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I was concerned when I saw a white paper  published in the China Daily a couple of days ago together with an article refuting accusations of cultural genocide in the region. It read (as CD usually does) like government propaganda, in this case designed to shore up domestic opinion ahead of a post-Olympic backlash.

The white paper begins:

China is a unified multi-ethnic country. Tibet is an inseparable part of China, and the Tibetan ethnic group is an important member of the big family of the Chinese nation. The Tibetan ethnic group has a long history and a splendid culture. Tibetan culture is a lustrous pearl of Chinese culture as well as a precious part of world culture.

Important eh? So their opinions and beliefs must count for something. You’ve probably guessed at this point that His Holiness is excluded from descriptions such as splendid, lustrous, or precious: 

Before 1959 the 14th Dalai Lama, as a leader of Tibetan Buddhism and also head of the Tibetan local government, monopolized both political and religious power.

Sounds familiar. Anything else?

The serfs and slaves … suffered destitution, cruel oppression and exploitation, and possessed no means of production or personal freedom …

Unimaginable! That sounds awful - what happened next? 

The founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 brought hope to the protection and development of Tibetan culture. Through the peaceful liberation in 1951 Tibet shook off imperialist invasion and trammels, ended its chronic isolation and stagnancy, and created the basic conditions for realizing progress and prosperity along with the rest of China.

My faith in human nature is restored. Is there more?

After the peaceful liberation of Tibet, the Central People’s Government actively helped Tibet protect and recover its traditional culture, and develop its modern cultural, educational and health sectors, opening up a completely new chapter for the development of Tibetan culture.

A new chapter? I’ll say!! What else?

This white paper is published to give the international community a better understanding of the reality of the protection and development of Tibetan culture, citing facts to expose the lie about the “cultural genocide” in Tibet fabricated by the 14th Dalai Lama and his cohorts…

How very thoughtful of the CCP to produce a white paper for the international community. One world, one dream? Not if you’re a Tibetan living on the soil of your forefathers, apparently. Timesonline today reports on the unrest that followed the latest episode of brutality dished out to the robed men of the plateau by armed police:

Other monks went to the police station to protest against the treatment of their colleague and an argument ensued. Police said that they would call local authorities to discuss the matter but shortly afterwards two truckloads of armed officers arrived and began to beat the monks.

I feel talk of a ‘free Tibet’ is counter-productive and naive if it is discussed in terms of independence. That’s never going to happen. True, there was a need for reform, long since acknowledged by the Dalai Lama, but not of the kind imposed by Beijing since 1951. Typically, the Chinese government  propagandise their Tibetan intervention as ‘a backward people in need of a helping Han hand’. Some help.

Human rights activists would do better to concern themselves with the restricted freedoms of ethnic Tibetans (monks in particular) in a vast area of the country that was, irrefutably until the CCP era, an area dominated by Tibetan culture and governed (albeit undemocratically) by Tibetan people.

No longer.

Unlike the vast majority of Han Chinese, I’ve spent some time in the region. The ill-feeling towards Beijing is palpable and justified. Tibetan monasteries have been destroyed and plundered so that Han businessmen can sell artefacts to the highest bidder. At the same time Beijing seeks plaudits for having saved Tibetan culture and promoting tourism (nothing wrong with that) so that more Han businessmen can exploit and marginalise the very people on whose culture their wealth is founded (very wrong). 

Further, Beijing’s idea of freedoms don’t extend to taking a walk if you’re a monk, or extend as far as decorating your home if it includes a picture of His Holiness. One can only imagine what ‘education’ for Tibetan children must look like.

The Olympics was the lull before the storm for Tibetans; now it really could be all over. I fear for them, as should any individual with a vestige of human compassion.

Hat tip to Peking Duck for pointing the way to this fascinating insight into the modus operandi of China’s official news agency when editing reports taken from foreign media sources. 

It’s a must read. Black and White Cat is thoroughly recommended as your one of your blogs of choice for commentary on China’s attempts at journalism. 

Now take a moment to reflect on China’s ‘official’ view of world history as told in a billion school textbooks. I’m going to have a stab at rewriting 4 June ’89 in the style of Xinhua and then apply for a job. Anti-British readers are invited to take a swing at rewriting the boxer rebellion to reflect the glory of empire. Go on; give it a try.

