Hack Tibet

The most pernicious threat to Tibetan cybersecurity is WeChat, a Chinese smartphone app that combines features from Instagram, Skype, and Facebook. WeChat is itself malware: it's malicious.
BY JONATHAN KAIMAN

DHARAMSALA, India — Lobsang Gyatso Sither sits at the front of a Tibetan school auditorium, the bright rectangle of his PowerPoint presentation dimly illuminating the first few rows of students before him. "Never open attachments unless you are expecting them," Sither says. 

The students nod. 

A portrait of the Dalai Lama hangs above the stage, framed by flickering electronic candles; a stray dog ambles behind the crowd. 

"Never give anyone else your passwords," Sither says, clicking to a new slide, which explains the dangers of using an unfamiliar thumb drive. 

"The Chinese government or others could take control of your computer."
Welcome to Dharamsala, population 20,000 and one of the most hacked places in the world. 

This small city in India's lush Himalayan foothills is home to the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader; the Central Tibetan Administration, or CTA (formerly called the Tibetan government in exile); and a host of Tibetan media outlets and nongovernmental organizations, some of which the Chinese government classifies as terrorist groups. 

The Dalai Lama fled here in 1959 after communist troops violently suppressed an uprising in Lhasa, now the capital of western China's Tibetan Autonomous Region. 

India embraced the Dalai Lama as a token of religious diversity, and tens of thousands of refugees followed suit. 

About 130,000 Tibetans live in exile, according to a 2009 census; Dharamsala is the closest thing they have to a political capital.
The city has an ancient feel. 

Homes cling to precipitous mountain roads that weave through dense cedar forests; macaque monkeys prance among the rooftops. 

Yet it is changing, moving cautiously into the future. 

Computers have become ubiquitous. 

Roadside cafes offer double espressos and wireless Internet (common passwords include "FreeTibet" and "Independence"). 

Young Tibetans are snapping up iPhones, which, unlike competing devices, offer the option of a Tibetan-language keyboard.
Communication between the city's Tibetan community and Tibet itself is easier than it has ever been. 

Yet the risk of dialing home has never been greater. 

"If we don't use secure lines of communication, Tibetans in Tibet could be prosecuted" for sending sensitive information abroad, says Sither, a field coordinator for the Tibet Action Institute, a New York-based nonprofit that sponsors education initiatives and trains activists on secure communications systems.
The Chinese government is everywhere and nowhere in Dharamsala, planting malware and intercepting messages in ways that are nearly undetectable and difficult to trace. 

The CTA's Chinese-language website was hacked in August. 

Everyone within the Tibetan community is a target, from the Dalai Lama's advisors to any smartphone-wielding refugee.
In early November, Tibet's Communist Party chief, Chen Quanguo, proposed a raft of measures to stamp out the Dalai Lama's voice in Tibet, including clamping down on online communications. 

"Work hard to ensure … that the voice and image of the enemy forces and the Dalai clique are neither seen nor heard," he wrote in Qiushi, a leading party journal.
A brutal, centuries-old form of protest has caught fire in Tibet, and Beijing is resorting to tactics both heavy-handed and high-tech to quell the unrest. 

Since February 2009, at least 120 Tibetans in the Himalayan region have self-immolated to protest Chinese rule -- men and women, old and young, monks and lay people. 

Chinese authorities have responded violently, deploying troops, cutting phone lines, and forcing monks to undergo draconian "patriotic education" programs. 

They blame "hostile foreign forces" for inciting the immolations -- mainly from Dharamsala, where advocacy groups gather information about the fiery protests and distribute that information abroad. 

Experts say that the hacks may be part of an elaborate campaign to identify possible protests and preempt them.
Few cyberattacks on Dharamsala are strategically tailored to monitor or control the city's network infrastructure, say experts. 

The most common attacks are spearphishing attempts: Tibetans, especially those working for the CTA or pro-independence organizations, say they frequently receive strange emails purporting to be from friends or associates. 

They often contain attachments that, once downloaded, infect the user's computer with malware, allowing a hacker to operate the system remotely. 

The computer essentially becomes shared; keystrokes are recorded, passwords saved, contacts downloaded. Everything is compromised.
Kelsang Aukatsang, a former advisor to the Tibetan prime minister in exile, remembers the shock of realizing that he'd been hacked. 

In July 2012, Aukatsang sent an email to a U.S. senator to arrange a meeting for the prime minister, Lobsang Sangay. 

The following morning, the senator received a surprise call from the Chinese Embassy in Washington, urging her not to attend. 

The meeting ultimately proceeded as planned. 

"But the bigger point is that they knew -- that exchange got intercepted," Aukatsang said. 

"You wonder what more you can do to feel safe. There's a real sense of being at risk, of being watched."
MORE THAN HALF THE CTA'S COMPUTERS contain some sort of malware, estimates the government in exile's press officer, Tsering Wangchuk. 

"Most of the key computers in our city, in Dharamsala, are in some way compromised," he says. 

The administration's technical staff of 13 spends much of its time simply trawling through hard disks, finding and eliminating malicious code. 

"They go after us all the time, diligently," said another administration employee who requested anonymity. 

"If with every 100,000 attempts they have one success, they use that one success to exploit everything that they can."
Cybersecurity experts call this "advanced persistent threat" (APT) -- a constant onslaught of targeted attacks requiring resources that are normally unavailable to individual hackers. 

"Dharamsala is ground zero for advanced persistent threat, really," says Greg Walton, a doctoral candidate at Oxford University's Center for Doctoral Training in Cyber Security. 

Walton traveled to Dharamsala in 2008 to help the Dalai Lama's private office better understand what, and who, had been compromising its systems. 

His team discovered that the most likely culprit was a shadowy hacker group responsible for a series of network intrusions that American investigators had dubbed "Byzantine Hades." 

The group, according to U.S. State Department cables released by WikiLeaks, had ties to a unit of the People's Liberation Army, China's military, based in the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu.
Many Dharamsala-based Tibetan NGOs, Walton says, have been attacked by groups that are better known for infiltrating Western corporations, military contractors, and government agencies. 

One, dubbed "APT1" by cybersecurity firm Mandiant, is an elite cyber-espionage outfit affiliated with the Chinese military. 

Another group is a corporate espionage unit that stole secret documents and formulas from major global chemical companies in 2011 in an attack campaign dubbed "Nitro" by computer security firm Symantec. 

"In the most pessimistic light, there's very little that the Tibetans can do in exile, because they're so underresourced," says Walton. 

"If you have a situation where the State Department or the Pentagon is being compromised by the same groups, what hope do refugees in the foothills of the Himalayas have to deal with that problem?" 

He describes China's APT strategy as gathering "a thousand grains of sand," hoping that some piece of information, no matter how small, will bear strategic value.
PERHAPS AN EVEN MORE PERNICIOUS THREAT to Tibetan cybersecurity is WeChat, a Chinese smartphone app that combines features from Instagram, Skype, and Facebook. 

The program has more than 500 million users, with 100 million of them outside China; its popularity has exploded in Dharamsala over the past few years as an easy way for refugees to contact relatives back home. "All of my friends here use WeChat," says Tashi Nangyal, a 22-year-old Tibetan refugee who fled to India on foot across the Himalayas. 

"Since Tibetans inside Tibet are all using WeChat, we don't think of using any alternatives."
The program was developed by Tencent, a Shenzhen-based Internet empire that, like all major Chinese Internet companies, is rumored to enjoy close ties to the country's leadership. 

"From Tibetan civil society's point of view, WeChat is itself malware -- it's malicious," says Walton. 

"All of the traffic is being channeled through Shanghai. It's presumably being piped into China's equivalent of PRISM," he adds, referring to the U.S. National Security Agency's top-secret surveillance program, which was exposed by leaker Edward Snowden. 

Advocacy groups reported this summer that two monks in Tibetan areas of China were arrested after posting pictures of self-immolation protests to WeChat. 

One received a six-year prison sentence; the other will likely spend the rest of his life in jail. 

Tencent did not reply to a request for comment.
In recent years, short stints in Dharamsala have become a popular way for security experts to analyze little-known cyberattacks, says Shishir Nagaraja, a computer scientist at the University of Birmingham who has also aided the Dalai Lama's private office. 

"You don't have to pay people for this stuff. Some of the brightest minds at Cambridge will be more than happy to contribute to securing the Tibetans' Internet freedom rights," he says. 

Many are young, left-leaning idealists who are attracted by the novelty of the job. 

Yet "it's a very temporary arrangement," he said. 

