We wish to applaud the University of Groningen for its January 29 announcement to cancel plans to open up a campus in China Althoughtheir statement is unclear on reason for this decision, the issue of Chinese government control and manipulation within academic institutions is a matter of increasing concern. Such a factor may well have been the trigger to reverse their intended collaboration.
In November 2017 the Chinese regime declared that “all foreign-funded universities should have a Communist Party official sit on the board. The president of the University of Groningen’s board, Sibrand Poppema, said then that the inclusion of a party official on UGY’s board “does nothing to alter” academic freedom and independence and that the Party representative would have no ability to control academic content. Nonetheless, Poppema said that the university must “continue to ensure that self-censorship does not become an issue.” (Source)
It is greatly encouraging to note the decision of this University and all respect to them for taking a stand against the corrosive influence of China’s regime.
“Never forget why you started, and you can accomplish your mission.” Chinese Dictator Xi Jinping
Always ready to exloit the opportunity to promote its propaganda message the Chinese regime of dictator Xi Jinping has muscled into gaming, with the object of warping the thoughts of gamers. Oops! Did we suggest a distortion? OK! For the sake of balanced reportage, let’s modify that to ‘encouraging a sense of patriotism and loyalty to the values of Marxist-Leninist ideology, with of course, Chinese principles’.Phew! Sounded better first time, right? But you get the message here, a billion dollar industry that reaches into the homes of countless numbers of Chinese gamers enables China’s tyranny to peddle its totalitarian dogma. Central to such objectives is the deification of Xi Jinping, whose authority has become even more total, his political ‘philosophy’ now a state doctrine. No surprise then that some of his most recent slogans are being inserted into China’s most popular games.
“Survival-shooter game PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) is the hottest videogame of the year, selling over 13 million copies globally, and Chinese companies are racing against one another to create their own copycats of it. Chief among them is a mobile version titled Wildness Action.. In the latest update of the game, released by gaming company NetEase this week, red banners with slogans reflecting China’s “core socialist values” are emblazoned everywhere from buildings to bridges to containers. Another slogan, “Safeguard national security, safeguard world peace,” can also be seen in the game.” Source: https://qz.com/1131079/chinese-copycats-of-video-game-playerunknowns-battlegrounds-pubg-adopted-xi-jinpings-core-socialist-values/
Jewish Museum in Prague, venue For Hitler’s ‘Museum Of An Extinct Race’
Image: archivenet
In 1942 Adolph Hitler agreed to the establishment, proposed by a Dr. Augustin Stein, of a Jewish museum in Prague, which would hold all the objects that the Germans were confiscating from the synagogues in then Bohemia and Moravia. Some reports claim that the Nazi dictator suggested it be called ‘The Museum Of An Extinct Race’.
On October 29, 217 the Chinese regime announced that it was expanding the Tibet Museum, situated in Lhasa and launched in 1999 it’s a propaganda showcase to peddle the lie of a corrupted and cruel Tibetan society being liberated and advanced since China invaded in 1950.
Image:archivenet
The dictatorship of Xi Jinping has drawn much inspiration from the Nazis, it’s record on human rights, forced sterilization campaigns, forced labor camps and ethnic ‘cleansing’ is a chilling example. Like Hitler’s regime China’s totalitarian authority ruthlessly enforces a policy of censorship across all media, while promoting an unending stream of disinformation. Not only are such falsehoods directed at the Chinese people but fine-tuned for overseas consumption, accuracy, balance and objectivity are replaced by the ‘big lie’. A term coined by Hitler and applied as propaganda technique by Joseph Goebbels
“The essential English leadership secret does not depend on particular intelligence. Rather, it depends on a remarkably stupid thick-headedness. The English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it….”Jospeh Goebbels, ‘Aus Churchills Lügenfabrik’ Die Zeit ohne Beispeil January 12 1941
China’s regime plans to expand it’s propaganda museum in Lhasa. With the willing support of these Tibetan traitors.
Image:scmp
On issues of particular political or economic sensitivity the Chinese regime operates a similar campaign, repeating endlessly disinformation and propaganda, the ‘Tibet Museum’ is but one component of that machinery of deception. It targets tourists and under the guise of objective curation injects a toxic fabrication of Tibetan history into the minds of those wandering its corridors.
