Video of Monks Upstaging Lhasa Tour

I cannot help but laugh at the situation. So this is what you invited the reporters over, China? So this is the 'pacified' Tibet?

Without trying to sounding overly bloodthirsty, China's entire PR team should be shot for utter incompetence. Jesus.

Oh, and Austin, thanks for posting the video. Much obliged.

Is there any uncut and unedited raw video clip? I like to hear what the monk really said in Mandarin.

Dear Ms. Pelosi,

I disagree with the comments about the recent violence in Tibet that you made while visiting with His Holiness Dalai Lama in India.

From what I observe, I feel that the recent riot in Tibet has little to do with human rights or the future of Tibet. It was a hideous crime of killing, burning, robbing, and looting that no claims of lofty purposes can justify. After all, no innocent human being, regardless of racial and cultural background, deserves to be burned to death! I felt so extremely sad to know that a six month old baby was burned to death along with the parents in the fire set by rioters. My prayers and my thoughts are with the relatives and friends of this family destroyed by thugs and senseless violent act.

I am disappointed that you did not denounce these violent crimes, but only criticized the Chinese government that was trying to keep order and upholding the law. I simply cannot bring myself into believing that the Chinese government started or desired this violent turmoil at all before the Summer Olympics that appears to be so important to China.

In addition, I fear that the further unrest and spread of violence in Tibet and its relationship with the visit of a ranking elected official. I hope that your visit is not perceived as a sign of encouraging violence. Here in America, we do not appreciate extremists. We should not encourage extremists anywhere else in the world.

Instead, I think that you should encourage and work hard to force dialog between Beijing and His Holiness Dalai Lama in order to solve the Tibetan problem peacefully.

In addition, in my mind, the burning, looting, and attacking shops and business people seemed indicating resentment for financial success. I think that you should encourage the Chinese government to take solid steps to help the ordinary Tibetan people to be successful. Those who drive a new car and operate a successful small business usually do not participate in looting.

As an American citizen, I would like to encourage you to do the right thing for the Chinese, for the Tibetans, and most importantly, for the Americans. I urge you to be fully aware that promoting understanding between us and the Chinese people and building relationships with China is tremendously important for us and for our children. I hope that you take the long-term interest of the American people, our security, our prosperity, and the future of our children into your heart and act accordingly.

After all, nobody in his or her right mind would want to plant the seeds of mistrust in the hearts of 1.3 billion Chinese. If we liberally plant the seeds of mistrust far and wide in China today because we think that we are strong now and we can, what our children will harvest tomorrow when China is equally strong and capable?

Instead, I would like to see all of us working together, exercising insightful leadership, and building bridges for our children. In no ways, our political leaders should do American tax payers a disservice by unwisely fabricating and persistently strengthening an increasingly sickening wall, the Great Wall of Berlin, the Wall of the Cold War, the Wall of Distrust, and the Wall of Misunderstanding between two of the greatest countries on earth, the USA and China.

We Americans never have a lack of courage to do the right thing. As Americans of decency and conscience, let’s denounce violence and extremism anywhere in the world. As experienced and politically savvy Americans, let’s promote dialogs between Beijing and His holiness Dalai Lama. As Americans of respect and humility, let’s encourage China commit to and engage in developing ordinary Tibetan people, not only the Tibetan elites. By all means, let's do not shy away from true American world leadership and work shoulder to shoulder with China and other countries and build a peaceful, free, diverse, and prosperous world of hope.

From today on, every morning, I will pray for you, for your health, your family, and your success as the Speaker in your work building bridges of understanding and cooperation between America and China for all of us and the most importantly for our children.

I will also pray with respect and love from the bottom of my heart for Nobel Laureate, His Holiness Dalai Lama for his health, his outstanding spiritual leadership, his unwavering work of non-violence approach to differences that all of us should learn and diligently practice what we have learned.

Very Respectfully,

David

A Chinese American

Obviously, this is totally the monks' fault. They promised to the Chinese officials that they will be "pacified" and "harmonized", and they broke their promise. The Chinese government should never hire them again as actors in any future staged journalist events in the future.

But I must congratulate the costumes department. The gowns were perfect.

These monks are just trouble makers for the government.

I much prefer the actors in the Wen visit to the homes of poor farmers. Those were professionals.

'I cannot help but laugh at the situation. So this is what you invited the reporters over, China? So this is the 'pacified' Tibet?