This is not breaking news. In fact, it’s a story that’s been doing the rounds for some time, with the exception of the Chinese media, whose silence is often a good barometer for ‘we’ve got something to hide’. We can safely dismiss the ‘sour grapes’ theories of apologists in this case as doubts were first voiced well before the Games began. I think it deserves to stay in the spotlight a while longer.

The apparent deception in this case concerns the age of two (or more) of China’s female gymnasts in Beijing. Chinese authorities have decided to censor online discussion of the matter, omit the issue from media coverage altogether, delete or revise incriminating evidence, and rage with defensive indignation if the issue is raised at press conferences. Sound familiar? It also sounds like they’ve been rumbled and have reverted to type by wrapping themselves up in denial. The story has been gaining traction for several months now, ever since online records and reports relating to pre-Olympic domestic competitions clearly indicated that both He Kexin and Yang Yilin were barely old enough to be out of diapers. 

Initial queries about the online records were labeled as western meddling and rebuffed by waving shiny new passports that ‘proved’ the darling cherubs really were 16. Unfortunately, and exasperatingly, for Chinese authorities (and their IOC buddies), western media – not to mention athletes cheated out of medals - are not so easily put off. Nor should they be.

At this stage, the gymnasts and their guardians knew what the questions were going to be at the post-gold press conference. And they were ready with perfectly choreographed answers that actually answered nothing at all. What the responses did reveal was that the girls had been turned into liars on behalf of their masters. Needless to say, western journalists didn’t take this lying down and have kept the story simmering nicely on the back burner waiting for the next opening. They didn’t have to wait long. Hat tip to Imagethief for that link to some pretty compelling evidence.

He and Yang are, of course, blameless in this episode. They are merely doing what they are told - tools of the State whose tiny lives have been micro-managed within a punishing training regimen since the day their gymnastic potential was first identified. The culprits are the adults masquerading as their caregivers and the authorities to whom they must answer. 

Years of unquestioning obedience and acceptance of whatever the government does and says have made for complacency. Thus, China’s crude answer to the age problem seems to have been to deduct a couple of years from the gymnast’s birth dates, issue new passports, and re-educate the girls about the year they arrived on the planet. The really stupid part of this strategy is that they expected to sweep gold, accept the plaudits, and have any suggestion of wrongdoing eliminated at the stroke of a pen. Then again, this strategy has been perfected on a domestic testing ground, and it seems increasingly that the Games have been orchestrated with the primary goal of satisfying the home audience. Therefore, offending western moral sensibilities doesn’t come close to bothering team China, and whose IOC lapdogs are too weak to act on a clear breach of Olympic rules.

A more recent defence of the flexible fledglings’ ages has been to state that it’s common practice in China to falsify records to show that an individual is younger than they truly are, and, so some would have us believe, that this is clearly what happened when the girls were registered for previous competitions (the evidence found online). Well, that’s alright then. To be fair, I’ve encountered this phenomenon in China several times; they really do falsify documents to show themselves to be younger – when it’s to their social, educational, professional, or financial advantage. A recent sporting example of how falsifying documents to appear younger can be advantageous comes in the form of NBA star Yi Jianlian. In the case of our diminutive darlings there was no conceivable gain to registering as two years younger for the domestic competitions that preceded the Games. If you read the linked-to articles you’ll be aware that He Kexin was registered for those competitions with a birthdate of 1 January 1994.

If anyone needs a guide as to the chances that these gymnasts were competing within IOC age regulations, let me offer a helpful comparison: it’s about the same chance that I would have of beating Usain Bolt in a sprint. Hope that makes things clear.

There are a couple of points that warrant closer attention here. First, the falsification of passports and revision (or removal) of online documents and media content can only have been achieved with the full assistance of the State and high-level authorisation. No wonder BOCOG and Chinese officials want this one to go away. Second, the pathetically toothless IOC‘s reluctance to get involved in this issue (and many others) reinforces my belief that Beijing have got Jacques Rogge well and truly in their pocket. The CCP certainly knows a thing or two about corrupting coercing those that it needs in order to get its own way. In Rogge they found their man. Under his presidency, and in particular with his kowtowing to Beijing, the integrity of both the IOC and the Games has been further undermined.