If anyone reading this is contemplating travelling to Tibet, or you know someone who is (a decision we would urge folks to seriously reconsider) please share this information with them.
April 9th 2013 The Confucius Institute at Columbia University Inauguration Ceremony. Xu Lin, Chief Executive of Confucius Institute Headquarters and Director-General of Hanban, Lee Bollinger, President of Columbia University
Image: hanbannews
We’re just gonna call this one right out. Certain departments within Columbia University are riddled with supposedly objective academics, who in truth are actively promoting a bias which has its origins in the propaganda laboratories of China’s regime. Especially when it comes to the subject of Tibet. Yet despite the academic posturing and intellectual presentations it’s apparent that an agenda is being pressed, one which has the fingerprints of the Chinese Communist Party all over it. Students attending classes on Tibetan history or culture are exposed to information that has a worrying resemblence to the official distortions found in the statements of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Prominent ‘authorities’ on Tibet who have extracted a profitable academic career from the plight of Tibetans collaborate closely with the Chinese authorities. Some go much further, becoming advocates of China’s presence in Tibet, others apply a distorting veneer over Tibetan history or overtly misrepresent the facts. Such deceptions, for that is what they are, lie barely concealed within the specialized lexicon of what is termed, ‘Tibetology’. Such ‘useful idiots’, as Stalin would have recognized them, are of value to the Chinese authorities, who consider that ‘academics’ (especially of non-Chinese origin) promoting their falsehoods on Tibet carry a persuasive and authoratitive voice. Moreover such individuals are often called upon by a largely unthinking media to offer ‘informed’ perspectives and insights on the issue. Thus enabling the toxic propaganda to be published across mainstream media as ‘objective’ analysis, while in truth it’s the approved dogma of China’s tyrants.
Columbia University has become something of a welcoming base for such operations, and also an active and willing partner with the controversial Confucius Institute. An organization which covertly is little more than a resource of the Chinese security services, trawling human intelligence information behind the mask of cultural events and courses. On October 6, 2017 a day-long conference was hosted at Columbia University entitled ‘Beyond Empire and Borders: The Third International Conference on the Qing Dynasty and Inner Asia” . The list of participants, many drawn from Chinese institutions, included Mr Tsering Shakya and Mr Robert Barnet who have on numerous occasions invited the concern and outrage of Tibetans for comments which can at best be described as peddling China’s untruths on Tibet. No coincidence either that the event, so we are advised, was sponsored by none other than the Confucius Institute!
How much trust and credibility can we invest in reports arising from collaborations between western academic institutions and Chinese universities, especially if the subject under examination is an issue of immense political sensitivity to China’s regime?
Contemplating that question it’s important to remind yourself that under the totalitarian control of the Communist Party of China universities do not have the liberal freedoms or operational independence enjoyed by institutions in the USA, Canada, Europe, and countries in Asia such as India.
The presence of the state and its political interests imposes a suffocating pressure across China’s academic community, and this is felt most acutely within those areas deemed as critical to the national or party interest.
One such topic, that attracts international concern is China’s notorious coercive birth control policies, its associated human rights atrocities and demographic and social impacts. Western media is awash with reports on China’s gender imbalance, or claims from the Chinese regime that the ‘one-child’ policy has been ended. Sadly less attention is given by the same champions of free speech to the harrowing range of violations suffered by women across China who face forced sterilizations, forced abortions, arbitrary arrests, loss of employment and denial of housing. The coercion has not gone away, although you may be forgiven for thinking so when viewing the reportage from mainstream media.
But then we have to remind ourselves that such articles are being composed from within China, derived in the most part from official Chinese ministries, who exert a tight control over foreign correspondents. In addition over recent years at a senior executive level media agencies such as Associated Press, Reuters, the BBC have developed a close association with China’s authorities. We must consider also the political influences which operate within such agencies, no doubt they conform to the policy of their respective governments towards China.
An accommodation would seem to have been reached, at the center of which is an active willingness to comply with Chinese demands on reporting of issues seen as sensitive. These include Tibet of course, but also the whole subject of population control policies and their consequences, is it any wonder then that journalists based in China, sourcing their reports from Chinese officials, aware that any violation of their contract with the Ministry Of Information or Foreign Affairs could result in their visa being withdrawn produce articles that echo the official line?