Most stay for only two or three years, while China's hacking never ends.
"We are very vulnerable," says Tenzin Paldon, the Dharamsala-based editor in chief of Voice of Tibet, a radio station that broadcasts Tibet news into China via shortwave radio. 

Paldon's personal email account has been hacked; the broadcaster's website has been crippled repeatedly. Yet Paldon refuses to be cowed. 

If Tibetans continue to self-immolate, she says, she will continue to report their stories. 

"I think it's our duty to spread the word about what these people did, and why they're doing it, to the outside world."
Meanwhile, Dharamsala's Tibetan community has formed an incipient defense. 

In March, cyberactivists launched a secure Tibetan-language messaging application called YakChat. 

And the Tibetan government in exile recently procured a grant to lay new cables, update its servers, and train new staff, sources say, though they're keeping the details under wraps.
"What we're trying to do now is provide more opportunities for Tibetans themselves to become experts in cybersecurity," says Walton, the Oxford researcher. 

Many students at the Tibetan Children's Village, the leafy school campus where Sither gave his presentation, will go on to work in advocacy NGOs; some will join the CTA. 

Most are learning about cybersecurity for the first time, and experts hope that the lessons will resonate. 

"It's a gradual process, teaching people to guard their privacy. 

The Internet is quite a new thing in their lives," said Phuntsok Dorje, the head of the school's computer program.
IT'S TWILIGHT BY THE TIME SITHER FINISHES his PowerPoint presentation, and the students file out of the auditorium and into the cool, damp air of the rainy season. 

Nangyal, the 22-year-old refugee, says that students are not allowed to keep phones on campus and that he can only contact his family on holidays. 

The assembly has made him reflective. 

"I used to talk about His Holiness the Dalai Lama on WeChat," he says, his brow furrowed. 

I ask him whether he now understands that the Chinese may be listening in. 

Maybe he'll download a Korean messaging app, he offers, to make his communications less traceable. 

Or maybe, from now on, he'll just be more careful about what he says.

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China needs to change view of Tibet

By Abanti Bhattacharya

The source of the problem in India-China relations is not Tibet. The problem is rooted essentially in how China perceives Tibet. 

China's flawed perception on Tibet both colors and distorts its relationship with India. 

For India, the intractable border dispute is the primary issue inhibiting closer ties. 

But for China, Tibet is the determining issue, and it perceives India's giving refuge to exiled Tibetans as an anti-China policy.
India is home to some 120,000 Tibetans who have fled China on foot, making the hazardous journey through the hostile mountainous terrain. 

Tibetans are still transiting to India, but their numbers have considerably declined post-2008 from nearly 2,000 to few hundreds every year. 

This is as a result of heavy surveillance on the China-Nepal border and Nepal's extradition policies under Chinese pressure that have led to the deportation of several innocent Tibetans.
That Tibetans are still prepared to make the tough journey to India tells us much about China's policy on Tibet and its fallout. 

The presence of Tibetan refugees in India is indicative of two major policy problems in China. 

First, there is certainly something atrociously wrong about China's Tibet policy that forces the Tibetans to flee their homeland for safety and wellbeing. 

Second, that the Tibetans are exiled points to the deeper truth that the Chinese are invaders and Tibet has been occupied. 

Clearly, the problem of Tibet is China's creation, and therefore its headache.
For India, Tibet has never been a problem. 

India up until the Chinese invasion in 1950 shared a border with Tibet. Historically, trade, culture and religion linked India to Tibet. 

More significantly, Tibet got its Buddhist identity from India, and also its written script. 

In other words, India has been the primary source of Tibetan civilization and identity.
After 1959, India emerged as the home in exile for numerous Tibetans. 

India does not see any cultural conflict in allowing the Tibetans to come to India. 

India's culture of atithi dev bhav ("guests are gods") have welcomed refugees through history, be it Afghans, Iranian or Bangladeshis. 

During the 1971 Bangladesh Independence Movement, 10 million Bangladeshi refugees entered. 

However, most of the refugees from various countries have gone back home. 

But China does not want to take back its Tibetan citizens.
While in the past the Chinese government disclosed a vague willingness to allow his Holiness the Dalai Lama to return to China, it showed no interest in taking back its citizens exiled in India. 

It also stopped all meetings with the Tibetan government in exile after 2010 on the sole issue that the Dalai Lama has refused to accept the Chinese position of Tibet as historically a part of China.
The Dalai Lama has clearly stated that he cannot lie but is willing to move on without bringing up history. 

It is ironic that China rakes up history with India and Japan and other countries on contentious territorial issues -- in fact, history is the primary irritant in China-Japan relations. 

Yet, when the Dalai Lama says that he is willing to discuss everything bar the historical status of Tibet, China is averse to it.
Clearly, the problem of Tibet is of China's own making. 

Its Tibet policy is based on the assumption that with the passing of the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan problem will fizzle out. 

Such a policy assumption is faulty and trivializes notions of identity.
Arguably, the modern idea of Tibet has formed and consolidated primarily under the impact of Chinese policies. From a purely religious and cultural identity until the 1950s, it incrementally acquired a political identity through its struggle against the People's Republic of China. 

The 2008 Tibetan protest clearly established the flawed nature of Chinese policies based on integrating Tibetans through economic development. 

The current spate of self-immolation of Tibetans in Tibet and beyond is testimony to the reality that the situation there is desperate. 

More significantly, it has exposed the truth that the problems of Tibetans lie within Tibet's borders, not outside.
Yet the Chinese government points a finger for all its problems in Tibet at India and the Tibetan exiled groups. 

It also fears that India will use the Tibetans as a card in dealing with Beijing. Hence, it addresses the Tibetan issue with India from this fear-psychosis. 

It scarcely realizes that India, being a civilized state with a strong belief in humanity and pluralism, does not believe in using the Tibetan issue as a card. 

Also, being a democracy, it cannot curtail the basic rights of the Tibetans in India. 

Based on its principles, it has welcomed the Dalai Lama in India and values his presence, as this has inevitably allowed India to reclaim its position as the birthplace of Buddhism.
Clearly, China needs to correct its perception of Tibet and revisit its Tibet policy. 

This will certainly create room for removing the misperceptions afflicting India-China relations.

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Tibetan immolations: Desperation as world looks away

By Damian Grammaticas

It's sunrise and 20 degrees below zero. 

The sound of monks at prayer drifts across the snow-lined valley. We are high in the jagged mountains that rise towards the Tibetan plateau. 

Harsh and beautiful, this region outside Tibet itself is home to six million Tibetans.
A monk is sweeping snow from the steps that lead to a small stupa. Tibetans, wrapped in blankets to keep out the cold, circle inside it, spinning prayer wheels.

Further up the hillside, a morning mist hangs over the golden roofs of the monastery behind. 

Scattered through these Alpine valleys, the monasteries preserve Tibet's way of life.
Monks in claret robes emerge from their morning devotions, while women adorned with beads circle the monastery, then prostrate themselves on the ground.

Tibetans in China are nervous of contact with foreign journalists

Since Chinese troops asserted control over Tibet more than half a century ago, and the Dalai Lama fled into exile, the number of monasteries has fallen precipitously.
And for months now, journalists have been kept out of Tibetan areas as tensions have simmered in the region.
We slipped in unnoticed. 

China does not want foreign interference here.
The monks we approached were nervous, China has been stepping up surveillance.
One young monk shook his head indicating he didn't want to talk; other monks waved us away or retreated into their quarters. 

They have good reason to be cautious. China has been tightening its hold, not just on the monasteries, but all aspects of Tibetan life and culture.

Monasteries and stupas preserve Tibetans' way of life

Amongst Tibetans there have been growing frustrations. 

And there's an impression that, since the financial crisis, the outside world, and the West in particular, are not so keen to tackle China on its human rights record.
What nations want is access to China's markets and its finances.
So Tibetans have been resorting to extreme protests, setting themselves on fire. 

More than 120 are thought to have done so in the past three years in protest at Chinese rule in their homeland.

Some are said to have called for the return of the Dalai Lama as they have carried out their immolations.
Acts of desperation they may be, but China says the immolators are incited, even paid by the Dalai Lama.

Tibetans are discriminated against in the rest of China
Fearing widespread unrest, it has clamped down even harder, arresting and even jailing Tibetans accused of aiding those who have self-immolated.
Prayer flags flutter outside the home of home of one man who took his own life. 

We tracked down his family, but have to keep their identity secret.
His brother told us the father of two had not received money from the Dalai Lama. The mere suggestion, he said, was insulting.
He said the authorities had been many times to question him. 

They wanted to know why his brother had set fire to himself, but all he could tell them was his brother was a good man acting out of conscience. 