Without trying to sounding overly bloodthirsty, China's entire PR team should be shot for utter incompetence.

Posted by Zhangsan'

get so high? It seems those monks really touched your G point. Nothing new. Those monks just cry for Dalai. None of them mentioned anything about the 'bloody crackdown'...what you are really expecting? Poor Tibetan, so many people are simply waiting for their blood to get high.

"'Don't believe them. They are tricking you. They are telling lies',"
What the government is telling has been confirmed by hunderds of pictures, videos and many other Tibetan lamas. Today, a Tibetan "living Buddha", the highest lama of a Tibetan temple, accused of the violence committed by the Tibetan mops as the complete violation of Buddhism teaching. How could those Lamas still lie to the public?

"The monks said they had been unable to leave the temple since March 10,"
Isn't it locking the Lamas from outside a right thing to do? Several videos and pictures justified that several Lamas instigated violent activities, such as directing mops attacking the stores.

The lamas even felt to be locked up from violence for a few days. Well. There were so many people killed during those few days. What should their families feel?

"'Don't believe them. They are tricking you. They are telling lies',"
What the government is telling has been confirmed by hunderds of pictures, videos and many other Tibetan lamas. Today, a Tibetan "living Buddha", the highest lama of a Tibetan temple, accused of the violence committed by the Tibetan mops as the complete violation of Buddhism teaching. How could those Lamas still lie to the public?

"The monks said they had been unable to leave the temple since March 10,"
Isn't it locking the Lamas from outside a right thing to do? Several videos and pictures justified that several Lamas instigated violent activities, such as directing mops attacking the stores.

The lamas even felt to be locked up from violence for a few days. Well. There were so many people killed during those few days. What should their families feel?

"get so high? It seems those monks really touched your G point. Nothing new. Those monks just cry for Dalai. None of them mentioned anything about the 'bloody crackdown'...what you are really expecting? Poor Tibetan, so many people are simply waiting for their blood to get high."

RE martindemars:

Don't be an idiot. I've consistently been on the 'Chinese side' in this matter, as you will be able to tell if you review my post history. Don't choose me as someone to pick a fight with.

And if you are telling me that this is not a major mark of embarrassment for the people who were organizing this trip, that Chinese government officials are happy about this interruption, that this won't just stir up more sympathy for Tibetans in the west, and that this won't be the front page story, instead of the story that the government is trying to push (that of the very real murders and deaths which the rioters caused), then you really are an idiot, which isn't too surprising. There's bound to be some in a nation of 1.2 billion.

Zhangsan

Re: Zhangsan

The situation is quite clear. Tibetan activists claims 140 death, and Chinese government says only shot died two rioters. This should be the only important thing needs to be confirmed. Since those journalists can get into Tibet, everyone is waiting the confirmation. Lamas are not happy, everyone knows this. I highly doubt anyone will be surprised by those sentimental lamas, even stupid CCP officials should not.
Don't be an idiot, baby.
Why are you so excited by the tears and blood of Tibetan. Did they hurt you before?

It's the Chinese version of a photo-op, which effectively means that everything is (supposed to be) stage-managed. They weren't invited to 'confirm' anything; they were only invited for the CCP to show how 'calm' the situation is, as well as to get in the CCP spin on the story. Everyone already knows the Tibetan's side; the whole point of the photo-op was to show off the Chinese side. Now, with this lovely little pop up, the story goes straight back to the 'poor oppressed Tibetans'.

Excited? Not quite the correct word to use; the Chinese term would perhaps be "哭笑不得". I find this display of incompetence to be so sad that it is laughable, and so laughable that it is sad, and that particular emotion is directed not towards the monks, but towards the CCP.

Let me flip that question around to you. Why are you so loudly and insultingly hostile? Have I hurt you before? Or do you just think it makes your post seem more persuasive and/or eloquent?

Zhangsan

@Zhangsan

Just ignore "martindemars" pls. We need to keep in mind Chinese people have varying degrees of English skills here. He doesn't realize you were simply upset at how the PR team was so incompetent.

@martindemars

Please do read Zhangsan's previous post. He is a thoughtful person and shares the same goal as you.

This is an emotional topic for us all and its easy to misunderstand people.

@Everyone

These monks seem very confused by what's happening. Unfortunately, they somehow believe the Western journalist are going to provide them salvation. I have no doubt they are going to get educated on what other monks have done in terms of the riot - and they are going to be taught that the Dalai Lama clique was the mastermind behind all that.