This appeasement, for that is what it is, is illustrated most tellingly in the manner in which China’s population issues are reported, indeed so slanted is such coverage that it’s authorship may as well be credited to National Health and Family Planning Commission of the People’s Republic of China!
Take for example a report today which is across the media ‘China’s Missing Girls Actually Exist’ a claim deriving from recent statistical analysis by a collaboration between University of Kansas and Shangxi Normal University that Chinese women; thought once to have not existed due to the demands of the population control program and cultural preference for having male birth, now apparently exist.
University Of Kansas
The tone and content of this report characterizes the issues mentioned above, diluted and compliant journalism, combined with a source that relies upon Chinese statistics, which are often used for political and propaganda purposes. One also evaluated by a Chinese University controlled, monitored and authorized by China’s regime, in partnership with a foreign academic institution; that in order to operate within China most probably has to comply with and be sensitive towards the China’s authorities.
These important considerations of course have been ignored by mainstream media who are channeling the report with a credulity that must be bringing a warm glow of satisfaction to China’s regime. The story which is being ignored is that a docile media is at best being manipulated to promote China’s politically engineered propaganda, at worst it is a willing partner in spreading disinformation. What would be the object of such a deception and as Sherlock Holmes may inquire, who would most benefit?
Well we already have some indication provided by the political realities that apply to the issue itself within China, that the findings are drawn from China’s census, which as already mentioned is politicized data. Further explanations can be extracted from comments offered by a joint-author of the report:
“People think 30 million girls are missing from the population. That’s the population of California, and they think they’re just gone…..Most people are using a demographic explanation to say that abortion or infanticide are the reasons they don’t show up in the census and that they don’t exist. But we find there is a political explanation.”Source John Kennedy, Associate Professor of Political Science. University of Kansas (emphasis added)
Now it might be, although don’t hold your breath, that deep inside the report Professor Kennedy and his co-author Shi Yaojiang, of Shaanxi Normal University have included a disclaimer to the effect that their ‘findings’ are not stating that countless numbers of female fetuses weren’t forcibly aborted, or female babies abandoned as a result of the brutalizing pressures of China’s coercive population control policies and/or the influence of cultural preferences for a male child.
So far we have not noticed such an assertion, and shall happily welcome such an inclusion, meantime what we are left with is an impression that looks to be trying to exonerate China’s regime by deflecting criticism and attention away from its vicious population control policies (as a determining factor of the gender-imbalance) to some administrative oversight or expediency at we are invited to believe, local level.
Unlike mainstream media we exercise a critical eye of any information associated with the Chinese authorities and so evaluate this report with particular scrutiny. China has a long record of using academics to peddle its propaganda, it concludes that in doing so its purposes are concealed and given a more credible and authoritative gravitas. This latest effort while consumed and reported as fact by CNN, AP, Reuters, BBC et al when examined carefully raises serious questions, not least of all its accuracy, motivation and purpose.
As newspapers go the New York Times (NYT) is right up there. A major media voice, respected across the industry and a trusted news source. Unless that is its reportage concerns Tibet, for then its strident and independent journalism gives way to an uneasy accommodation. Critical and objective reporting is replaced by credulity. Readers are exposed to an editorial take on Tibet that has a worrying similarity to the official propaganda generated by the Chinese regime. Headlines and article content are saturated with terminology that may as well have been crafted by China’s ministry of disinformation. The purpose of which is to promote the deception that Tibet is an inalienable part of China or that Tibetans and their culture are thriving under the tender mercies of the Chinese authorities.
Image:print-screen from NYT online article 11/8/16
Take the November 8 2016 NYT piece from Mr Edward Wong, its bold headline; that element of a newspaper story most often consumed and remembered, suggesting that Tibetan Buddhism is flourishing. The article features a number of glossy images showing seemingly contented Tibetan monks and nuns, a gleaming Buddhist monastery and views of an expansive community. What more proof is needed that Tibetans are enjoying their Buddhist traditions, after all seeing-is-believing, right? Well so the propagandists of China’s regime would insist, and after all they have a long record of peddling such imagery. Smiling and prosperous Tibetans may be found all over Chinese websites and news agencies such as the regime’s official mouthpiece, Xinhua.