Tibetans, he added, are frustrated.
"I often feel as a Tibetan I am inferior," he explained. 

"I feel very bad about this.
"Tibetans who go to the cities to find work are seen as darker and dirtier than other people; we're often discriminated against. I do think I am treated differently."
He insisted there had been no reprisals against his family by the authorities. 

But the man's father and mother were clearly nervous about talking to foreign reporters.

Tibetans fear that their culture is being eroded

In these bleak and windswept mountains, where herders tend the shaggy black yaks that roam the hillsides, there are few jobs for Tibetans. 

China says it is changing this, building roads, bringing new wealth. But development is another source of conflict.
In mid-August there was a protest in central Tibet by people worried the local environment would be damaged by mining developments. 

Many Tibetans feel their resources are being exploited for Chinese gain.
China's response to the protest, as to much Tibetan opposition, was harsh. 

Tibetan exile groups said police moved in, firing tear gas and using electric prods, to clear the demonstration.
In another village we found a woman stacking piles of straw for winter fodder for her animals. 

She told us there have been five or six immolations at the monastery near her home.
She did not want to give us her name but told us of the crackdowns that followed the immolations.
"We feel under pressure. There have been arrests. Police came and detained people.

"Families don't even know where their relatives have been taken."

Tibetans are not listened to in China

Not far away Tibetans were circling a shrine, spinning the prayer wheels. 

A group of elderly ladies bowed before the building, clasping their hands. 

Then they lay face down reciting prayers.
After the clampdown and the media blackout, the immolations are now less frequent.
But what is not being addressed are the grievances here: Tibetans fear that they are being marginalised, their culture eroded, their voices silenced, all while the rest of the world looks away.

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Blonde Ambition: How Xinhua Used A Foreign “Reporter” To Sex Up Its Propaganda

By Rfh

Xinhua host and moonlighter for the Daily Mail’s venerable China Bureau Nikki Aaron has been blissfully peddling the British tabloid yarns of her “China adventures” for the last few months. 

All well and good.
Here’s her latest, on dating, a subject she has visited before. 

The extremely confessional tone of the Mail piece begs the question: who is Nikki Aaron? 

On her website, she describes herself as “a versatile news anchor and TV presenter with global network experience… Nikki co-founded MetroStyle bilingual magazine in 2010.”
Here’s more, from an interview with – and apparently this actually exists – a publication called Nee Hao magazine: “I’ve been quite successful in the sense that I run my own magazine and work as TV presenter for a respected news agency, but I worked my ass off for 6 years… Xinhua is the state-owned News agency in China, and quite an honor to work for.”
In fact, Aaron has been giving regular interviews to the press back home about her “high-profile position” in Beijing. 

Here she is in the Derby Telegraph talking about fame on a visit to Hong Kong: “I was secretly hoping someone might point me out, considering my show is aired on the giant screens at Hong Kong airport, as well as on the subway trains there. But alas, nobody did!”
In Nee Hao again, discussing her work: “I’ve become a bit of a China expert over the past two years… I won an award for the best documentary last year, in which I travelled to Qinghai province (bordering Tibet), where I met and interviewed the family of the Dalai Lama, visited the birthplace of the Dalai Lama, and explored Tibetan Buddhism in China. It was quite a ground-breaking programme.”
Unhappily, readers, future employers and little children should be aware that, for a select few, working for an “honorable” news agency comes with a few strings. 

At least one of which includes peddling hardcore Chinese propaganda on “somewhat” sensitive issues:

In the above, released in March, Aaron’s professional-sounding voice and accent are used to lend considerable authority to a 15-minute Xinhua documentary on a channel called “China View,” entitled Life in Flames: The Story Behind Tibetan Self-Immolation. (The program might have baffled regular Xinhua viewers: up until that point, the broadcaster had completely ignored the 100 or so self-immolations which have occurred in Tibet over the last year or so.)
The documentary purports to take “a closer look at what’s really behind these extreme suicides.” 

Indeed, close your eyes and it could be the BBC, so perfectly has Aaron has captured the strange cadences and emphases of British news voiceovers. (In another, earlier piece of Mail gibberish, Aaron says she “landed” the Xinhua role as “a TV news anchor, reporting to a global audience of 2.5 billion” [it’s doubtful Xinhua TV pulls in 2.5 of anything].)
Despite the production value, Life in Flames is thinly sourced, controversial and perplexing, to say the least. It is a relatively recent move for Chinese media to use presentable Caucasian foreigners to add credibility to news reports – one which should probably be viewed with some skepticism (foreign journalists — such as Gady Epstein, who called Life in Flames ”remarkable propaganda” — are rarely even allowed in Tibet).
That said, it is not without precedent: at last year’s Two Sessions in November, Andrea Yu, a credentialed Australian reporter for something called the Global CAMG Media Group caused a minor sensation with her apparent ability to consistently get the attention of Chinese politicians at press conferences. 

In fact, Yu was a Party shill, planted by a company with a majority shareholding in Beijing, to ask pre-scripted softball questions. 

The ensuing controversy saw Yu being dragged through the grinder before ending up down an absolute wormhole of soft-power failure.
Sceptical of Aaron’s own “reporting,” we contacted Robbie Barnett, Adjunct Professor of Contemporary Tibetan Studies at the University of Colombia, to ask whether our conclusion was fair. 

His answer is reproduced with permission here:
"This piece is problematic as a piece of journalism, including in the smallest details. 

"The topic that it discusses concerns repeated and tragic loss of life in bitterly contested circumstances, and the ponderous approach displayed here seems a provocative choice for such an issue.
"An editorial decision has been made to support the Chinese government’s current position, and it cites only that view. 

"So this is more an advertisement than news, possibly a paid one. 

"There is no disclosure of this station’s affiliation or adherence, though it is evidently not an independent body, and its use of confessions by serving prisoners is not noted or explained. 

"Its allegations about US radio broadcasts are incorrect: according to my knowledge, they do not refer to immolators as martyrs. 

"The presenter completely mispronounces all the Tibetan names, suggesting a lack of basic research or of concern. 

"The role of the presenter in fronting this and the choice to use a stentorian speaking style can be judged by viewers for themselves".
With foreign media now battling unprecedented restrictions on their work in China (Bloomberg, Paul Mooney incident, etc.) and citizen “Big V” journalists ruthlessly monitored, why is a British journalist fronting hardline CCP propaganda for, in her words, “a respected news agency [that’s] quite an honor to work for”? Given that Aaron is, in her own words, a “China expert,” is she so naïve as to think that her Xinhua work counts as actual, real journalism – and if so, what does such credulousness say about her reporting abilities? 

Or does she stand by the video, in which case she has some serious questions to answer.
(Counterpoint: for a more sympathetic take on this dilemma, see Eric Fish’s remarks about Andrea Yu, which are still very relevant here.)
Those, like Aaron and Yu, who pursue payment, easy government relations and Mail clicks in exchange for values and professional integrity should ask where it leads in the end. 

First Xinhua, now the Daily Mail. 

Where next – the Pyongyang Bugle?

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Britain wins little reward from China in retreat on Tibet

European countries think Cameron mishandled ties with Dalai Lama

By Jamil Anderlini in Beijing

David Cameron meets the Dalai Lama at the Houses of Parliament

Britain has “sold the store”, “surrendered” and “totally capitulated” in its efforts to get back into the good graces of the Chinese leadership, in the words of several senior Beijing-based diplomats from Asia and Europe.
Diplomats can be a catty bunch and there is more than a whiff of hypocrisy from the representatives of countries that have themselves gone to great lengths to ingratiate themselves with an increasingly powerful China.
But, as Prime Minister David Cameron arrives in Beijing on Monday to begin his first state visit in more than two years, it is hard to avoid the perception that the UK, like most other countries, is struggling to come to terms with a more assertive China.
British diplomats insist the UK’s position has not changed on human rights or on Tibet but European diplomats and human rights groups say London has clearly downgraded these issues over the past year. What Britain has got in return is not entirely clear.
The UK was thrown into the diplomatic deep-freeze in May 2012 after Mr Cameron and Nick Clegg, deputy prime minister, posed for smiling photos with the Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of Tibet, during his trip to London.
China reviles the Nobel peace prize-winning lama as a “wolf in monk’s robes” who is bent on Tibetan independence. 

Beijing views any official meetings with him by foreign leaders as part of a Western plot to split China.
The feeling among other European countries, in particular, is that the UK mishandled the initial meeting with the Tibetan leader and then gave in too quickly and completely in its efforts to make up with Beijing.
Mr Cameron’s decision earlier this year to emphasise Britain’s opposition to Tibetan independence in the House of Commons made the UK look weak when it did not yield an immediate thaw. 

