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National Geographic Must Change It’s Map Policy On Tibet

14 May
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Extract Of National Geographic Tibet Map From 1960s

The effort continues to question National Geographic’s (NG) policy on presenting Tibet as part of China, including the use of Sinocized place-names, that have replaced Romanised Tibetan versions.Thanks to the tireless activism and support of many friends on Facebook and Twitter considerable pressure is being generated that demands the respected journal to review its troubling willingness to present as cartographic fact, what in reality is China’s bogus propaganda claims that Tibet is part of Chinese territory. Today we received from our colleagues Bod Rangzen a response from National Geographic, to an individual who felt so concerned that Tibet is being wiped off the map that they contacted their offices, here is the reply from NG.

“Dear…:

Your May 10 email regarding National Geographic’s cartographic portrayal of Tibet has been brought to my attention. The purpose of every National Geographic reference map or atlas is to provide our readers with sufficient information by which the current geopolitical reality of the world’s disputed regions can be presented. This policy extends to place-names, where we adhere to official rather than academic or other toponymic conventions. Please note, that where scale permits, our maps do label Tibet and show the boundaries and administrative center—Lhasa—of this Chinese autonomous region.

Although China’s occupation of Tibet might be unrecognized or considered illegal by some, the fact remains that this region is presently administered by China. To otherwise portray Tibet, either cartographically or toponymically, would be misleading to our readers and contradict the Society’s long held policy of portraying de facto situations. Thank you for expressing your views on this issue. Your interest in National Geographic is appreciated.

Juan José Valdés
The Geographer
Director of Editorial and Research
National Geographic Maps”

Firstly what Mr Valdés chooses to ignore is the fact that Tibet itself is not comprised of China’s propaganda creation (the so-called ‘Tibet Autonomous Region’) but is far larger made up of three traditional regions namely U-Tsang, Kham and Amdo. Secondly we should remind him that Tibet and its people are not ‘administered’ by China but are in fact occupied, exploited and colonized by a violent and oppressive regime. To assert that Tibet is under the administrative control of China’s regime is a grossly misleading and fact-free statement, rather like claiming that during the early 1940s France was ‘administered’ by Hitler’s Germany. Rightfully at that time cartographers did not make such claims, yet the National Geographic is content to misrepresent Tibet while endorsing China’s illegal occupation of that blighted land.

Furthermore, in his evasive and flawed reply Juan José Valdés  avoids a truth when he claims that ‘some’ regard China’s occupation of Tibet as illegal, what his organization fails to recognize or declare is that  within international law Tibet is an independent nation under illegal occupation.This was examined and agreed at an international conference of leading lawyers in 1993

ONLINE ACTION

It is surely time to put Tibet back on the world map, minus China’s poisonous distortions, if you agree please help us by emailing National Geographic and asking them to restore Tibet and authentic Tibetan place names on its maps and atlases. They may be contacted here: maps@ngs.org

 
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Posted by tibettruth on May 14, 2012 in Demonstrations, Tibet

 

Tags: Maps, National Geographic, Tibet

BBC Radio Show Offers Platform For China’s Propaganda

05 May
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BBC Director-General Mark Thompson in Beijing, With China’s Propaganda Maestro, Li Congjun

Image:profimedia

Once again the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has revealed an unhealthy willingness, to parade as fact, China’s propaganda, more on that shortly, it has served as a conduit for Beijing’s disinformation for a number of years now, influenced and encouraged by the foreign policy objectives of its colleagues in the Foreign Office (equivalent of the State Department) whose task is to maintain positive relations with China at any cost. The BBC’s senior executives enjoy trips to Beijing to attend media summits hosted by China’s disinformation agency, Xinhua, relations at a senior level are cordial to say the least. As this special cooperation has developed we have witnessed, in BBC reportage, a corrosion of the truth on issues relating to China, a withdrawal of independent and forceful analysis, replaced by a syntax that bears a worrying similarity to the official disinformation of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Information. This is most noticeable on subjects of political sensitivity to the Chinese Regime such as Tibet, East Turkestan and related issues on human rights, such matters as reported by the BBC often repeat China’s official position and are virtually absent of critique, balance or an alternate perspective and context.