The reality of course, as well documented and reported by less gullible media agencies is that Tibetan Buddhism is being virtually exterminated, its monasteries placed under paramilitary control, regular indoctrination programs, charmingly concealed as ‘Patriotic Education’ are forced upon Buddhist Tibetans. Even the ancient tradition of reincarnate Buddhist teachers has been placed under the control and approval of the Chinese State! Meanwhile across Tibet as this post is being written Tibetan monks and nuns are suffering unimaginable misery in forced labor camps, or tortured in one of the innumerable prisons and torture centers. Such vicious oppression and the assault upon the Buddhist culture of Tibet is a matter of record and has attracted the concern of leading human rights organizations, the United Nations and governments.
Another Tibetan monastery placed under military siege by China’s regime
Image:archivenet
Now Edward Wong (who presumably ironically, describes himself on Twitter as ‘comrade’) and the New York Times will be very aware of this harrowing truth, yet have chosen to promote a distortion that no doubt meets the approval of the Chinese regime. Taking a closer look at the wording used we can see the fingerprints of China’s propagandists all over this piece. See for example how Comrade Wong references the recent widely reported destruction of Larung Gar. Another Buddhist center, that was recently bulldozed into oblivion with monks and nuns forced weeping onto convoys of coaches, under the merciless eyes of machine-gun carrying paramilitary:
“The largest, Larung Gar, in a valley to the northeast, has more monks than nuns. Workers there are now demolishing individual homes, on the orders of Chinese officials. Some clergy members are being forced to leave.” (Emphasis Added)
What a masterclass in dilution that comment is, the grim reality of what actually happened and the extent of oppression and destruction diminished under the cover of supposedly neutral reportage. Indeed, anyone reading those words could be forgiven for concluding that regular demolition workers are pulling down a few houses and that a handful of Tibetans have been forced to relocate.The facts though are very different, in magnitude, suffering and oppression, as hinted at in the image below.
Just one area of Chinese ordered destruction at Larung Gar. a major center of Tibetan Buddhist study.
Further indications of just how slanted this article is appears in its headline, the deliberate and carefully applied use of the term ‘Tibetan Plateau’. A geographic, nonaligned description greatly favored by the Chinese authorities, as it avoids entirely any political association regarding Tibet, or the implied questions of its actual status.
What may we justly question is the objective of this particular NYT article? Whose interests are being most served? Is it a fair and balanced appraisal of the condition of Tibetan Buddhism under Chinese rule? Or are we witnessing a leading media publisher serving as a conduit for China’s propaganda distortions on the subject of Tibet?
For too long has Agence France Presse, in its coverage of Tibet, been a willing accomplice to the distortions and propaganda vomited by China’s regime.
It’s report of a Tibetan horse festival (August 1st, 2016) a staged and tightly controlled propaganda event to promote the lie that Tibetan culture is thriving and respected under China’s control is a nauseating assemblage of falsehoods and deception. Engineered by China’s Ministry Of Disinformation to mislead an international audience the article, which clearly is a barely re-written statement from the Chinese Foreign Ministry, is loaded with officially sanctioned terminology.
It states the event took place in so-called “Yushu (China) in the northwestern (sic) Chinese province of Qinghai” this is incorrect, the actual location was near Jyekundo in Kham region of Eastern Tibet!
AFP go on to state that the area is home to many of “China’s eight million strong Tibetan minority, some of whom chafe against Chinese rule“. This sly misrepresentation of the facts chooses to ignore entirely that Tibetans are a distinct people, who under international law have the right to self-determination, and are not a ‘minority’ group within China, but an oppressed people whose land was invaded, occupied and colonized. Notice too how the journalist makes fact free assertion which implies that the majority of Tibetans are content and supportive of Chinese rule?!
While the reporter, Nicolas Asfouri, ends with a superficial mention of Tibetan concerns that their culture is being oppressed and eroded and Tibet’s natural resources exploited to benefit China the dominant impression conveyed by this article is misleading and biased towards the claims of the Chinese regime.
Like the majority of western media agencies within China such as Reuters and Associated Press, Agence France Presse is serving as a conduit for the lies and propaganda that China uses to conceal the dark reality of its tyranny against the Tibetan people and the illegal and violent occupation of Tibet. The nature of online and print journalism is such that these agencies are held by global newspapers in the highest of esteem as credible and objective sources of information. This ensures that their reportage on Tibet is republished internationally, usually without any critical assessment or major editing, a credulity much welcomed by China’s government!