Subsequent lobbying to arrange official visits before the end of the year looked over-eager.
The fact that trade and investment between the UK and China did not seem to be affected in the wake of the Dalai Lama meeting has only added to the perception that London is trying too hard.

British exports to China have doubled to £15.9bn in the past five years and last year, even after the May meeting, the UK ranked fourth as a destination for outbound Chinese investment, behind only Hong Kong, the US and Kazakhstan.

That was up from the UK’s position at No 8 in 2011 and No 21 in 2010.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, European diplomats say that British euroscepticism has made it less able to come to a unified position with other European countries when dealing with China on issues such as meeting the Dalai Lama.
That leaves the UK exposed to more pressure from Beijing, which is adept at exploiting rifts and rivalries within the EU.
A wider question can be asked in all of this that has been around for as long as liberal democratic political systems have had foreign policies: does it do anyone any good to lecture authoritarian regimes on universal values?
To Chinese ears, something is faintly ridiculous when the UK, which China blames for the 19th century opium wars, colonialism and “100 years of humiliation”, comes to Beijing with sermons for communist officials about human rights.
As Boris Johnson, London mayor, put it in his inimitable way during a visit to China in October: “I don’t walk into a meeting and say, ‘I say, you chaps, how’s freedom doing?’.”
The business community looks at the potential opportunities in China’s enormous market and asks how useful British finger-wagging is.
“If defending the rights of the Dalai Lama puts the UK behind the French and other countries in the relative pecking order in the eyes of the new Chinese leadership, then that is a big mistake and very depressing for Britain,” one Western financier told the FT this week.
The answer, of course, is that abandoning the defence of universal values in the hopes of more market access or better political relations is an even less effective way of earning the respect of China’s leaders or anyone else.
To be fair, it is not just the UK that appears increasingly reluctant to bring up such issues in the face of China’s growing market demand, power and influence.
Given Beijing’s willingness and ability to inflict diplomatic and economic pain, it is quite likely that the ageing Dalai Lama will never again be granted an audience with a European leader in his lifetime.

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Former Top Aide Warns China Not To Interfere With Spanish Court

By Xin Lin

A former top ruling Chinese Communist Party aide has warned Beijing not to interfere with the proceedings of a Spanish court, which recently named former Chinese leaders as suspects in a human rights abuse case involving a Spanish national of Tibetan descent.
Former Chinese president Jiang Zemin and former premier Li Peng could face arrest when traveling overseas after the court named them, along with three other former top officials, as suspects in a human rights case brought in 2006 by two Tibetan campaign groups and a Tibetan monk with Spanish nationality.
Under Spanish law, suspects can be tried for human rights abuses committed in other countries, if a Spanish national is named as a victim.
The officials are accused of human rights abuses in the Himalayan region. 

The same court last month indicted former president Hu Jintao for genocide in Tibet.
Arrest warrants will now be issued, which could result in the former leaders’ arrest in certain countries.
Former top party aide Bao Tong, who has been under house arrest in Beijing since serving a seven-year jail term in the wake of the 1989 student-led pro-democracy movement, warned Beijing not to overstep its sovereignty.
“I think that the way in which a Spanish court handles cases is an internal matter for Spain, and we shouldn’t interfere,” Bao said, in a reference to Beijing’s insistence on the principle of non-interference in the domestic affairs of other nations, a core tenet of its foreign policy.
“If other people are making it up, then why don’t you make the facts public? That’s the only way to deal with people concocting stories.”
“The word ‘fabrication’ by itself isn’t going to make things clearer,” said Bao, who is a vocal advocate of political reform for the Communist Party.

International attention
Chinese officials said this week that they had sought clarification directly from the Spanish government, but hit out at the idea of arrest warrants on former leaders for human rights abuses.
China expressed “strong dissatisfaction and resolute opposition” to the Tibetan support groups in Spain for “repeatedly manipulating the issue,” foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a regular news briefing in Beijing on Thursday.
Buddhist monk Thubten Wangchen, a Spanish national of Tibetan origin, has said that the aim of the lawsuit is to focus international attention on the suffering of Tibetans under Chinese rule, rather than to arrest any particular individual.
Beijing-based rights lawyer Mo Shaoping said those who perpetrate crimes against humanity, including genocide, should be pursued through the international justice system.
“The crime of genocide is a crime against universal values that should be pursued internationally if it can’t be pursued in the country in which it occurred,” Mo said.
“It doesn’t matter whether [the suspects] were in charge at the time; if their actions amounted to crimes against universal values, then this is totally in keeping with a legal stance, if international courts pursue it,” he said.
In 1998, former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was arrested in London after a warrant was issued by former Spanish magistrate Baltasar Garzon.

Beijing dare
Top Chinese adviser Zhu Weiqun, who heads the ethnic and religious affairs committee of China’s top advisory body to parliament, said the case was absurd.
In comments published by Chinese state media on Tuesday before the ruling, Zhu warned that “enormous embarrassment” would follow any attempt to pursue the case against former Chinese leaders.
“Go ahead if you dare,” Zhu said.
Exiled Tibetan groups are campaigning for the return of the Dalai Lama and self-rule for their region.
Demonstrations and protests challenging Beijing’s rule have continued in Tibetan-populated areas of China since widespread protests swept the region in 2008.
A total of 123 Tibetans in China have set themselves ablaze in self-immolation protests calling for Tibetan freedom, with another six setting fire to themselves in India and Nepal.

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Court ruling on Tibet raises concerns over Spain-China relations

Five former Chinese leaders now face the risk of detention should they travel to Spain or to countries that recognise Spanish arrest orders. 

By Tobias Buck in Madrid and Simon Rabinovitch in Shanghai

The Spanish National Court (Spain's National Court) has issued a warrant for the arrest of Jiang Zemin and four accomplices, suspected in the genocide of the population of Tibet.

The Dirty Five: Wanted Chinese leaders

There is rising concern in Spain over a diplomatic and economic backlash from China, after a criminal court in Madrid called for the arrest of five former Chinese leaders for their role in crimes of genocide in Tibet.
The ruling, handed down last week, is aimed at Jiang Zemin, the former Chinese president, Li Peng, the former prime minister, and three other high-ranking ex-officials. 

The men are said to have held “political or military responsibility” in periods when the Chinese authorities have committed human rights abuses against the Tibetan population.
All five now face the risk of detention should they travel to Spain or to countries that recognise Spanish arrest orders. 

However, former Chinese top officials almost never travel abroad, which means it is highly unlikely that the five former officials will ever appear in court in Madrid.
Beijing reacted angrily to the move all the same, denouncing the Tibetan support groups in Spain that initiated the case. 

The Chinese authorities called in the Spanish ambassador last Thursday to convey their displeasure, a message that was repeated at a meeting between Chinese diplomats and Spanish government officials in Madrid last week.
Hong Lei, China’s foreign ministry spokesman, said Beijing had sought clarification from Spain about the ruling. 

He added that China expressed “strong dissatisfaction and resolute opposition” to Tibetan activist groups in Spain for “repeatedly manipulating the issue”.
José Manuel García Margallo, the foreign minister, has insisted publicly that Madrid has no desire to interfere in the country’s judicial process. 

But Spanish diplomats made clear the government is seriously concerned about the impact the spat could have on the country’s normally trouble-free relationship with a key trading partner.
“This is a very complicated situation,” one Spanish diplomat said.
Analysts said the diplomatic rift came at a particularly awkward time for Spain, which is hoping to deepen its economic relationship with China in the midst of a fragile economic recovery.
“Spain is trying to attract Chinese investment and big Spanish companies are trying to establish a foothold in China,” said Charles Powell, the director of the Real Instituto Elcano, a Madrid-based think-tank. 

“Given that the Chinese authorities have a major say in who wins contracts and who doesn’t Spain obviously fears that the Chinese authorities will not take kindly to this initiative [by the court].”
The criminal complaint that started the case was filed by a Tibetan group seven years ago. 

It made use of Spain’s relatively broad universal jurisdiction provisions, which allow judges to pursue criminal cases even if they took place outside Spain.
There was next to no coverage of the arrest orders or Mr Hong’s response in Chinese state media, suggesting that Beijing is itself trying to contain fallout by limiting public discussion.
Speaking before the arrest orders, Zhu Weiqun, head of the religious affairs committee in the Chinese parliament’s advisory body, angrily denounced foreign courts for accepting such cases.