Since they are all young, I also think its going to be some soul searching for them if they are true devout Budhists.

Tough world.

Those rioters are egg'ed on by splitists outside of China. At the end of the day, the sufferings are by those within China - not these splitists.

RE Huaren:

Fair 'nuff.

But. Here's the really 'fun' part. The monks claimed that the other worshipers at the Temple which the reporters saw were plants; that they were members of the local Party!

I don't know whether or not that is true, but I think most of us would agree that in general, that is something which we would not put past the CCP to do. Now, whether or not that is true is inconsequential; there's no way to prove it one way or the other. But how much doubt do you think is now in the reporter's minds when they listen to other, real stories about the riots? Will they also think, 'Is this story real? Is it credible? Or am I talking to a CCP plant?' And, to a certain extent, it'd be reasonable for them to have doubt.

What a complete bungling of the situation....

1. Obviously, it is a big embarassment to the Chinese government, it shows the situation was not pacified as the government hoped.
2. The episode is hardly surprising. Naive to think that control of the violence equals a reversal of minds.
3. A PR-management lesson to the Chinese government.
4. As to the disagreement between western media and the Chinese people over the situation and reporting of it, this would change nothing.

please note: the riot in tibet was made by mobs who belong to dalai,not by tibetan.tibetan are chinese too,and have been good relation with ethnic han.and have good life after government support.you western media try to fool innocent people that separating tibetan from chinese.if you don't know any thing ,then shut up,don't try to fool innocent people again. going back your contry and enriching your chinese history knowledge,then come again!

It is patently obvious, given the choice, the Tibetans would prefer the Dalai Lama to the Chinese authorities. Common sense will tell you that. What is more impressive to me is what the monks didn't say. I get the impression that if there were no riots, they were free to do what they want. They get freedom of worship. Its only during the rioting that they were forcibly detained by the authorities, who rightfully fear they could go out and caused havoc and destruction. In other countries, this is what they call a curfew.
One more thing that puzzles me: can anyone tell me whether the Chinese government subsidise the religious education of the monks in the monastery?
Tibetan independence is a lost cause. I pity thosed exiled Tibetans. All these demonstrations in Nepal are all in vain. For their 5 minutes of fame, they had to endure painful beatings by the Nepali police.

"It is patently obvious, given the choice, the Tibetans would prefer the Dalai Lama to the Chinese authorities. Common sense will tell you that."

I am not sure what "common sense" you refer to. But there is something I think you have to add into consideration. Dalai Lama and his officals of the so-call "Tibetan government in eile" were slave masters before CCP formally ordered them to emancipate all their slaves in 1959. And they treated their slaves so brutally that the Tibetan slaves could even be cut off their feet and hands, only because of stealing a little food for survival. Acutally, after Dalai Lama fleed to India, many emancipated Tibetans even started worshiping Mao Zedong as their real Buddha, because he was the person, who emancipated them. Many of the emancipated Tibetan slaves still live today. In what way, would they "prefer the Dalai Lama to the Chinese authorities."?

In case, you do not believe what I said. I can provide something from western media to prove not all Tibetan perfer to Dalai Lama. Not long, CNN interviewed some Tibetan monks in Yunan Province, China. Those monks told the reporter that they identifed themseleves as both Chinese and Tibetan, and only prayed for pease in Lhasa. See, Dalai Lama's opinoin about Tibetan identity was rejected by even some Tibetan monks.

"One more thing that puzzles me: can anyone tell me whether the Chinese government subsidise the religious education of the monks in the monastery?

As far as I know, they did something like that, especially to some western religious believers, such as the Chinese Catholics. But, this is something CCP did at least 30 years ago, dack to the time of "Culture Revolution". I do not see anything like that, since I could remember things as a child.

I think the CCP should learn a good lesson this time. We all see that Zhang Qingli is still using all those Cultural Revolution like languages to handle this kind of complicated situation. It certainly will cause resentment of the monks if they have to do political study everyday. We all hated it, they won't like it either.

It should actually be a pretty fruitful trip for the group journalists as they were able to see both sides of the story on their trip:

1. Tibetan monks feel they are oppressed and
2. Evidence of violence, caualties and property damange by Tibetan youths including monks

It is important to remember that all this happens amidst an emotionally charged period right after some pretty violent riots. To put things into perspective, if you visit LA in summer 1992, blacks will no doubt tell you that they are OPPRESSED, many may probably say things such as:

"THERE IS NO JUSTICE IN AMERICA!!!

