Qin Gang’s Bottom and His Brain

Today we found more memorable quotations from Qin Gang, the eloquent and gifted public face of the Brave New China.

The first is from China Digital Times:

My sincere thanks to Xiao Qiang for the original source and the English translation.

Date: 26 July 2009

Event: It was the Open Day of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, held in commemoration of the 60th Anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.  After Qin had finished boasting about the achievement of the Ministry, he came up with the brilliant idea of a mock-up press conference.  Everyone was given a chance to play the role of a reporter and ask Qin a question.  Chen Delin, a professor from the Beijing United University, managed to get hold of the microphone.  He asked, “What principles do you follow when you answer questions from Chinese and foreign reporters?”

Qin Gang answered:

Stand your ground firmly. Your bottom decides where your brain is (站稳立场 屁股决定脑袋). A spokesman first must be loyal to the motherland and people, and second he needs to grasp policies comprehensively and with familiarity. With these two skills, there are no difficult questions that cannot be answered.

Thanks to Qin Gang, now we have a much better idea of how his brain is connected to his bottom. We also know how this connection is essential for making him a better public face of China.

The next memorable quotation is from our friend JR from the JustRecently Weblog:

Date: 17 July 2009

Event: In a regular press conference, a reporter asked Qin Gang, “Some Chinese media have made a comparison between  Rebiya Kadeer and the Dalai Lama.  What is the Chinese Government’s view on this?”

To this Qin Gang gave a brilliant answer :

One is female and the other one is male (他们一个是女的，一个是男的).  But they do have one thing in common, and that is they are both engaging in activities that aim at splitting the motherland and doing harm to ethnic unity.

As JR has correctly put it, if you’ve ever accused Qin Gang of not knowing the difference between the two leaders in exile, you might want to eat your words now.

To MAJ: in reply to his idea of “verifiable empirical research” on Tibet

A while ago, I had a disagreement with Mark Anthony Jones, one of our regular commenters, over the issue of so-called “independent” ”verifiable” ”empirical” research on Tibet.  I called into question the type of “independent authority” on Tibet that MAJ had extensively quoted to justify his assessment of the Chinese government’s policy on Tibet.  The discussion has been cut short due to my extremely busy work schedule.  An interesting piece of news at Friday’s the Guardian has prompted me to pick up where we left off.  I would like to see whether we can ignite another round of debate.

Let’s have a look at this report from the Guardian:

The BBC should have informed listeners that an academic interviewed about Tibet on Radio 4’s Today programme was speaking from a pro-Chinese government viewpoint, the BBC Trust has ruled.

In its latest roundup of rulings, the BBC Trust’s editorial standards committee partly upheld a complaint about a Today Show item on demonstrations in Tibet aired in March 2008.

The complainant said Professor Barry Sautman of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology was allowed to express his views in support of the Chinese government’s policy on Tibet “virtually unchallenged”

PR viagra cannot revive the limp Olympic Torch

Some of our readers might remember how, around this time a year ago, Catherine and I blogged voluminously about the bloody stupidity of China’s Olympic Torch relay.

Now here comes news that the IOC has decided, belatedly, to jettison the international Olympic Torch relay,  because the Torch relay of the 2008 Olympics turned out to be a Titanic f— up of “public relations”.

We are pleased to hear this news of how the IOC has belatedly come to its senses about the Torch.     We only regret that so many innocent people were wounded, tortured and murdered as a direct consequence of Lenovo’s Olympic Torch path through emotionally nuclear places such as Tibet, in 2008.

We can reasonably assume that the Chinese and Western organisers and “public relations” consultants who are responsible for the murderous debacle of the 2008 Olympic Torch relay, are now still sitting pretty, still earning good money and retiring to their own safe, warm beds every night, willfully oblivious to the roles they have personally played in the torture and deaths of innocents.

I can easily imagine that some of them, or at least the Westerners among them, are now fierce critics of the likes of AIG and other corporate criminals who have destroyed America’s economy and dragged the rest of the world down with them.

But either God, or the gods, or the natural law of the survival of Truth, will ultimately make them pay for the sufferings that their willful stupidities have inflicted upon others.    And their first installments of payback will be their loss of sleep, for the rest of their lives.    Because I believe that you can run, but you can’t hide, from God-given conscience.