“If a country’s courts accept these cases, all it is doing is inviting enormous embarrassment for itself,” he said. “Go ahead if you dare.”

Spain´s universal jurisdiction provisions have previously been used by investigating judges to pursue Israeli officials for war crimes in the Gaza Strip. 

They also formed the basis for a high-profile Spanish attempt in 1998 to prosecute Augusto Pinochet, the former Chilean dictator.
Stung by the repeated diplomatic and political backlash against such legal moves, Spain tightened its universal jurisdiction provisions in 2009. 

The Chinese case, however, predates that change.

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China demands clarity on Spanish Jiang Zemin arrest order

Tibetan rights groups brought the case against Jiang Zemin, Li Peng and three other Chinese officials responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity, torture and terrorism against Tibetans in the 1980s and 1990s.

AFP

Chronology of major political events in Tibet since China seized control of the territory in 1950

An Ethnic Tibetan woman watches as Chinese soldiers keep watch in Chengdu, in southwest Sichuan province, on January 27, 2012

Jiang Zemin raises his hands to vote for a report at the closing of the 18th Communist Party Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, on 14 November 2012

Beijing — China is demanding a "clarification" from Madrid after a Spanish court issued an international arrest warrant for former Chinese president Jiang Zemin over genocide in Tibet, Beijing said Wednesday.
Spain's National Court issued the warrant for the former head of state and Communist Party chief on Tuesday under the doctrine of universal jurisdiction, which allows courts to try some human rights abuses committed in other countries.
Tibetan rights groups brought the case against Jiang, former prime minister Li Peng and three other Chinese officials, alleging they were responsible for "genocide, crimes against humanity, torture and terrorism" against Tibetans in the 1980s and 1990s.
Beijing's foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said that Chinese officials had seen reports on the arrest warrant and had asked Spanish authorities for a "clarification".
Hong blamed "Tibet separatists" for using "rumours and "slander" to make "false accusations" against China.
"Such means are doomed to fail," Hong added. 

The Spanish court accepted the case because one of the plaintiffs, Tibetan exile Thubten Wangchen, has Spanish nationality, and the Chinese courts have not investigated the allegations.
It has also agreed to investigate a charge of repression in Tibet brought against China's former president Hu Jintao, who left office last year.

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Spanish court orders arrest of former Chinese President Jiang Zemin

Jiang is among five Chinese officials accused over human rights abuses in Tibet. Spain's National Court said that the five should be questioned. It must process the arrest orders via the international police organization Interpol. 

Al Jazeera and The Associated Press

Jiang Zemin and Li Peng

Hu Jintao

Qiao Shi with is a Norwegian politician Thorbjørn Johansen

Spain's National Court on Tuesday issued warrants for the arrest of former Chinese President Jiang Zemin and four other officials as part of a probe into genocide in Tibet.
The court said it accepted arguments from Spanish Tibet rights groups that international reports indicate that the five may have had a role in human rights abuses and should be questioned.
But the accused are thought unlikely to ever stand trial.
In addition to Jiang, the Chinese politicians wanted by Spain are former Prime Minister Li Peng; former security and police chief Qiao Shi; Chen Kuiyan, a former Communist Party official in Tibet; and Pen Peiyun, an ex-family planning minister. 

None has been formally charged.
Former Chinese President Hu Jintao is also under investigation, although Spain has not said it seeks his arrest.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said during a regular briefing Wednesday that Beijing firmly opposes the court's move and urged Spain to repair "the severe damage." 

Officials at the Chinese Embassy in Madrid did not immediately comment on the court's decision.
Alan Cantos, president of Spain's Tibet Support Committee, which first pressed for the investigation in 2008, expressed satisfaction with the court decision but was not overly optimistic that anyone would be brought to trial.
"It's not easy, but it's a big step," Cantos told The Associated Press. 

"They are stuck in their own country, and a competent court is pointing the finger at them. It's so they don't have it too easy."
The court must process the arrest orders via the international police organization Interpol.
Spain's legal system recognizes the universal justice principle, under which genocide suspects can be put on trial outside their home country.
The policy allowed former Judge Baltasar Garzon to try to chase the late Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and late Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.

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Spanish court orders arrest of Chinese leaders including Hu Jintao

The ruling might dissuade the Chinese leaders to travel outside the PRC as they could be arrested for questioning on the crimes they are accused of. 

Phayul

China's criminals against humanity.

DHARAMSHALA – The Spanish National Court has ordered arrest warrants to be issued against give Chinese leaders, including former President and Party Secretary Jiang Zemin, for their policies in Tibet. 

The ‘ground breaking’ development as the International Campaign for Tibet calls it, comes after former Chinese president Hu Jintao’s indictment for genocide last month. 

The court gave orders to inform Hu of the indictment and question him about his policies in Tibet through the Chinese Embassy in Madrid.
Legal experts in Spain believe the ruling is potentially as significant as the arrest of Pinochet in London in 1998 after a group of Spanish lawyers put together a lawsuit against the Chilean dictator, who presided over a 17-year reign of terror and ordered foreign assassinations.
The five Chinese leaders are Jiang Zemin, former President and Party Secretary; Li Peng, Prime Minister during the repression in Tibet in the late 1980s and early 1990s (and the crackdown in Tiananmen); Qiao Shi, former head of Chinese security and responsible for the People¹s Armed Police during the martial law period in Tibet in the late 1980s; Chen Kuiyuan, Party secretary in the Tibet Autonomous Region from 1992 to 2001 (who was known for his hardline position against Tibetan religion and culture), and Deng Delyun (also known as Peng Pelyun), minister of family planning in the 1990s.
The rulings today have positively surprised Spanish legal experts working on the Tibetan law suits upholding the principle of “universal jurisdiction” a part of international law that allows courts to reach beyond national borders in cases of torture, terror and other serious international crimes perpetrated by individuals, governments or military authorities.
Analysts also say that the ruling might dissuade the Chinese leaders to travel outside the PRC as they could be arrested for questioning on the crimes they are accused of. 

All the leaders face the possibility of their overseas bank accounts being frozen.
Today’s ruling was made by the appeals court (Section 4 of the Criminal Court of Spain's National Court, the Audiencia Nacional), which is the investigative national court for major crimes such as terrorism, drug trafficking, piracy, or money laundering.
“We wish to dedicate this judicial success not only to the victims, but also to the thousands of “freedom fighters” and to the memory of all those who self-immolated in and outside Tibet, and those who risk their lives and their freedom in the face of the passivity of the international community whose silence is an accomplice to the genocide. Their sense of justice and their determination for truth is enshrined in this judicial battle that believes in these values in a non violent manner,” said Alan Cantos of CAT last month when the court decided to indict Hu Jintao.

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Spain Has Indicted Hu Jintao Over Tibet

Hu Jintao was indicted by Spain's national court.

By Justin McDonnell

Last month, Spain’s National Court indicted China’s ex-president, Hu Jintao for grave crimes against humanity, South China Morning Post and other publications reported.

The Madrid-based Tibetan Support Committee originally filed a lawsuit against then-President Hu in 2006, alleging that the Chinese Communist Party leader was responsible for the torture and repression of the Tibetan people.  The lawsuit also names six other former leaders of the CCP, including Mr. Hu’s predecessor, Jiang Zemin.

Hu Jintao was party chief in the Himalayan region from 1988 to 1992. In the wake of Tiananmen Square, he declared military rule to suppress anti-government protests in the Tibet autonomous region. The indictment also cites his actions as general secretary of the CCP.

China has denounced the indictment as trying to interfere with China’s domestic affairs. 

“We firmly oppose any country or person attempting to use this issue to interfere with China's internal affairs,” a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said after the indictment was handed down.

Beijing claims sovereignty over Tibet and gained control of the region in 1950. Yet, many Tibetans remain loyal to the exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

The Spanish court’s ruling comes at a time when tensions are running high over Tibet.  Last month it was reported that Chinese police fired upon Tibetan protestors, wounding 60 people.  Since 2009, more than 120 Tibetans have set themselves on fire as protest against Chinese rule.  

Spain has given its National Court universal jurisdiction for cases involving war crimes and other serious violations of international law like crimes against humanity and genocide. Established in 1977, the National Court has pursued cases under universal jurisdiction ever since it issued an international warrant for former Chilean president Augusto Pinochet, who overthrew Salvador Allende. Pinochet was detained in London for almost two years until UK home secretary Jack Straw ordered his release on medical grounds, allowing him to travel back home to Chile.

