一部分”。这段视频气愤地告诉观众，除非所有欧洲人都离开加拿大、新西兰、澳大利亚和美国，把这些地方还给“原居民”，否则中国不会离开西藏。

纽约哥伦比亚大学西藏问题专家罗伯特•巴那特(Robert Barnett)指出，近年来，由于佛教及其他各种宗教在中国日益盛行，藏汉在认知上的鸿沟已经在逐步缩小。

他指出：“现在发生的情况会再次扩大鸿沟。”他补充指出，这对于达赖喇嘛的策略是一种灾难。

巴那特还表示：“达赖总是说，最重要的是要获得中国人民的支持。但他现在却要从另一个方向应对政治潮流的冲击。”

译者/何黎