FREEDOM IS ONLY RESERVED FOR WHITES IN THIS F**KIN' COUNTRY!!!

WHITE PEOPLE ARE RACIST AS HELL!!!

WE HATE THOSE RACIST H**KIES!"

Using the logic of "Free Tibet" activists and selective reporting of some media, such comments by African Americans should be broadcast around the world and used as evidence to prove how they are still exploited, blacks need to be free and blacks need to declare independence from white rule.

German political writer Victor Trimondi & Victoria Trimondi wrote in their book 'The Shadow of the Dalai Lama':

'If we judge the politics of Lamaist Buddhocracy from a Western point of view, especially those of the Kalachakra Tantra and the Shambhala myth, then we arrive at the following nine assessment points:

The politics of the Time Tantra is “inhuman”, because it is conducted by gods and yogis, but not by people. These gods possess in part extremely destructive characteristics. They are nonetheless sacrosanct and may neither be criticized nor exchanged or transformed.
The goal of this tantra is the establishment of an androcentric, undemocratic, despotic monastic state headed by an autocrat (the ADI BUDDHA).
The Buddhocratic state is structurally based upon sacrifice: the sacrifice of the loving goddess, the woman, the individual, the pupil, the king, the scapegoat.
Buddhocracy skillfully manipulates several models of temporary anarchism in order to in the end turn them around into an authoritarian system.
In a Tibetan-style Buddhocracy, the state and its organs do not shrink from using black magic rituals to get political opponents out of the way.
Buddhocratic politics are aligned not towards democratic decision-making processes but rather towards divine commands, especially the pronouncements of oracles, of whom Pehar, the pre-Buddhist war god of the Hor Mongols, assumes the leading role (of state oracle).
The tantric state is pursuing an aggressive policy of war and conquest (the Shambhalization of the world).
The Shambhala myth contains an apocalyptic vision borne by a “fascistoid” warrior ethos, in which the faithful (the Buddhists) brutally annihilate all non-believers (above all the Moslems).
Tantric Buddhism manipulates the western masses with falsified images of peace, ecology, democracy, a pro-woman orientation, social justice, and compassion. '

People should take a look the whole book 'The Shadow of the Dalai Lama' on the web to get better understanding about the old Titbet and Dalai Lama. You will than understand what those Tibetans in exile are lying about Tibet.

Monday 17 March 2008
Using Tibet to settle scores with China

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/4880

Tibetans want to be free. But they've been given a green light to riot by Western elements driven more by spite and envy than a love for liberty.
Brendan O'Neill

The grainy, sneaked-out footage of Tibetans rioting in Lhasa and in parts of China itself clearly reveals one thing: Tibetans want more control over their daily lives and destinies. Frustrated with living under illiberal and undemocratic Chinese rule, they are lashing out against what they consider to be symbols of Chinese domination: Han Chinese businesses and buildings owned by Chinese officialdom.

But there's another story behind the images of instability being broadcast around the world, a more complex, dangerous and difficult-to-spot story of cynical, spiteful political manoeuvring. Elements in the West have effectively encouraged Tibetans to riot, not because they are committed to democracy and liberty, but because they fear and loathe the Chinese. Western encouragement of Tibetan instability may dress itself in the rallying cry of 'Free Tibet!', but its real motivation is to 'Humiliate China!'

The Tibetan protesters' angry outbursts reveal their deep-seated dissatisfaction with life under the Stalinist regime. Yet the protests can also be seen as a physical, violent manifestation of Western China-bashing, which is increasing in intensity as the Beijing Olympics approach. For the past three months, Western officials and commentators have implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) encouraged Tibetans and others to 'use the Olympics to humiliate China' (1). Taking their cue, at least in part, from Western culture's feverish fear and suspicion of China, Tibetans have launched protests that seem designed as much to please Western observers as to push through real, meaningful changes in Tibet and China.