Since then, Madrid has investigated mass killings by the Francoist dictatorship, and indicted Rwandan officials linked to the 1994 genocide, former Nazi guards, Israelis involved in Gaza bombings, and Salvadoran ex-soldiers for the murder of Jesuit priests during the civil war. Once considered to have the broadest universal jurisdiction in the world, in 2009 the government restricted the courts to cases where the victims were Spanish citizens. The Spanish legal system allowed the suit against Mr. Hu to be heard because one of the plaintiffs, Buddhist monk Thubten Wangchen is a Spanish citizen.

The majority of jurisdiction cases have not resulted in convictions and it is virtually unthinkable China’s indicted leaders will be extradited and forced to defend themselves before a Spanish court.

A New Precedent for Today’s Europe or A Continuation of Quiet Diplomacy?

Many EU countries, especially indebted ones, have kept quiet about Tibet.  Most EU member states have left China’s human rights issues to EU institutions.  That could largely be because Beijing has been known to punish other countries for perceived offenses.  For example, Norway continues to incur China’s ire for awarding the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo.  High-level meetings have been frozen and deals blocked between China and EU member states for meeting with the Dalai Lama, a highly sensitive issue for the Chinese. 

Much of Europe has greatly toned down its public criticism of China’s human rights violations but Spain is aspiring toward truth and justice.  Will China "punish" Spain over the National Court’s investigation, ban high-level meetings, and implement soft sanctions that affect trade and investment?  While it’s still uncertain what kind of diplomatic reaction there will be, investors seem concerned that the incitement could hurt Spanish brands, especially as they look to access China’s markets to help rejuvenate and stabilize the economy.

Instead of caving in to Chinese demands, this could encourage Europe to move away from its quiet diplomacy and toward a cohesive European policy on human rights that strengthens the EU’s ability to put greater pressure on Beijing and far-flung places, where its citizens are not properly protected by the rule of law. Still, it’s debatable whether or not European countries should intervene in criminal cases elsewhere and empower their domestic courts to hear international criminal justice cases.

Beyond a State of Impunity

Universal jurisdiction is not without its criticisms, and many failures.  But at a time when the international system of justice is in shambles, and moving toward complacency, there needs to be a force willing to expose and confront abusive regimes. Why not Europe’s domestic courts?  Spain’s recent indictment of a former head of state opens up an old, polarizing debate at an interesting point in time when leadership is running amok.

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Western Media In China: Adjusting To The 'Anaconda'

China has growing leverage over those who rely on the country for revenue or their livelihoods. All American organizations — including universities, publishers and Hollywood movie studios — are under pressure not to offend the Chinese Communist Party and will curtail their behavior to avoid conflict.

by FRANK LANGFITT

Bloomberg staffers say editors spiked a story that exposed financial ties between a tycoon and family members of top Chinese officials.

Last weekend was a bad one for foreign reporting in China.
Staffers at Bloomberg News accused their own editors of spiking an investigative story to avoid the wrath of the Communist Party, and the wire service Reuters confirmed Chinese officials had denied a visa application for a hard-hitting reporter after an eight-month wait.
Bloomberg staffers told The New York Times that editors had spiked a story that exposed financial ties between a tycoon and family members of top Chinese officials. 

Sources said Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief Matthew Winkler defended the decision, comparing it to foreign correspondents who self-censored to avoid getting kicked out of Nazi-era Germany.
Winkler denied the accusations, saying the story — and another about the children of senior Chinese officials employed by foreign banks — are still active.
Contacted by NPR, a Bloomberg spokesman would only say: "We have high editorial standards and these stories were not ready for publication. Any suggestion they didn't run for any other reason is absurd."

The Financial Times, however, published contents of an email it obtained suggesting Bloomberg editors were keen on the investigation as of late September.
"The story is terrific," wrote Bloomberg Managing Editor Jonathan Kaufman, according to the FT. 

"I am in awe of the way you tracked down and deciphered the financial holdings and the players. It's a real revelation. Looking forward to pushing it up the line."
Allegations that Bloomberg was spiking an expose appear to have first surfaced publicly in an unlikely place, a satiric, online Chinese-language video.
Next Media Animation, a Taiwanese company known for videos that mock the Communist Party, put out a scathing one on this episode.

A Broader Issue
But Emily Parker, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, a Washington, D.C., think tank, says accusations of self-censorship go far beyond this one case.
"I think there is going to a tendency to really pounce on Bloomberg and to say: 'Shame on them and how could they do this?' " says Parker, who has written about self-censorship in China and has just finished writing a book on the Internet and social media in China, Russia and Cuba. 

"I don't really think that's the most positive way to discuss this story, because I think what's clear is that this is a much larger phenomenon."
Parker says all kinds of organizations — including universities, publishers and Hollywood movie studios — are under pressure not to offend the Communist Party and will curtail their behavior to avoid conflict.
Parker says Perry Link, a well-regarded China scholar at the University of California, Riverside, described it best in a 2002 essay for the New York Review of Books.
"The Chinese government's censorial authority in recent times has resembled not so much a man-eating tiger or fire-snorting dragon as a giant anaconda coiled in an overhead chandelier," Link wrote.
Link said the anaconda didn't have to set limits, or even move — its mere presence was enough to make people limit their own behavior.
"Everyone in its shadow makes his or her large and small adjustments — all quite 'naturally,' " Link wrote.

Repercussions For Sensitive Stories
Sometimes, the anaconda strikes.
Both Bloomberg and The Times did prize-winning investigations last year documenting more than $3 billion worth of hidden wealth controlled by the family members of top officials.
China's government was furious. 

It responded by blocking the companies' websites — costing The Times millions of dollars in advertising revenue on a new Chinese-language platform — and denying some visas.
Bloomberg also lost money on its core business, selling financial information through the firm's computer terminals.
"I think as China gets more powerful and as more and more people have vested interests there, it's going to be harder and harder to kind of speak out independently," says Orville Schell, a journalist and author who runs the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society in New York. 

Schell says China has growing leverage over those who rely on the country for revenue or their livelihoods.
"Every media outlet must cover China to be in the big top," Schell says. 

"If they get precluded, and this is true of individual journalists as well, whole careers can be completely destroyed if you can't get access."

A Visa Denied
The most recent correspondent to be precluded is Paul Mooney, who had worked in Beijing for 18 years, reporting on staff for various publications, including Newsweek and Hong Kong's South China Morning Post.
Earlier this year, Reuters hired Mooney, who's written extensively on sensitive issues, such as human rights, child labor and conditions in Tibet.
Mooney says Chinese officials spent an hour and a half interviewing him as part of his visa application at the consulate in San Francisco. 

They asked about his views on Tibet. 

They even quoted from interviews he'd given.
At the end, Mooney recalls, they said, "'We hope that — if we give you the visa — that you'll report more objectively in the future.' And to me, this is outrageous that a government would suggest something like this to a foreign reporter, that we have to report the way they want us to report. Otherwise, we won't be welcome."
Chinese officials told Reuters last Friday — which happened to be National Journalists Day in China — that Mooney would not get a visa. 

They gave no reason.
Mooney has company. 

Last year, China expelled Melissa Chan, a reporter for Al-Jazeera English, who had embarrassed the government with reports about secret detention centers, known as black jails, and forced abortions.
Mooney thinks his visa rejection will affect other reporters.
"They are all going to be thinking about this when they go out and do their next stories that if I write about sensitive political issues, am I going to get my visa renewed?" Mooney says. 

"I think it's going to send a chill down some people's backs."
Mooney says one solution to the pressure foreigner reporters face in China lies with foreign governments. 

In 2011, more than 800 Chinese nationals came to the United States on international journalist visas, known as I visas, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
"If the U.S. government reciprocated by sitting on a handful of visas for Xinhua News Agency, or CCTV or the People's Daily," says Mooney, "I'm sure that within a week all the problems we're having with visas would be solved."
In 2011, California Republican Dana Rohrabacher introduced a bill to that effect, but it hasn't gone anywhere on Capitol Hill. 

Mooney says when he raises the idea of visa reciprocity, U.S. diplomats are reluctant to retaliate against Chinese reporters. 

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China says will stamp out Dalai Lama's voice in Tibet

By Ben Blanchard

BEIJING -- China aims to stamp out the voice of exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama in his restive and remote homeland by ensuring that his "propaganda" is not received by anyone on the internet, television or other means, a top official said.
China has tried, with varying degrees of success, to prevent Tibetans listening to or watching programmes broadcast from outside the country, or accessing any information about the Dalai Lama and the exiled government on the internet.
But many Tibetans are still able to access such news, either via illegal satellite televisions or by skirting Chinese internet restrictions. 