China isn’t the first nation to engage in state-sponsored cheating, and they won’t be the last. But when not one domestic voice is prepared to call them on the matter (whether through fear or nationalistic fervour), it’s a red flag to foreign journalists and bloggers to set the record straight. I can’t tell you that the age rules for Olympic gymnasts are sensible, but I can tell you that those rules were breached by the Chinese female team and that it was done with the full knowledge of their relevant governing body.

Richard at Peking Duck has posted about a couple of New York Times articles that explore what it means to be selected as a potential Olympian by China’s authoritarian regime. It was also on my mind to write about this after reading this morning’s related article from Timesonline. The article begins by focusing on the case of gold-medal hurdler Liu Xiang:

The Shanghai native is portrayed as a self-sacrificing role model. Local sports reporters who have inquired about his private life have been told that he has no time for girlfriends in his rigorous schedule.

“Interviews with Liu Xiang and his parents are tightly controlled,” said one Shanghai reporter. “We have heard that his family are not happy with the financial deal, although they do not want to say anything.”

Lou Chaoyi, an official at the Track and Field Association, said: “The state cultivated Liu Xiang and so Liu Xiang’s property rights belong to the state; therefore we firmly oppose the commercialisation of Liu Xiang.

That last sentence taps perfectly into the mindset of authoritarian rule: you belong to the State, therefore what belongs to you also belongs to the State. It’s this psychology of ownership and obedience that lies at the heart of a leadership too much in love with face saving and superlatives to give a damn about the welfare of the individual:  

All over China, an estimated 200,000 children are enrolled in junior sports academies run by the state and modelled on the Soviet sporting system, which take them at an early age and mould them through six to seven years of strict discipline to the exclusion of all else. Inside their gymnasiums, small boys and girls can be seen exercising from first light to dusk.

This comes as no surprise, and I’ve read many accounts of potential future athletes taken from their parents in the name of national pride. Saying ‘no’ doesn’t really appear to be an option when the glory of the Motherland is at stake. It’s all very communist, in a 1950′s propaganda poster kind of way. So too are the denial of the right to do something else with your life, and the pushing of athletes beyond reasonable limits. Another article, this time from the Telegraph a couple of months ago, pretty much outlined the obsessive and extreme nature of Beijing’s pursuit of gold:

But for all its success, the school, and the system it represents, has been accused of pushing its young charges too hard, and even of abusing them. On a visit to Shichahai in 2005, Britain’s four-time Olympic rowing champion Sir Matthew Pinsent said he saw a seven-year-old girl crying while being made to do handstands, and a boy with marks on his back.

A question: how is this different from forced labour or a sweatshop? I’m struggling to see a distinction.

A further question relates to the fate of those that don’t make the grade. What becomes of the youngsters, pushed to physical breaking point through years of rigorous training without any semblance of a normal childhood, when it transpires that they are not Olympic material? Again, from the Timesonline:

For those who fail to make the grade, the pressures of life in China’s highly competitive society can be unforgiving.

The case of Zou Chunlan, a female weightlifting champion who did not win a place on the Olympic team, caused a national stir when it was highlighted by the People’s Daily.

Zou was left without any skills to make a living after years in the hothouse of the sports academies, and was reduced to scrubbing customers’ backs in a bathhouse in Changchun, a drab northern city.

This is the tip of an iceberg that is going to come, quite rightly, under closer scrutiny in the next few weeks. No doubt the voices of displeasure will come under pressure from the State machine to keep their mouths shut. It’s about time China came to the realisation that there’s more bad press in silencing the dissenting voice than allowing it to speak. If wishing made it so.

Behind all those golden smiles we’ll be seeing from Chinese athletes in Beijing this summer lays the untold suffering and pain of a million broken dreams.  If China is still so keen to embrace elements of communism, I suggest that it makes compulsory the sharing of the spoils of victory among all those that were forced to sacrifice their rights to a normal childhood and an education.