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[Update, 31.03.08, 21:00: TSR series link added at the end]

GL publisher Ellen Wallace is the author of China, on the Ground, available for CHF15 from Off the Shelf in Geneva. Top photo of Tibet, 2007, is by Liam Bates. Photos below, of minority groups in Sichuan in 1985, are from the book.  (About the book)

A newspaper opinion poll favours Swiss politicians speaking out against China’s treatment of Tibet. Calls grow to boycott the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. There is a better way to help Tibet, but it requires more thought and effort: help China, rather than cornering her. Help her see that there is much to be gained from renewing dialogue with the Dalai Lama and from openly developing plans for greater self-rule in Tibet. Fortunately, that is what European Union ministers decided to do Friday, although China does not yet, officially, view it that way.

Boycotts and pressure on China are wrong for two reasons. The first is that they are naive at best, soothing consciences without accomplishing anything, but at worst they will provoke exactly the wrong actions on the part of China. This is not because China is the evil empire we’ve slipped into thinking it is but because China, unlike exiled Tibetans (and this includes the Dalai Lama), is woefully short on experience in and understanding of Western modern public relations.

The second reason boycotts are wrong is that they are selfish – they aren’t designed to resolve the very real problems of Tibet, which are complex. They are designed to make us, the rest of the world, feel good, but we aren’t the people whose lives are directly touched by Tibetan issues. Tibet’s problems include a lack of religious freedom, rulers a majority probably doesn’t want, poverty, extremely limited natural resources, isolation, poor relations with immigrant Han Chinese, ages-old internal squabbling and more. There are no easy answers, certainly not the simplistic "free Tibet."

If China realizes early enough the power of world public opinion it will be more likely to make peacemaking gestures. This is the message editor Jean-Jacques Roth wrote in Le Temps Friday. That power – the public’s voice – can insist that Western leaders use their diplomatic skills to help China find a graceful way forward. This requires a solution that for China will save face and safeguard the Beijing 2008 Games, of which the Chinese public is justifiably proud.

Roth is right. China needs to show  the world it is now big enough, in the sense of coming of age, and secure enough in its role as a world power, to offer an olive branch to Tibetans. The only way to do this is by reviving talks with the Dalai Lama and to stop declaring that he doesn’t mean it when he says he doesn’t want Tibetan independence.

But three things need to happen for China to launch itself on the Tibetan peacemaking path:

1) China needs to catch up with the West in the area of public relations

The Dalai Lama and his followers have spent nearly 50 years outside
Tibet, learning the art of public persuasion, image-control and rapid
communications. They have learned how to play heartstrings and push
their agenda, just as
many governments do. The Chinese government has pooh-poohed as foreign
and unworthy these aspects of managing its affairs. It doesn’t know how
to sell itself to the world. Spin-doctoring, when it occurs, is inept.

After days of silence on Tibet’s unrest the authorities in China
published articles in Xinhua, the state media, that were startling for
their return to old-style Communist language. The "Dalai Lama clique" and phrases like "the
Tibetans will firmly fight against splitting efforts, safeguard the
unified motherland, and keep social stability" sound to Western ears
like they are from a bad movie. They are also a step back to what China
seems to see as safer, old-style language where the government appears
to be talking to itself rather than to the outside world. In the past
five years, Xinhua’s vastly improved news coverage and writing style
have made friends. What a shame if the government doesn’t realize the
power of that and get right back to it.

A positive sign this morning is the language in a Xinhua article published today as a response to the European Union ministers’ Friday message about
China’s handling of Tibet. China is unhappy with what it sees as the EU
meddling in its affairs, but the Xinhua article tries to use persuasion
and information rather than stilted "go away" language to make its
case. This could well be because the EU ministers took a less strident
tone than they might have.