The Dalai Lama's picture and his teachings are also smuggled into Tibet, at great personal risk.
Writing in the ruling Communist Party's influential journal Qiushi, the latest issue of which was received by subscribers on Saturday, Tibet's party chief Chen Quanguo said that the government would ensure only its voice is heard.
"Strike hard against the reactionary propaganda of the splittists from entering Tibet," Chen wrote in the magazine, whose name means "seeking truth".
The government will achieve this by confiscating illegal satellite dishes, increasing monitoring of online content and making sure all telephone and internet users are registered using their real names, he added.
"Work hard to ensure that the voice and image of the party is heard and seen over the vast expanses (of Tibet) ... and that the voice and image of the enemy forces and the Dalai clique are neither seen nor heard," Chen wrote.
China calls the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Dalai Lama a "wolf in sheep's clothing" who seeks to use violent methods to establish an independent Tibet.
The Dalai Lama, who fled to India after a failed uprising in 1959, says he simply wants genuine autonomy for Tibet, and denies espousing violence.
Chen said the party would seek to expose the Dalai Lama's "hypocrisy and deception" and his "reactionary plots".
China has long defended its iron-fisted rule in Tibet, saying the region suffered from dire poverty, brutal exploitation and economic stagnation until 1950, when Communist troops "peacefully liberated" Tibet.
Tensions in China's Tibetan regions are at their highest in years after a spate of self-immolation protests by Tibetans, which have led to an intensified security crackdown.

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China Patriotism Campaign Backfires in Tibet

by Yeshi Dorje

A Chinese national flag is raised outside a residential building in Lhasa.

A Chinese government campaign to build patriotism in Tibet appears to have backfired, leading to protests, mass shootings and detentions in a restive area 560 kilometers northeast of Lhasa.
Tibetan sources tell VOA that Wu Yingjie, the vice party secretary of Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) started a campaign in August to address the rebellious reputation of Driru County, known as Biru in Mandarin.
As part of his “Making Driru a Peaceful and Friendly [Place]” campaign, Wu began a prolonged tour of the area.
But his efforts turned into a disaster, according to information received by a Tibetan exile group.
The Drasogdrisum Association, a Dharamsala group of exiles from the region, says violence erupted in the area in late September after Chinese officials ordered Tibetans in Driru to raise Chinese national flags on their houses.
Ngawang Tharpa, the head of Drasogdrisum Association, says the authorities warned that those who disobeyed would not have the right to send their children to school, receive medical treatment in hospitals or to collect caterpillar fungus, an extremely expensive medicinal plant that is found in the area.
Despite the warning, Tibetans in Mowa village, 15 kilometers from the county seat, dumped Chinese flags into a river, according to a letter from Tibet circulated via the online service Wechat and other sources that Tharpa’s group received from phone conversations.
Chinese police clashed with villagers when they arrived to make arrests for the flag dumping.
The same sources said Chinese soldiers immediately took control of the village.
A letter from Tibet said about five to seven soldiers guarded each house and that Tibetans in the village were not allowed to even “go outside to use the toilet.”
Some reports said soldiers raised the Chinese flags on Tibetan houses.
That evening, as many as 1,000 Tibetans gathered outside the local government building and began a 24-hour hunger strike while lying on a road to block military vehicles.
In interviews with VOA, exiles said about 40 Tibetans from nearby villages were detained and beaten when they went to appeal for the withdrawal of Chinese troops.
They were later released after protesters agreed to end their demonstration.
“They were photographed from every side of their bodies and their fingerprints were taken before they were released,” said Tashi Gyaltsen, a Tibetan in India who is from the area.
Reports filed by several exiled Tibetans, who did not want to be named, said the people were severely injured and were not allowed to leave their homes to get medical treatment after their release.
One Tibetan using the pen name Migchu (Tear) reported from Lhasa via Wechat.com: “Thousands of soldiers and armed police from Lhasa, Shigatse and Lhokha went toward Driru on September 30 and October 1.”
Chinese state-run radio said that on October 3, vice part secretary Wu met with the police in Driru, thanking them for their service and advising them to strike hard at those who engage in criminal activities to harm national security and social stability.
Reports say three days later Chinese security forces fired on a crowd of Tibetans in Dhathang Township, about 68 kilometers northwest of the Driru county seat.
The crowd was protesting against armed police and work teams searching the home of a man who was arrested for showing his disapproval of education programs designed to build patriotism for China.
Amnesty International reports that as many as 60 people were injured from gunshots or beatings.
State-run news media in Tibetan areas, which have never mentioned the protests, quote Wu as saying the government will push forward with its patriotism campaign in the area.
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, did not directly address the events in Driru but told VOA that media outlets should focus on the broader picture of economic development in Tibet.
“I do not know the specifics you mentioned," she said.
"Any unbiased person will agree that over the 60 years after the peaceful liberation of Tibet, development has been improved and social stability has been maintained. We hope relevant media organizations will stop single-mindedly focusing on specific cases and look at the progress of Tibet more broadly.”
Tibet has been under the control of the Chinese Communist government in Beijing since 1950.

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China Acknowledges Human Rights Shortcomings

by Zlatica Hoke

For years, Western governments, human rights groups and Chinese dissidents have been accusing Beijing of grave violations of human rights and freedoms.

The 1989 crackdown on protesters in Beijing's Tiananmen Square remains the most egregious blot on China's human rights record, but since then the communist government has been dogged by numerous allegations of arbitrary jailing, torture and harassment of dissenters and their families.
In Geneva on Tuesday, the Chinese government faced a United Nations report listing grave abuses and violations of international human rights norms. 

While China’s response showed some softening of its rhetoric, some observers are not reassured.
Rights activist Ni Yulan was released from prison earlier this month, after serving 2.5 years in a women's prison on charges of fraud and stirring unrest. 

Ni has been at odds with the Chinese authorities since 2001, when she began protesting the destruction of homes, including her own, to make room for the construction of the Olympic village in Beijing.
"In the last 12 years I have been treated as a criminal, both when I was at home or sitting in prison. At home we were under police surveillance; they surrounded my house and turned it into a prison. We were not allowed to freely come and go, [and] my family was harassed," said Yulan.
Renowned Chinese artist Ai Weiwei was not spared either. 

After criticizing the government, the designer of Beijing's "Bird's Nest" Olympic stadium was arrested in 2011 and held in jail for almost three months without official charges. 

Chinese authorities said Ai Wewei was investigated for alleged economic crimes.
The long list of China's alleged rights abuses includes repression of minorities, especially in Xinjiang and Tibet, and excessive control of the media and the Internet.
The United States has repeatedly warned China to stop the abuses, but human rights groups say this is not enough.
"I think the reality is that for the United States, human rights issues in China remain an issue to be managed, not a problem to be solved. And, not as one as absolutely foundational, fundamental to securing progress on other issues in the bilateral relationship," said Sophie Richardson, China Director for Human Rights Watch.

On Tuesday, China acknowledged shortcomings but insisted that a lot of progress has been made. 

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying expressed the familiar Chinese line that human rights issues are China’s internal affairs and other nations should not meddle.

In Hong Kong, City University professor Joseph Cheng said Beijing wants to influence the international human rights agenda.
"China intends to soften external criticism, to defend its basic position and to lobby hard for support among other third world countries, especially those in Africa and Asia. Not only to defend China, but also to support China's membership of the [UN Human Rights] Council in the election to be held in November,” said Cheng.
Cheng also said China now wants to play a more active role in the U.N.'s human rights forum and in shaping the human rights policy of the United Nations.

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China criticises Spanish court's Hu Jintao genocide indictment

Ruling could lead to moves to seek former president's arrest in Spain or other countries with which it shares extradition treaty
Reuters

Hu Jintao, the indicted former president of China.

China has denounced a Spanish criminal court's decision to indict the former Chinese president Hu Jintao for genocide as part of an investigation into whether his government committed abuses in Tibet.
The Spanish national court last week accepted a Tibetan advocacy group's appeal in a case asserting that Hu supported genocidal policies when he was Communist party secretary in the Himalayan region from 1988-92 and after he took over as China's head of state in 2003.
The ruling could lead to moves to seek Hu's arrest in Spain or other countries with which it shares an extradition treaty, though in practice he is unlikely ever to face a Spanish court.
"We firmly oppose any country or person attempting to use this issue to interfere with China's internal affairs," the foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a regular briefing.
Communist Chinese troops took control of Tibet in 1950. 

China says it "peacefully liberated" the remote mountainous region, which it says was mired in poverty, exploitation and economic stagnation.
Tibet's Buddhist leader, the Dalai Lama, fled to India in 1959 after an abortive uprising against Chinese rule. 

