Armed with nationalism and the Internet, young Chinese abroad have launched a wave of attacks accusing Western media of bias in reporting on unrest in Tibet and defending Beijing's crackdown.
The outpouring of emotion is unprecedented in scale and force. China's rising international status and Beijing's success in portraying the violence as being motivated by Tibetan separatists has emboldened students and others to express views that are unpopular in their host countries, experts said.
From YouTube videos to Facebook to Web sites created to criticize news reporting, the message is emphatic: Western media are irresponsible and Tibet will never be independent.
"To all you bandwagon jumpers who know nothing about chinese history and to all you bashers, let me give you some solid FACTS why Tibet was, is and always will be a part of China," says the opening statement of a video on YouTube that the site says was viewed about 2 million times by Saturday.
The protests, led by monks, began peacefully on March 10, the anniversary of a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule. They erupted in violence on March 14. The Chinese government says 22 people have died, while Tibetans abroad put the death toll at 140.
The unrest has cast a harsh light on China just as it prepares for the Beijing Olympics. Foreign governments have called for restraint and for independent monitors to ensure human rights are respected.
"Imagine everyday you open the news and it's all saying bad and biased words towards your motherland: crackdown, killing, burning," Liu Yang, a graduate student in biology at the University of Chicago, said in an e-mail.
"I don't understand, they struggle for press freedom and fairness, but why would they lose their conscience now?" she wrote. "Isn't the media independent, instead of being a mouthpiece?"
College professors and several students agreed the sentiment wasn't confined to just a few fervent patriots.
"Most of my friends here hold similar views," said Kevin He, a doctoral candidate who is president of the Chinese Students and Scholars Association at UCLA.
"I have been talking about this issue with people from other organizations across the North America. They pretty much share the same opinions," he said.
In China, the news has raised less fuss, due in part to media controls that keep most Chinese from seeing reports aside from the entirely state-controlled press.
The fact that Chinese students in the West are unsympathetic to Tibetans should be no surprise, said Barry Sautman, a social scientist at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
"The fact that they're living and studying and maybe working in the US or any other part of the West doesn't make them feel they should adopt the prevailing viewpoint, because it doesn't necessarily correspond with what they know about China and the Chinese," he said.
One student involved with a pro-Beijing Facebook group said he has struggled to battle misconceptions about his native country.
"I do believe I should represent China whenever I can and defend my country ... but it is disheartening sometimes because many people simply do not listen," said Chris Yao, who administers a group called "Tibet WAS, IS, and ALWAYS WILL BE a part of China," inspired by the YouTube video.
"Ever got angry from CNN news reports over the Tibet issue?" says a note on the page. "Well, let me tell you, you are not the only one!"
The students and Chinese media have offered a handful of examples of what they say is bias among Western journalists.
One Web site, www.anti-cnn.com, complained that several news outlets showed photos of police in Nepal scuffling with protesters and misidentified the security forces as Chinese.
It accused US-based CNN of improperly cropping a photo of Chinese military vehicles on its Web site to remove Tibetan rioters who were pelting the trucks with rocks.
CNN insisted it has reported impartially.
"CNN refutes all allegations by bloggers that it distorts its coverage of the events in Tibet to portray either side in a more favorable light," the network said in a statement.
The photo of military vehicles "was used wholly appropriately," the statement said. It said there should be no confusion because the image was captioned, "Tibetans throw stones at army vehicles on a street in the capital Lhasa."
Yao, 22, is a Chinese-born computer engineering student at Canada's Simon Fraser University. He has lived in the US and Canada since age 10, but says his loyalties lie with China.
He plans to return after his graduation.
"We are under no government influence and we are doing this strictly because we believe that, we, as people who have Chinese heritage in us, should try to correct the world when they have been wrongly informed about China," he said in an e-mail.
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday took to the streets of Spain’s eastern city of Valencia to mark the first anniversary of floods that killed 229 people and to denounce the handling of the disaster. Demonstrators, many carrying photos of the victims, called on regional government head Carlos Mazon to resign over what they said was the slow response to one of Europe’s deadliest natural disasters in decades. “People are still really angry,” said Rosa Cerros, a 42-year-old government worker who took part with her husband and two young daughters. “Why weren’t people evacuated? Its incomprehensible,” she said. Mazon’s
POWER ABUSE WORRY: Some people warned that the broad language of the treaty could lead to overreach by authorities and enable the repression of government critics Countries signed their first UN treaty targeting cybercrime in Hanoi yesterday, despite opposition from an unlikely band of tech companies and rights groups warning of expanded state surveillance. The new global legal framework aims to bolster international cooperation to fight digital crimes, from child pornography to transnational cyberscams and money laundering. More than 60 countries signed the declaration, which means it would go into force once ratified by those states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the signing as an “important milestone,” and that it was “only the beginning.” “Every day, sophisticated scams destroy families, steal migrants and drain billions of dollars from our economy...
RSS