It’s Tenzin Gyatso’s 85th birthday today. The 14th Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959, following the brutal suppression by Chinese troops of the Tibetan national uprising in Lhasa. He escaped into exile in Dharamshala, Northern India, where he has been living ever since. Chinese officials have vilified him as a "wolf in monk's clothing" who seeks to destroy the country's sovereignty by pushing for independence. The Dalai Lama maintains that he does not advocate independence but wants an autonomy that would allow Tibetans to maintain their cultural, language and religion under China's rule.
Earlier this week Nathan Law, Hong Kong's most prominent young pro-democracy activist wrote in a twitter post… "So I bade my city farewell. As the plane took off the runway, I gazed down at the skyline I love so much for one last time. Should I have the fortune to ever return, I hope to still remain as I am: the same young man with these same beliefs. Glory to Hong Kong,” . Nathan said that he made the decision to leave Hong Kong when he agreed to testify before the US Congress. "As a global-facing activist, the choices I have are stark: to stay silent from now on, or to keep engaging in private diplomacy so I can warn the world of the threat of Chinese authoritarian expansion"
By the beginning of this year the Chinese government had reportedly detained more than a million Muslim Uighurs in re-education camps in Xinjiang province. Most people in the camps have never been charged with crimes and have no legal avenues to challenge their detentions. The detainees seem to have been targeted for a variety of reasons, according to media reports, including traveling to or contacting people from any of the twenty-six countries China considers sensitive, such as Turkey and Afghanistan; attending services at mosques; having more than three children; and sending texts containing Quranic verses. Often, their only crime is being Muslim, human rights groups say, adding that many Uighurs have been labelled as extremists simply for practicing their religion.
While all this is going on, earlier this year the Chinese government strengthened its restrictions to the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly. (If this piece had been written and posted in China I would have committed a crime worthy of at least 10 years in jail). According to Amnesty International, the authorities rigorously censor all media, from print to online games. With the assistance of private technology and internet companies, officials have mastered the use of facial recognition, real-name registration systems and big data to keep people under indiscriminate mass surveillance and control. In July, a draft regulation on China's social credit system proposed punishing citizens for disseminating information that "violates social morality" or causes "adverse social impacts". In January, Chinese users reported that they had been threatened, detained or warned for being active on Twitter – a social media platform officially banned in the country. China also extended its control of cyberspace beyond its “Great Firewall” by launching powerful malware and denial of service attacks against overseas servers, websites and messaging apps deemed problematic.
I could go on… (capital punishment rates, aggression in the South China Sea, systemic gender discrimination and bioethical failures etc etc) but I won’t.
Meanwhile…China has become Australia's largest two-way trading partner in goods and services, accounting for 26 per cent of our trade with the world. Two-way trade reached a record $235 billion in 2018–19 (up 20.5 per cent year on year). Our exports to China grew by 23.9 per cent to reach the highest level ever ($153 billion), driven by demand for Australian iron ore, coal and LNG. China remained our biggest services export market, particularly in education (over 205,000 students in 2018, an 11 per cent increase year on year) and tourism (over 1.4 million Chinese visitors in 2018–19).
We have some difficult decisions to make.
All images made in Tibet with a Holga 120N on Kodak Portra 400.
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