Exiled Tibetan groups are campaigning for the return of the Dalai Lama and self-rule for their region.
Hua said the group that launched the legal case was trying to damage the "extremely friendly" relations between China and Spain.
"The Tibetan group's purpose is extremely obvious and its political motives are sinister – to destroy the relations between China and the relevant country and to attack China's government," Hua said.
Hu was succeeded as president in March by Xi Jinping.
China's human rights policy will come up for scrutiny at the universal periodic review by the United Nations in Geneva on 22 October, when groups and governments will be given the chance to press China on issues ranging from the death penalty to the treatment of dissidents.
The Washington-based International Campaign for Tibet called the Spanish ruling groundbreaking. 

It says China's policies in Tibet have led to "a climate of terror" in which people face torture and pressure to denounce the Dalai Lama.
More than 120 Tibetans have set themselves alight in protest against Chinese rule since 2009, mainly in the heavily ethnic Tibetan areas of Sichuan, Gansu and Qinghai provinces rather than in what China terms the Tibet Autonomous Region. 

Most of those who set themselves on fire have died.

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Former Paramount Leader Hu Jintao Indicted for Tibetan Genocide

The original complaint charged former paramount leader Jiang Zemin, Li Peng and five other Chinese officials with genocide, crimes against humanity, torture, and terrorism committed upon the Tibetan people.

By Ana Curbelo

(L to R) Thubten Wangchen (victim and individual plaintiff), Palden Gyatso (victim), Takna Jigme Sangpo (victim), Kalsang Phuntsok (Director at the time of the Tibetan Youth Congress). stand in front of the Spanish National Court (Audiencia Nacional) after filing a complaint for genocide on June 28, 2005. On Oct. 9 former head of the Chinese regime Hu Jintao was added to the complaint.

LAS PALMAS, Spain—Former paramount leader of the People’s Republic of China Hu Jintao has been indicted by Spain’s highest criminal court for committing genocide in Tibet.
With the Oct. 9 decision the court reversed a lower court, finding that a lawsuit first filed in 2005 could be extended to include Hu Jintao. 

In a June 21, 2013 decision, the court sided with the state’s attorney, who had argued Spain did not have a national connection to the case and so lacked jurisdiction. 

The state’s attorney also claimed Chinese courts were competent to try this case.
In reaching their decision, the judges noted that one of the co-complainants—Thubten Wangchen—was a nationalized Spanish citizen. 

As for the alleged competence of Chinese courts, the judges said there was no record “of Chinese authorities having begun any type of investigation into the facts that are the object of the lawsuit.”
The complainants—the Tibet Support Committee, the Tibet House Foundation, and the foundation’s director Mr. Wangchen—waited to petition to include Hu Jintao in the ongoing case until after he lost his diplomatic immunity. 

In March 2013 Hu Jintao was replaced by Xi Jinping as the PRC’s head of state.
In the June hearing the complainants presented evidence alleging Hu Jintao’s culpability for genocide both as head of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Tibet from 1988-1992 and, beginning in 2003, as general secretary of the CCP and chairman of the PRC, the highest ranking positions in the Party and the state.
In the October decision, the judges cited “international evidence of the repression carried out by Chinese leaders.”
The judges ruled that: “The Chinese authorities decided to carry out a series of coordinated actions aimed at eliminating the specific characteristics and existence of the country of Tibet by imposing martial law, carrying out forced transfers and mass sterilization campaigns, torturing dissidents and forcibly transferring contingents of Chinese in order to gradually dominate and eliminate the indigenous population in the country of Tibet.”
The original 2005 complaint charged former paramount leader Jiang Zemin, Li Peng (former premier of China), and five other Chinese officials with genocide, crimes against humanity, torture, and terrorism committed upon the Tibetan people.
Alan Cantos, the director of the Tibet Support Committee, told the judges’ decision was greeted “with joy , especially for victims in Tibet, their families and the Tibetan people, because it means that there is a little more justice. Also because it is a triumph of Spanish justice that has fallen on the side of truth, principles and law, and not on the side of diplomatic pressures and powers in China.”
Tenzin Tsundue, a Tibetan activist living in Dharamsala, India was deposed in this case, recounting torture he had witnessed while held in Chinese prisons in Tibet.
Tenzin Tsundue said, “It is not enough to give peace prizes to His Holiness the Dalai Lama and continue to be blind to the human rights violations” against Tibetans, who are “under tremendous pressure to survive as a people of ancient culture and history.” 

He called upon the international community to go to Tibet and document the genocide taking place there.

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Spoiling Tibet: China and Resource Nationalism on the Roof of the World by Gabriel Lafitte

By Kerry Brown

A few years ago, I was seated next to a professor of geology at Oxford University.
We broached the subject of China’s resource assets. 

“China has very little that is easily exploitable,” he said.
I asked about energy resources in Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia.
He nodded, thought for a bit and then said “Well, but they are hard to get too, and at the moment and the Chinese do not have affordable technology that could do that. Same with Tibet. Everyone thinks it is overflowing with precious metals and all the rest; but it would be very hard to get access to them.”
Gabriel Lafitte’s book, Spoiling Tibet supports this.
But his conclusion is that a highly dysfunctional central state relationship with local authorities, and the greed of prospectors, is nevertheless going to make the Tibetan plateau—a region that covers almost a quarter of China’s territory—the object for intensive and potentially devastating mining and extraction projects.
Lafitte sets out his case clearly, and allows plenty of Tibetan voices—those who would be most affected by this vast project—to speak directly. 

For them, he argues, the Tibetan Plateau, four to five kilometers above sea level, is a place to which they have a unique spiritual and cultural link, almost as though they were inhabiting the body of a living thing. 

Their nomadic way of life—practiced for thousands of years—is adapted to the delicate eco-systems of the region: moving from place to place and using resources sparingly so that they are not depleted.
Lafitte stresses that the indigenous Tibetan communities are practitioners of their own form of modernity, not victims who never tried to use the land they lived on. 

He shows that mining and working with gold and other precious metals is something that has been ingrained in Tibetan culture for many centuries. 

The centralized Chinese state vision of modernity, forged on a template largely taken from developed countries and then applied across China, is simply not easily applicable to local conditions. 

And he also argues that while the government—especially since the uprisings in 1989 and 2008—can react angrily to local activists and try to paint them as separatists, the fact is that despoiling the Tibetan region with inappropriate resource exploitation would be a disaster for the rest of China itself. 

China’s critical and hugely over-exploited sources of water all come from the Tibetan plateau. 

Polluting these at their source or close to it would in effect be poisoning the rest of China.
Stripped of the highly contentious politics of the Tibetan issue, the environmental issue as it is presented here at least becomes a little easier to deal with.

Lafitte is not attempting to parse historical documents over the sovereignty of Tibet and when and how it came into the orbit of previous Chinese imperial central states. 

He focuses on the ways in which the mining industry and its current practices pose an immense threat to Tibet. 

Now that there is considerable transportation infrastructure—railways and roads—into the area, there is even more incentive for risk-taking prospectors to become active in the area. 

Lafitte describes some of these, often illegal, hugely damaging and run with little if any observance of China’s national laws.
The geologist at Oxford I met a few years back was also right. 

None of the examinations of the main mineral and metal deposits in Tibet indicate that it would have any mines in the world’s top twenty. 

For this reason, Chinese state resource companies are investing heavily in Chilean, inner Asian or African mines. 

There the geologies and the accessibility of deposits are a little more straightforward, as are the supply chains.

In Tibet on the other hand, immense amounts of rock and earth would need to be blasted away to get to the best known deposits.
Only a lingering residue of Maoist hubris towards nature would allow people to think that this would be feasible with current technology. 

Describing the 2010 high-level work meetings in Beijing on managing the Tibetan Autonomous Region, however, Lafitte shows how this hubris creeps into central government thinking. 

Tibet, to them, is an area that has to be tamed with intense road and rail building programs and the same mass urbanization projects that are sweeping the rest of the country.
This is a timely and well written book, concise and illustrated with many examples. 

Forward-thinking officials in both Beijing and Tibet itself must be well-aware of the issues raised here, and of the real possibility that mismanagement of the environment of this region, let alone its politics, could be disastrous for the country, region, and, as Lafitte makes clear, the whole world.
Hopefully, this book will provoke a more enlightened, less partisan debate about what to do now. 

Lafitte emphasizes that however bad things are now they are still manageable and reversible.

If, however, they are not addressed there is every possibility that the grim scenarios alluded to here will happen sooner rather than later.

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