In both their timing and their presentation, the protests seem more a product of Western cajoling than of an independent, groundswell demand for liberty amongst Tibetans. It is no coincidence that the protests, reportedly the biggest amongst Tibetans since the late 1980s, have erupted in the run-up to Beijing 2008. Vast numbers of political entrepreneurs and activists are trying to transform the Olympics into a platform for moral posturing and China-bashing. According to the International Herald Tribune, such is the frenzied politicisation of the Olympics by Western officials and campaigners that athletes are becoming confused about which cause to support. They have found themselves 'overwhelmed by menu choices' and also by numerous 'wardrobe decisions': should they wear a 'China, Please' armband to protest against China's links with Sudan, or a yellow 'Livestrong' bracelet to indicate their support for a 'pollution-free games and lead-free toys'? An American triathlete has complained: 'Every time you turn around, there is someone trying to make a statement about something.' (2) The relentless politicisation of the Olympics by Western elements, the widespread discussion of Beijing 2008 as an opportunity to 'humiliate China', has helped to create a volatile atmosphere in the more restive parts of China and its surrounding territories, including Tibet.

Presentation-wise, the protesters' use of English slogans and their speedy dissemination of mobile-phone footage suggest the demonstrations are aimed very much at a Western audience. In the march of the Tibetan monks in northern India last week, and during the more fiery protests in Tibet and China over the weekend, Tibetans carried placards with English-language demands such as 'Tibet Needs You'. They wore headbands saying 'Free Tibet' - the favoured slogan of Western middle-class and even aristocratic pro-Tibet sympathisers, such as Prince Charles (3). Tibetan monks in Dharamsala, India (where the Tibetan government-in-exile resides, led by the Dalai Lama) have put up English posters saying 'Beijing 2008: A Celebration of Human Rights Violations' (4). One British newspaper has celebrated Tibetan protesters' use of 'the most dangerous weapon in the world - the cameras on their mobile phones' (5). Many Western observers who cheer Tibetans for using this 'weapon' to beam images of their struggle around the world would probably feel very uncomfortable if Tibetans used real weapons to force their Stalinist rulers to make changes or concessions.

The protests seem orientated very much towards the outside world. They appear to gain their legitimacy and fire from today's widespread China-bashing, and they seem designed, in some ways, for Western consumption. This shows the extent to which Tibetans have become caught up in a global tug-of-war between the West and China. No doubt some people feel genuinely inspired by the Tibetan unrest, but many of the Western elements cheering the Tibetan cause and encouraging the Tibetans to 'humiliate China' are motivated less by a genuine commitment to liberty and democracy than by a deep and cynical desire to make life difficult for the Chinese.

Today's Tibetan protests are taking place in a broad, quite sinister political context: the West's transformation of China into a cultural and political target. In recent years, China has inexorably, and in some ways unconsciously, been transformed into a whipping boy for the West. Anti-Chinese sentiments cut across the political divide: on both the old right and the new left, attacking China for its economic growth, human rights record, environmental destruction or suppression of the Tibetan people has become de rigueur. There is an unspoken consensus today - amongst Western officials, commentators and radical activists - that China is a global threat which must be put back in its place with a short, sharp dose of humiliation. Far more than the demonisation of the Soviet Union as the 'Evil Empire' during the Cold War era, the labelling of China as a dirty, uncontrollable, violent beast enjoys widespread, unquestioned support throughout political circles in the West.

On the right, China-bashing has become a way of settling old scores from the Cold War. American right-wing thinkers and officials seem to take comfort in the familiar feeling of standing up to an 'old communist foe'. Robbed of the 'Evil Empire' in the East by the end of the Cold War, and thrown by the unpredictability of global affairs more broadly, old right elements cling to China as an old-fashioned enemy from an era when politics was simpler and international affairs were more black-and-white; they are trying to recreate that era with a new 'yellow-and-white' divide between barbaric China and the civilised USA (6). Last week, the Pentagon made a splash with its annual report to US Congress on the threat posed by Chinese military power. It was hard not to nod, at least in partial agreement, with the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman who accused officials in the Pentagon of being consumed by 'Cold War thinking' (7).

There is also an element of palpable jealousy in right-wing attacks on contemporary China. As America's economy spins from one crisis to another, becoming reliant in many ways on East Asian cash to bail it out, traditionalist economic thinkers are discussing Chinese growth as a problem and a threat. Using the language of environmentalism - clearly sensing that old-fashioned protectionism would not go down very well today - establishment publications in the US publish essays with headlines such as 'Choking on growth'; they argue that if China is to reduce its carbon emissions (that is, slow down its growth) then there will have to be a 'wholesale mindset change' amongst the Chinese people (8). Books such as The River Runs Black: The Environmental Challenge to China's Future are snapped up and celebrated by traditionalist American thinkers and economists (9).

