Change
"Oh my, Snowy! Cover your eyes - you don't want to see what the Chinese did!"
I love Tintin. The Dalai Lama loved it so much that he bestowed the International Campaign for Tibet's Light of Truth award on the ficticious character. If only Herge could have updated his timeless series with a new perspective on Tibet of recent weeks, I can only imagine Tintin winning more accolades this year.
We have had debates in forums and the newspapers about what the US presidential elections have symbolised for us, citizens of this city-state. We speak of Obamania and "change" as the magical, operative word that will perhaps provide a non-partisan, ideological tool to breach the fortresses of conservatism, guarded zealously by the staunchest, most pragmatic technocrats on this island. Even the dour Brits are getting excited over the elections, so much so that it seems like the entire world is truly connected as proxy citizens of the US. A common refrain goes, "Are we having elections or are the Americans having them?"
I do not doubt for a split second that US leadership changes will constitute one of the major challenges to Singapore's own foreign policy and world outlook. Will the new president be as committed to preserving stability in Southeast Asia? While the mood of isolationism seduces from Iraq, the fear of China exerting hegemony over Asia is a salient reminder of the realities at hand. My answer is that the US will not risk such an outcome and will thus remain committed to this region.
Will he/she be sensitive to regional contexts when promoting the WoT? More importantly, will the WoT's significance fade into the background as leaders debate about semantics while ignoring the real threats emanating from all quarters? What are the expectations of the new president of Singaporean commitment to the WoT?
But let us not deviate from the true purpose of this entry. It seems that Obama's rhetoric of "change" has indeed sparked off general interest and even managed to circumvent embedded cynicism within populations with regard to politics in their own countries. Perhaps individuals see it as a chance to ride on the momentum of revolutionary ideas to inspire civil society to vote those who they believe will remake the new world order. Yet America is hardly the untainted beacon of inspiration and hope that it was just a few years ago, and leaders everywhere will be on guard against the dangers of associating themselves too closely with Obama's ideology of change. Ideas can be very powerful things.
That is why I predict that Obamania is more of a touch-and-go trend, while 2008 will be preoccupied with another momentous event that will redefine the boundaries and potential of global civil activism more than Obama could have dreamed of. That event is Tibet.
I can sense the mood in the air, because it is the same air Singaporeans, Tibetans, the Chinese, the Europeans, Indonesians breathe. The air is tinged with anger, with calls for change, with purpose. But let us not get too dramatic here, shall we? I shall direct your attention now to this:
The Communist Party has started a political education drive in Tibet's restive capital, Lhasa, vowing a long campaign to attack pro-independence sentiment and support for the Dalai Lama.
[...] In a bid to reinforce control in Lhasa, party authorities have begun an education drive focused on officials and party members, the official Tibet Daily reported Monday.
The campaign to "fight separatism, protect stability and promote development" would focus on "unifying the thinking and cohesive strength of officials and the masses, deepening the struggle against separatism and counter-attacking the separatist plots of the Dalai clique," the paper said.
You know it's weird when you see "struggle against separatism" instead of the usual "struggle for separatism". Now, one would be perfectly obtuse to ignore the fact that this is a very blatant attempt at social conditioning via "political education" by the Communist Party. Social conditioning in China's parlance involves not only the intellectual part, but also the trusted tool of violence. The only reason they are even initiating this drive with such altruistic goals of "stability" and "development" is to distract people from the truth: they sure as heck aren't leaving it to domesticated schoolteachers and their wooden rulers to ensure that Tibetans are silenced in the future.
It is indeed an optimistic observation that the Chinese are resorting to promoting development as a method of placating the Tibetans, which means that the former assume that deliverance of economic guarantees will bring about political legitimacy. That would certainly work wonders as it has done in Singapore, but that is also because the government didn't order massacres against our forefathers. Will decades of bloodshed and genocidal activity be compensated with "development"?
Methinks the Chinese are smoking some serious drugs.
Why optimistic, you ask? The government in Beijing will realise, sooner or later, that money can't buy you legitimacy that easily. The gradual shift towards recognising the dire political and PR costs that Tibet has engendered for China has started, and that also indicates that China knows it cannot risk ignoring the issue any longer. Without Tibetans placated/silenced, the government's control over perceptions shaped outside China will only be eroded away.
Over the weekend, Beijing slightly eased its usually strict ban on protest to allow angry citizens to denounce the Dalai Lama and urge boycotts of businesses accused of supporting him, especially the French supermarket giant Carrefour.
And what did the French a Frenchman have to say?
Bernard Arnault, the chairman of LVMH Moët Hennessy-Louis Vuitton, the French luxury goods group, which has been the target of boycott calls, said last week that France should stop trying to teach China lessons.
"I understand why the Chinese population could be affected by the attacks against its country," Arnault said in an interview with Le Figaro. "It may be shocking to see what's happening in Tibet, but it's equally shocking to see China being attacked."
It may be shocking, Mr Arnault? Why, do you personally judge massacres on the scale of nuclear holocausts? Is it even equally shocking to see China being attacked? On what grounds, may I ask?
Sorry, too many questions there. Let me recollect myself.