Such a development must be a source of satisfaction to China’s propaganda ministry and its front organization, Xinhua, whose chief and World Media Summit President, Li Congjun wrote in the Party’s official Seeking Truth journal in February 2009:

“We must actively seek out new horizons, new mechanisms, new channels and new methods in the area of outside dialogue and cooperation, particularly, as by the demands of central party leaders, successfully organizing the first meeting of the World Media Summit, building a platform for dialogue among first-rate international media (, further raising the capacity of Xinhua News Agency to make its voice heard in the international news and information sector.” (Source CMP)

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Dotun Adebayo Offered An Uncritical Platform For Robert Kuhn

Image:bbc

This accommodation reached a new level of appeasement during a late night radio show from BBC Radio Five Live, a station which has previously been exposed as displaying a bias towards China’s official orthodoxy. We are extremely grateful to one of our friends in England for providing details of this latest incident, which was broadcast on May 5 during a program called ‘Up All Night’ hosted by one Dotun Adebayo. Towards the end of his show the presenter featured the story of Chen Guangcheng, the Chinese activist, noted for his campaigns to expose the forcible sterilization and forced abortions of women in China, who recently sought sanctuary in the US Embassy. Following the usual template of such segments, the show featured a guest, who was presumably invited on the basis of providing an authoritative and impartial analysis, unfortunately in this case the researchers had either clearly not done their homework, were incapable of recognizing a propagandist, or worse simply conformed to an Editorial attitude sympathetic to a pro-China position.

Well listeners surely got that (and how!) as they listened to the comments of a Doctor Robert Lawrence Khun. Before we look at the nauseating disinformation that saturated his commentary it maybe helpful to examine briefly significant and revealing aspects of this individual’s résumé. He is described as “an international corporate strategist, investment banker and expert on China” and there’s no doubting his credentials regarding his relationship to the Chinese Regime, having cooperated since 1989 with senior Chinese leaders and served as an adviser on economics and other subjects to the Regime. Robert Kuhn is also a senior consultant to China Central Television (CCTV) and Xinhua News Agency, both of which are main channels of official propaganda in China.

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Robert Kuhn

Image:chinadaily

In researching a suitably balanced and objective guest to feature in that item were BBC researchers not troubled by such a curriculum vitae? Did they not pause to question if this individual may in fact have developed a certain bias towards China’s Regime, or that his position as adviser to Xinhua was an indication of views somewhat tainted with officially sanctioned disinformation? Yet, with a minimum of scrutiny they would have found expressions of concern regarding the ideology and words of Robert Kuhn. Most recently documented in his florid hagiography of China’s Regime titled, ‘How China’s Leaders Think: the Inside Story of China’s Reform and What This Means for the Future’.

An insightful review of this book appeared in Forbes by noted author on China, Gordon C Chang. In a highly critical dismissal of Kuhn’s work, which the reviewer notes: “I gave up reading with 401 pages to go. I wanted to stop earlier, after Kuhn stated–on the fifth page of the introduction–that Chinese leaders are not authoritarians. That’s demonstrably untrue, but I struggled on for another hundred pages before finally realizing there was no point in reading a work of propaganda…..it’s evident that Kuhn is not going to say a critical word about the theoretical underpinnings of present-day Chinese authoritarianism.”

There were then serious questions being asked about the impartiality of Robert Kuhn, yet such concerns did not trouble the producers, editors, researchers and presenter of the BBC show ‘Up All Night’, which allowed this individual a generous platform to air China’s toxic propaganda and effectively act as an apologist for a Regime and downplay the case of Chen Guangcheng. The following are extracts taken from the show in question, responding to the assertion by the presenter that Chen was a dissident, Kuhn was at pains to dismiss that and relegate the activist as an ‘irritant’, a far more pejorative an inaccurate term. He then described Chen Guangcheng’s actions in the following manner:

“He started out trying to help poor people who were being forced to have abortions or be sterilized or something” (Emphasis Added)

Note the vagueness, along with the the sly implication of an uncertainty to Chen’s activities, suggesting such may either have been misplaced, inaccurate or targeting issues which may not have been operating. Yet the entire world knows very precisely what Chen was campaigning against, the human rights violations generated by China’s coercive population control program, a widely reported fact in western media. How curiously singular then for this uniquely experienced and knowledgeable scholar of China’s political scene to demonstrate such vagueness and hesitancy, clearly it is difficult not to consider that Robert Kuhn would be very aware, something however prevented any clear assertion on the issue, could that be explained by his seeming fondness and tolerance of China’s Regime?