Amongst left-leaning campaign groups and writers, China has become the No.1 International Bogeyman because of what they see as its ceaseless industrialisation. Westerners who find the idea of growth so nineteenth-century openly discuss China as a poisonous nation that is killing its own people and possibly the planet. Liberal green writers see only the 'dust, waste and dirty water' in modern China; they describe the economic progress there as the 'mass poisoning of a people and the ecological devastation of a nation', which is a product, apparently, of greed - 'ours and theirs' (10). Those greedy Chinese, getting jobs in the city and buying cars and TVs… why don't they go back to the paddy fields where they belong? Green campaign groups call on Western nations to cut their political and economic ties with China, and instruct Western consumers that 'If it says "Made in China", don't buy it': only then, they argue, will 'The World's Biggest CO2 Emitter' and 'The World's No.1 Consumer of Coal' (that's 'China' to those of us who don't think and speak in the dehumanising language of trendy China-bashers) be forced to change its ways (11). They fancy this as a radical stance, but in today's Great China-Bashing Consensus, greens are merely the protesting wing of the backward, fearful, protectionist politics of a West worried about the 'Chinese threat'.

In many ways, campaigners and commentators in the West are projecting their own disgust with 'the Western way of life' on to China. They see in China everything that they doubt or loathe about modernity itself. That is why commentators frequently tell China not to make 'the same mistakes that we made'. On everything from economic growth to sporting competitiveness, from the use of coal to the building of skyscrapers, today's China-bashing is motivated by Western self-loathing, as well as by spite and envy towards the seemingly successful Chinese. Ironically, this means that China is now seen as 'the Other' precisely because it appears too Western: it is China's ambition, growth, its leaps forward - things that a more confident West might once have celebrated - which make it seem alien to Western observers who today prefer carbon-counting to factory-building and road tolls to road construction. China-bashing is underpinned by a crisis of belief in the West in things such as progress, growth, development.

It is the sweeping consensus that China is dangerous and diseased that has attracted Western observers to the issue of Tibet. Both left and right elements in the West are exploiting the Tibet issue as a way of putting pressure on China. They are less interested in securing real freedom and equality for Tibetans, and for the Chinese people more broadly, than they are in using and abusing internal disgruntlement in China and nearby territories as a way of humiliating the Chinese government. That is why Tibetans can symbolise different things to different people. For conservative commentators, the Tibetans are warriors for freedom against a Stalinist monolith; their protests are a replay of the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia in 1989 (12). For greener, more liberal campaigners, Tibetans are symbols of natural and mystical purity in contrast to rampant Western and Chinese consumerism. As one author puts it, Tibetan culture offers 'powerful, untarnished and coherent alternatives to Western egotistical lifestyles [and] our gradually more pointless pursuit of material interests' (13). Various political factions in the West are using Tibetans as ventriloquist dummies in order to mouth their own complaints against modern China. They are promoting Tibetan unrest not to liberate Tibetans but in the hope that the protests will represent their own personal disgust for China in a real-world, physical manner.

There is a long history of Western politicians and activists using Tibet as a stick with which to beat China. In his fascinating book Prisoners of Shangri-La: Tibetan Buddhism and the West, Donald S Lopez Jnr shows how, in the Western imagination, 'the invasion of Tibet by [China] was and still is represented as an undifferentiated mass of godless Communists overrunning a peaceful land devoted only to ethereal pursuits… Tibet embodies the spiritual and the ancient, China the material and the modern. Tibetans are superhuman, Chinese are subhuman.' (14) Today, too, pro-Tibetan activism often disguises a view of the Chinese as subhuman. Indeed, in the current, all-encompassing right/left consensus about China, even left-leaning campaigns can employ old right tactics of demonising the Chinese. A poster for the trendy campaign group Free Tibet shows Tibetans as serene and peaceful and the Chinese as smog-producing modernisers with distinctly slitty eyes and goofy teeth (15).

spiked is no friend of the Chinese regime. Yet those promoting self-serving internal unrest in the run-up to the Olympics, encouraging Tibetans and others to bash China for real where the West only does it with words and propaganda, are playing a dangerous game indeed. Such a strategy of cynical destabilisation could unleash yet more violence in China, and have repercussions around the world. And the biggest losers, at least in the short term, are likely to be Tibetans themselves: they will not win liberty or equality by being transformed into performing protesters for the benefit of Chinaphobic Westerners.