Parallel universe - a traveller's view of China's repression of Tibet

The subsequent media coverage of the demonstrations and riots in Tibet and its fallout has sparked a significant backlash in China and abroad. Western media have portrayed protests as part of a Tibetan struggle for greater autonomy; after decades of waiting, many Tibetans are frustrated, resentful, and see little sign of progress. Chinese television portrays them as an angry violent mob. Chinese state media and bloggers - bloggers who are theoretically seen to be independent - continue to release increasingly sharp diatribes against Western media bias, triggered by general perception that coverage of the riots was skewed by anti-China forces in the West. Some of the more prominent sites include: China.Org.CN, Shanghai Daily, China View, EastSouthWestNorth.

There is also a whole web site dedicated to attacking CNN for its sloppy journalism: www.anti-cnn.com. The attacks against CNN reportedly started after Chinese Internet-users discovered that CNN.com had cropped out from the original AFP/Getty photo a group of Tibetan rioters who appear to be beating someone up.

Western media executives have admitted that factual errors were made in their reporting on Tibet: “We are extremely sorry,” said a spokesman for N-TV, a German news television channel. Separately, a web site owned by another German channel, RTL, admitted that the caption of one still photograph taken in Nepal had been erroneous. RTL's website, RTLaktuell.de, said, “It's true that amid our detailed reporting on the Tibet conflict, there was one case where a picture was displayed in the wrong context. We erroneously created the impression that the scene was of the unrest in Tibet and showed Chinese security forces.”

On the other hand, some Western media outlets have been said to complain about the news blackout imposed by the Chinese government, which they claim has made such errors almost inevitable. Michael Bristow from the BBC argued at the time that: “The criticism appears part of a wider campaign by the Chinese government to make sure its version of events in Tibet and elsewhere is the dominant one.”

As one astute blogger has mentioned, the East-West miscommunication madness is here to stay - and likely to get worse - between now and the Olympics:

Watching the build up to the Olympics has been, for me, like watching the world’s biggest, slowest traffic accident … the problem is that there are two completely separate parallel worlds on these issues: the Chinese one, and the rest of us. Westerners have been exposed to rhetoric and information about Tibetan discontent … Meanwhile, Chinese mainlanders by and large have no knowledge of these events or issues. While for the rest of the world the Olympics will be largely a referendum on China’s ability to deal with what everyone else has talked about for years, for Chinese citizens it will be about China winning a beauty pageant of sorts.

Having travelled in Tibet in the lead-up to the riots of March 14, one can plainly see that Lhasa belongs to an older world, but one in which clear divisions exist. For example, some of the urban development is welcome, as it brings jobs, and tourism continues to bring income. But a result is that much of the traditional and religious atmosphere of Lhasa has almost disappeared. It is difficult to unravel the anomalies in information and perceptions, as not even the Tibetans seem to agree on clear interpretations.

Certainly, one obvious and dark irony seems evident: as the Chinese authorities try to market Tibet as a tourist destination based largely on people’s interest in traditional Tibetan Buddhism, they simultaneously go to extraordinary lengths to control and undermine Tibetan religious belief and culture.