I begin to understand and empathise with Mr Arnault, who is above all, a businessman, a member of the international free market. Of course, governments and firms who boycott and criticise China must be entirely irrational, because everybody knows China is the upcoming economic superpower, and instead of severing ties, one should capitalise on the opportunities available to forge links with her.
Perhaps he is so afraid that France will be associated with the US for "trying to teach China lessons" that he sounded out his concerns. Apparently, the French population should acquiesce in China's dirty work because the economic benefits gained by French companies such as Carrefour would more than compensate for the critical moral deficit businessmen like Mr Arnault are suffering from. Mr Arnault is only trying to spread the guilt around, no?
Ironically, China is currently teaching the French a lesson in politics: interfere with my business at home and your business goes home. Clearly, Mr Arnault is a fast learner.
The fact that protests have emerged everywhere as the Olympic torch makes it way around the world cities where anti-Chinese activity might happen is an amazing phenomenon, an indicator that perhaps what some have envisioned as a global civil society, or global values, actually exist. It is an idealist claim that we are above all members of humanity rather than citizens of our nation-states. Yet 2008 has thus far shown societies the power of ideas, of communication that transcends boundaries, censorship barriers and vacuums. As a superpower, China has yet to learn the true costs and constraints that its newly-found status has brought along. The US has been the convenient scapegoat for decades, sometimes deservingly so, other times the target of Other-isation campaigns of governments wishing to deflect attention from domestic woes. Is it any surprise anti-American sentiment has become such a galvanising force if not for its superior utility as a politically expedient mechanism?
I have no sympathy for the Chinese government. The Olympics can be boycotted. The torch can be snuffed out. I am not willing to watch lives being snuffed out for the sake of business, for the sake of economics. As a pragmatist, I can hardly foresee the coordinated boycotting of China as an economic partner by countries, especially my own. Yet while governments are constrained in their policy-making to maintain good business and trade ties with China, they can show their displeasure by other means. Relations can be business-like, but nobody said they had to be friendly. While it might be unrealistic to expect our government officials to snub Chinese counterparts at summits, there are multiple loopholes within existing political and economic structures to frustrate the Chinese as they seek acceptance and integration into the world community.
Tibet today, Sudan tomorrow.
Now this is the "change" we should be looking at.
Labels:
China,
Human Rights,
Tibet
2 spoke up:
"Relations can be business-like, but nobody said they had to be friendly."
Unfortunately, that is EXACTLY how China wants it. China has been preaching this since the day they began to step into world business; this is what they say when they deal with nuclear-obsessed NKorea; same thing they said when they refused to interfere in the Dafur region; same thing they said when they opposed UN peacekeeping policies in Africa while mining African soil and taking African oil out of a Chinese straw.
You know, when I first started writing about the China situation on my blog, I was more of a neutral bystander. However, I am beginning to walk to the side of 'boycott the Olympics, I don't care', and I agree with you on that. But I am also beginning to think that standing up to China is one thing we MUST do. Giving in to China because they are so powerful will only feed their thirst for the power to do things their way. Notice how when the French (and CNN) apologised to China, China refused the apologies? They want things done THEIR way, at THEIR time, to suit THEIR nationalistic agendas.
That is dangerous.
Agreed that China needs to be shown that it simply cannot conduct its foreign policy with total disregard and disrespect for the sanctity of life. Let's not get into semantics of Western ideals of liberalism, individual rights - lest we get accused of being ethnocentric and trying to foist foreign values upon the supposedly uncorrupted Chinese values system. Just the fact that the Chinese are not only killing people within their territory, persecuting ethnic minorities in droves, but also indirectly supporting other genocidal governments in Sudan, Myanmar and other authoritarian regimes - that alone should justify why we need to demonstrate to the Chinese the constraints on their newfound power.
If China is allowed to adopt a foreign policy that is wholly pragmatic, propping up dictators and mass killers so as to circumvent the issues of genocide and human rights abuses - with the mindset that regional and global stability will be assured if we don't try and fix things - then we're in for another Cold War. That was exactly how the US conducted its foreign policy post-war, and look where it got us: failed regimes and revolutions, leaving behind peoples mired in poverty and destitution, having emerged from decades of repression from their own governments, sanctioned by a superpower.
The reason why China will fail to even become recognised or respected as a superpower is that its system of governance, the values it actually imposes onto its society - they are not worth emulating. Unlike the US with its seductive ideology of individualism coupled with market economics to produce the "American Dream", nobody will want to pursue the "Chinese Dream". And because of China's inability to project the attactiveness of its values of governance and social conditioning, it will never garner the same degree of legitimacy - however fragmented - as the US.
Their way of doing things is too pragmatic, unfeeling and business-like. That's how governments want it, yes. But increasingly in this age of transnationalism where communications of ideas will only continue to press against state-imposed boundaries, governments will be forced to respond to their peoples. Take Malaysia, for instance.
As aforementioned, there are many ways to frustrate the Chinese in getting what they want. Accommodate them, yes - that is crucial for regional and global stability. But by accommodating them, we are also making them increasingly dependent on the rest of the world.
That is leverage we can, and should use.
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