Unsettling Events in China

There have been some protests in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, and in parts of northern India, related to the 49th anniversary of a Tibetan independence movement. The central government is using tanks and troops to crackdown on the unrest. People are burning cars and Chinese businesses, some monks are on hungers strikes while others have committed suicide. It’s a public relations crisis for the Communist party because of the world’s attention towards the summer Olympics. Also, the country is under close scrutiny after the U.S. State Department removed China from its list of the worst human rights abusers earlier this week.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSSP10739920080314

Another PR mess occurred after a more subtle show of support for Tibet a couple of weeks ago when the singer Bjork shouted a few words in support of Tibet during a concert in Shanghai. The government was infuriated and banned her from any future performance in the country (I wonder if she saw that coming). For the government to react that way to the words of some pop singer was a little pathetic and humiliating, but now the government is scrambling to contain serious dissent.
The power of the Communist party is degraded little by little every time they are embarrassed or challenged by criticism and protests like what is going on recently. It is hard for me to believe that the Chinese and Russian model of authoritarian capitalism can last. Every time the government’s legitimacy is threatened, they have to compromise by giving up some of their control. In China, that has meant gradually loosening control over the economy and trade. Meanwhile their people are becoming wealthier, more educated, and are gaining more contact with and knowledge of the rest of the world, despite the government’s attempts to control information, influence public opinion, and limit political freedoms. And I really don’t think my students and their generation wants to live in a country that is run that way.

(See http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20080101faessay87105/michael-mcfaul-kathryn-stoner-weiss/the-myth-of-the-authoritarian-model.html for more on Russia’s authoritarian model and it’s shortcomings.)

Not only are human rights abuses a blemish in China, but the record of animal rights abuses is shockingly poor, too. One of the many campaigns to clean up Beijing for the Olympics is to rid the city of feral cats. The fear of diseases spread by cats has led some people to beat feral cats to death, while an organized campaign is underway to round up cats and send them to compounds outside the city to be killed. Yet according to this article, cat meat is still being consumed in some places. Wow.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=528694

I just know that it’s going to be an interesting Olympics because from my experience living here, the number of weird and strange things that I see or hear about is never-ending.