This was followed by comments, the nature of which suggested an experienced and willing propagandist for China, referring to the tortuous abuse inflicted upon Chen Guangcheng, which Mr Kuhn presented in the following manner:

“He was treated, as the reports go, very poorly and oppressively by local officials, often times what happens at local levels is not what Beijing and senior leaders would like to see happen. My experience of the Chinese leaders is they are very compassionate..when policies get translated into local areas then it gets more repressive..” (Emphasis Added)

This is a classic application by apologists for China, drenching descriptions in euphemism and extenuation to minimize or deflect from the odious realities of the tyranny of China’s regime and then seeking to distance the central government by claiming abuses are the responsibility of over zealous local officials. The truth is that as the harrowing atrocities of the Gestapo could not have operated to the extent they did without the sanction,funding, administration and encouragement of the National Socialist Party, the vicious oppression, human rights violations and censorship cannot operate in China without the authorization, and political and economic support and knowledge of the communist leadership of China’s Regime. Not that Robert Kuhn would agree, indeed as loyal friend of the Chinese leadership he calmly assured the program’s audience that there is a

“..great deal of public oversight of the Government, the Government just cant do what it used to do in the past” adding that “To some Chinese leaders people like that (Chen) are very helpful today because they are able to put pressure on local officials to change policies which are repressive to people, that the central leaders don’t even know about”. (Emphasis Added)

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Chen Guangcheng, Not A Dissident According To Kuhn, But An ‘Irritant

Image:archivenet

How telling that Mr Kuhn holds the opinion that a totalitarian state, which has invasive and limitless control over every aspect of people’s lives, is seemingly so ignorant of its draconian policies, that are imposing widespread oppression and suffering across China. Take the very issue which Chen Guangcheng has been active on, China’s notorious population control program, in particular the medical atrocities and human rights violations it forces upon countless numbers of women. Such abuses are well documented and their existence and implementation cannot be ascribed to simply local excess or misreading of state regulation, they are a vital element, without which China’s Regime would not be able to have secured, behind the vague euphemism of its national and regional family planning laws and policies, such colossal reductions in the number of of births. It is state imposed violent coercion, financial penalties, loss of homes, confiscation of property and fear which characterizes the very program that Chen Guangcheng has so courageously campaigned against. There is no question that this policy is centrally engineered and approved by the Chinese Regime, the mobilization, administration and funding of the nationwide program of forced sterilizations and forced abortions is not a random or occasional local aberration from some benign government policy, rather the application of a highly coercive program that is imposed and authored by the Chinese government.

It is a matter of great disappointment that once again a mainstream media organization has permitted such obvious propaganda to be presented as fact, without any serious counter-view or challenge. The team responsible for the offending Radio Five Live show have at best been found wanting in terms of being able to identify such a biased and partisan source, at worst they are guilty of assembling a flawed and distorted program that has seriously mislead its audience and denied them a balanced, impartial and factual coverage of a story of great concern and interest to many. This would be in violation of the BBC’s stated editorial policies and relevant broadcasting commitments to its license fee payers, anyone  who wishes to lodge a formal complaint about this subject may do so online here: https://ssl.bbc.co.uk/complaints/forms/?reset=

 
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Posted by tibettruth on May 5, 2012 in Appeasing China, News Item, Tibet

 

Tags: bbc, Chen Guangcheng, China, Radio Five Live, Robert Kuhn

Pandas Demand An Answer From World Wildlife Fund

04 May

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Image: courtesy of @tibettruth

Would like to join us is asking them? If so, contact the WWF

Twitter @WWF

Facebook: www.facebook.com/WWF

 
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Posted by tibettruth on May 4, 2012 in Tibet, Appeasing China, Demonstrations

 

Tags: Tibet, panda, WWF, Deforestation

British Government Evasive & Duplicitous On Tibet’s Independence

04 May

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Image: via tibettruthUK

Tibettruth has for the past two years been running a lobbying campaign to inform and question on Tibetan independence, Senators and Parliamentarians in Europe, it has proved a highly effective means of ensuring that politicians are reminded of the true nature of Tibet’s cause and of the political objectives and aspirations of Tibetans inside occupied Tibet. In Britain this lobbying asks two basic, yet important, questions:

Will the Government, and Foreign and Commonwealth Office,
acknowledge that Tibetans inside Tibet, in their ongoing resistance to
Chinese occupation, are demanding independence for Tibet?

Will the Secretary of State, Rt Hon. William Hague MP, provide official written
confirmation that there has been a formal and written change of Britain’s
policy on the status of Tibet?

Thanks to our British friends and supporters we have received some revealing response from Members of Parliament and most recently a reply from the Minister with responsibility for China, Jeremy Browne MP, we have included it as an example of how supremely evasive and sensitive the Foreign Office (equivalent of the State Department) is on the subject of Tibet’s independence. Regarding the supposed ‘change of policy’ we have challenged the claim made by the British Foreign Office, details of which may be read  HERE

We hope it proves informative for anyone in Britain who is considering writing to their Representative and illustrates just how unwilling is Government to address truthfully these important issues, you can see how the two questions have been ignored and misrepresented. What counts though is the fact that people are raising this matter with politicians, and for that Tibettruth is extremely grateful to all those who are reminding their Senators or Parliamentarians of Tibet’s true cause.