A recent Xinhua report noted that 27,000 messages of
support for the government’s actions in Tibet had appeared on the
Internet. This is China saying we, too, have Web 2.0 interactive media.
But an observer of the Internet in China, who lives there, laughed on
hearing this. "First of all, 27,000 is a tiny number by Chinese
standards and secondly, everyone here knows the government sends out
spam all the time." A good public relations rule of thumb is that you
must sound believable.

2) The rest of the world needs to make more of an effort to understand China

A solution to Tibet’s problems will not occur as
long as we corner China, a country with a long history of tuning out
those who do not listen to it. For a start, we should not underestimate
the strength of the Chinese belief that the group is more important
than the individual, and we should try harder to see that this can
result in good. Calls for China to respect human rights must
acknowledge this as a starting point, or China will rebuff all
discussions. To say that this is wrong of China is not helpful.

The point of diplomacy is to offer a forum where a
country sees that it can shift its position on an issue without giving
up values it considers basic and important.

3) The media outside China must become more responsible

A China expert recently shared with me his enormous frustration with
Western media. "Every time China is mentioned, especially if it’s about
the economy, words are used that imply ‘danger.’ Our centuries-old
notions of a Middle Kingdom yellow danger is pockmarked with racism
and, to some extent, economic jealousy. Both get in the way of helping
Tibet because the first prevents real dialogue and the second
encourages us to maintain uninformed illusions about trade.

YouTube and the voices of the masses on the Internet may be
powerful, but journalists continue to fuel our ideas, guiding what many
people see and hear. Bloomberg
today runs an article where France’s Bernard Kouchner is quoted as
mentioning that China should resume talks with the Dalai Lama. It’s one
of very few media references in the past two weeks to the fact that the
Tibetan religious leader and Chinese authorities held several talks starting in 2002.

How many people have the mistaken impression that China has refused
all contact with him because it is at the moment refusing to meet with
him?

Reporters Without Borders has
been very active in pushing for greater freedom of information in
China, a worthy and important cause, but it doesn’t help when it
reports, incorrectly, that Beijing is not living up to its Olympic
Games agreement to let foreign journalists report openly. Beijing,
according to the International Olympic Committee, agreed to let foreign
journalists reports openly on the Games, and there is nothing to
indicate that this has changed. On its own and clearly with the Games
in mind, but not with the IOC, Beijing liberalized its laws
covering journalists in 2007. The government is allowing far more
reporting freedom, albeit less than what RWB would like to see. What it
did not change, and never promised to, I believe, is the need for
permits to travel to some areas, notably Tibet. Complain about the lack
of permits, but don’t accuse the Chinese of not keeping promises they
haven’t made.

Far more subtle in their influence on our attitudes are editorial phrases and headlines such as "Toys just 1 danger imported from China," and "Another danger made in China" (IHT) or "Rethinking the China Threat" (Business Week) and "The Next Chinese Threat."
(Washington Post). The articles all have valid points and don’t even
necessarily build on the idea of danger and threat, but the words are
there, piling up like so many small stones.

If we want to help Tibet, we need to help China, and it’s hard to do
that when she looks at us and sees a slingshot ready, and a pile of
stones on the ground.

Background on Tibetan independence

• Canada’s CBC
  reminds us of the centuries of intrigue and strife, with several
  super-powers playing roles, that are an integral part of Tibet’s
  history.
• Xinhua’s official explanation of China’s autonomous regions
  may put a gloss on reality, but it is a good starting point for
  understanding the legal and political relationship of Tibet with China
  today.
• The Dalai Lama’s official stance on independence:
  either he does not have the support of those numerous exiled Tibetans,
  especially a younger generation, who demand independence or he is not
  saying what he means. The Chinese government argues the latter. I, for
  one, think he means what he says and that we need to include in our
  understanding of politics and Tibet that the Dalai Lama does not have
  the support of all Tibetans. But then, he has always said as much, and
  we would be wise to read what he actually says: here, 27 March statement.
• TSR carries a helpful series of articles, videos and photos as part of its ongoing coverage of the Tibet/China story.

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