Meanwhile, I dedicate the following video clip to China’s 2008 Olympic Torch relay, and especially to Lenovo’s American “public relations” consultants who made that torch relay what it was:

Computer Hacking Scandal and the CCP’s Culture of Secrecy around Tibet

Back in November last year, I published a short post about an alleged computer hacking scandal that had presumably led to the removal of Bi Hua from her position as a top Tibetan affairs negotiator in the CCP’s United Front Work Department, a propaganda agency infamously linked with a range of espionage activities.  More than a month later, a mysterious Tibetan blogger Therang Buengu has published his thought about the scandal.

Tibetans Face Arrests and Tough Sentences for Spreading “Rumours”

Just in the last few days, more news has come out of China about further arrests and jail sentences of Tibetans for alleged “rumour mongering”.  The unusually tough sentences, in particular, indicate Beijing’s determination to block news about the 3.14 Lhasa crackdowns. According to Beijing’s official version of events, the March riot in Lhasa involved Tibetans taking part in acts of assault, vandalism, arson and looting against Han and Hui nationals.  Other versions of events, including attempts to analyse the cause of such violence, had been condemned as “biased reports by western media”.

ABC Radio Australia News confirmed that a Tibetan who worked for a Melbourne-based medical group to stop the spread of HIV in Tibet had been jailed for life for passing on information about the situation in the region to the outside world.

Ma Ying-jeou Moves in to Suppress Wild Strawberries and Tibet Supporters

This is just another evidence to show how the Ma Ying-jeou Administration in Taiwan is fast receding to the Fascist heritage of the Chinese Nationalist Party, or otherwise known as the Kuomintang 国民党.

At 4.00am yesterday morning, a few hours after Ma made his emotional International Human Rights Day speech hailing Taiwan as a country where its citizens owned the freedom of assembly, hundreds of Taipei police moved into the Liberty Square to evict members of the Wild Strawberries Student Movement and another group of Tibet supporters.  Taiwan News reports on 11 December 2008:

The Wild Strawberries Movement began on Nov. 6 during the period of Taiwan visit made by Chen Yunlin 陈云林, chairman of China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait, asking the Parade and Assembly law be amended.  On Dec. 7, a rally was held in peace and ended the one-month movement.  Several students still stayed for the sit-in.  Since the next day, Tibetan movement supporters have staged a sit-in on the right side of the Liberty Square in protest of China’s violent acts.

Dalai Lama Praised European Parliament for Awarding the Sakharov Prize to Hu Jia

In his recent address to European Lawmakers, His Holiness the Dalai Lama praised the European Parliament for awarding the Sakharov Price to Hu Jia.  The speech was delivered on 4 December 2008 at Brussels as a part of His Holiness’ European Tour.  The European leaders’ warm reception of the Dalai Lama had angered the Chinese Government.  As a result, China cancelled the 1 December 2008 summit with the European Union.  The Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda machine has also stepped up another boycott campaign against French goods.

China’s Tibet Negotiator Under Investigation for Leaking State Secrets

As I was having a discussion with JR at Just Recently’s Beautiful Blog about the Bi Hua scandal, Reuters India released a news update, in which a computer hacking incident was said to be associated with the stepping down of  that key CCP policymaker of Tibet.  She is now under investigation for leaking state secrets.  The Reuters report also refuted a previous suggestion that Bi Hua was dismissed because of her moderate stance on Tibet.  The anonymous interviewee quoted in that report described Bi Hua as a hardliner, and her views on Tibet made even some old Communist Tibetan cadres raise their eyebrows.

Om Mani Peme Hung

“The six syllables, om mani padme hum, mean that in dependence on the practice of a path which is an indivisible union of method and wisdom, you can transform your impure body, speech, and mind into the pure exalted body, speech, and mind of a Buddha” – H.H. Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

108 Tibetans in China Present a 5-Point Proposal to Dharamsala

As some Tibetan leaders are pushing for more radical autonomy strategies at the Exiles’ Conference in Dharamsala, I notice at the comment section of this blogpost a very interesting entry.  I hereby provide my translation of this anonymous message from “108 Tibetan scholars in China”.

Incidentally, 108 is a number of religious significance to the Tibetan people.