 
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Posted by tibettruth on May 4, 2012 in News Item, Tibet

 

Tags: British Government, Jeremy Browne MP, Policy, Tibet

China’s Seismic Lies Leaves Tibetan Quake Survivors In Wretched Conditions

04 May
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The quake shattered the town of Jyekundo

Image:shambalatimes

Two years ago the eastern Tibetan town of of Jyekundo was struck by a devastating earthquake, flattening houses and leaving Tibetans homeless and traumatized by the destruction and loss of life. The event was swiftly seized upon by China’s regime as another propaganda exercise and with the uncritical support of its friends within the western media the global information highway was buzzing with reports and images of Chinese relief workers extending care and support to the stricken Tibetan community. It was of course a carefully staged illusion, more about politics than genuine humanitarian aid, that reality though did not prevent a number of foreign agencies from collaborating with China’s regime to offer limited support, including Operation Safe, whose website featured photographs of smiling Tibetan children along with a commentary that was saturated in China’s propaganda terminology.

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Two years on and Tibetans still surviving under tented squalor

Image:ntdtv

What such assistance, which trumpeted much about marvelous achievements, chose to ignore was the fact that it was not Chinese troops providing genuine relief and emotional and physical support but Tibetans themselves, many monks from monasteries in the region. This was a truth that China’s regime did not wish to be reported and sadly media coverage complied in the censorship and concealment by paying scant attention to the extent and scale of Tibetan efforts to bring relief.. There was instead much reportage of Chinese convoys and financial aid supposedly pouring into the area, dutifully repeated as fact by foreign correspondents who had been effectively excluded from the region by a security zone. Meanwhile good-hearted people donated to various projects that promised to deliver direct aid to Tibetans, not mentioning that any and all funds would require the approval and administration of the occupying regional Chinese authorities, a reality that should have urged caution, but in the scramble to offer support such considerations were ignored.

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Daily life remains a grim struggle for Tibetans

Image:ntdtv

So it is that in May 2012 thousands of Tibetans are still living in squalid tented settlements, the much reported funds have either mysteriously disappeared, projects left incomplete and donations that promised urgent relief unaccountable, or not delivering the benefits claimed. It is an appalling situation and the world and its cynical media has moved on to feed upon the next news corpse, indifferent to the ongoing suffering of those Tibetans whose lives were forever scarred by that seismic upheaval.

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Financial aid, reconstruction and support failed to materialize

Image:ntvdtv

 
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Posted by tibettruth on May 4, 2012 in News Item, Tibet

 

Tags: Earthquake, Jyekundo, Tibet, Tibetans

Ottawa Declaration Fails To Support Tibet’s People Or Their Just Cause

02 May

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Image:archivenet

Can anyone be surprised by the Declaration of The Sixth World Parliamentarians Convention on Tibet (WPCT), which was adopted on April 29, 2012, its wording advocated a cause and strategy that has been acknowledged as a failure by the Dalai Lama. That singular and sobering truth however did not prevent the assembled Parliamentarians from endorsing proposals which abandon Tibet’s nationhood, and the rightful aspirations of Tibet’s people, for a solution that would see Tibetans become another ethnic minority group under the tender mercies contained in China’s national and regional laws on so-called ‘autonomy’

For ease of reference here are the key extracts from the Declaration which should be of concern to any who support Tibet’s true cause and stand in solidarity with the struggle waged by Tibetans for their nation’s independence.

“Reject the argument made by the government of the PRC that the engagement of governments with His Holiness the Dalai Lama and members of the elected Tibetan leadership and the expression of support by governments for the peaceful resolution of the issue of Tibet through dialogue and negotiations constitute breaches of the ‘one China policy’ “

So the World Parliamentarian Convention on Tibet sees the issue of Tibet as being resolvable through the domestic law and policies of communist China, with the clear implication that it considers Tibet and its people as not separate from China, but as an internal issue, defined by the cynical fabrications of the so-called One China Policy.

“Remain convinced that a sustainable solution to the issue of Tibet can be achieved  through genuine autonomy for the Tibetan people within the PRC, as evidenced by the positive experience of the many autonomous regions around the world, and note in particular the example set by the creation of the Territory of Nunavut as a self governing community within the sovereign nation of Canada.”

Does the WPCT not realize that autonomy, as understood

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