- The human rights issue has become the centerfold of media
disinformation.
-
- China is no model of human rights but neither are the
US and its indefectible British ally, responsible for extensive war crimes
and human rights violations in Iraq and around the World. The US and its
allies, which uphold the practice of torture, political assassinations
and the establishment of secret detention camps, continue to be presented
to public opinion as a model of Western democracy to be emulated by developing
countries, in contrast to Russia, Iran, North Korea and the People's Republic
of China.
-
- Human Rights "Double Standards"
-
- While China's alleged human rights violations in relation
to Tibet are highlighted, the recent wave of killings in Iraq and Palestine
are not mentioned. The Western media has barely acknowledged the Fifth
"anniversary" of Iraq's "Liberation" and the balance
sheet of the US sponsored killings and atrocities perpetrated against an
entire population, in the name of a "global war on terrorism".
-
- There are more than 1.2 million Iraqi civilian deaths,
3 million wounded. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR)
indicates a figure of 2.2 million Iraqi refugees who have fled their country
and 2.4 million "internally displaced persons":
-
- "Iraq's population at the time of the US invasion
in March 2003 was roughly 27 million, and today it is approximately 23
million. Elementary arithmetic indicates that currently over half the population
of Iraq are either refugees, in need of emergency aid, wounded, or dead."
(Dahr Jamail, Global Research, December 2007)
-
- The Geopolitical Chessboard
-
- There are deep-seated geopolitical objectives behind
the campaign against the Chinese leadership.
-
- US-NATO-Israeli war plans in relation to Iran are at
an advanced state of readiness. China has economic ties as well as a far-reaching
bilateral military cooperation agreement with Iran. Moreover, China is
also an ally of Russia, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan and
Uzbekistan in the context of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
Since 2005, Iran has an observer member status within the SCO.
-
- In turn, the SCO has ties to the Collective Security
Treaty Organization (CSTO), an overlapping military cooperation agreement
:between Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz
Republic, Tajikistan.
-
- In October of last year the Collective Security Treaty
Organization (CSTO) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) signed
a Memorandum of Understanding, laying the foundations for military cooperation
between the two organizations. This SCO-CSTO agreement, which was barely
mentioned by the Western media, involves the creation of a full-fledged
military alliance between China, Russia and the member states of SCO/CSTO.
It is worth noting that the SCTO and the SCO held joint military exercises
in 2006, which coincided with those conducted by Iran. (For further details
see Michel Chossudovsky, Russia and Central Asian Allies Conduct War Games
in Response to US Threats, Global Research, August 2006)
-
- In the context of US war plans directed against Iran,
the US is intent upon weakening Iran's allies, namely Russia and China.
In the case of China, Washington is is seaking to disrupt Beijing's bilateral
ties with Tehran as well as Iran's rapprochement with the SCO, which has
its headquarters in Beijing.
-
- China is an ally of Iran. Washington's intention is to
use Beijing's alleged human rights violations as a pretext to target China,
an ally of Iran.
-
- In this regard, a military operation directed against
Iran can only succeed if the structure of military alliances which link
Iran to China and Russia is disrupted. This is something which Chancellor
Otto von Bismarck understood in relation to the structure of competing
military alliances prevalent prior to World War I. The Triple Alliance
was an agreement between Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Italy
formed in 1882. The Triple Alliance ultimately came to an end in 1914,
when Italy withdrew from the Triple Alliance and declared its neutrality,
leading the outbreak of World War I.
-
- Encircling China
-
- With the exception of its Northern frontier which borders
on the Russian Federation, Mongolia and Kazakhstan, China is surrounded
by US military bases.
-
- The Eurasian Corridor
-
- Since the 2001 invasion and occupation of Afghanistan,
the US has a military presence on China's Western frontier, in Afghanistan
and Pakistan. The U.S. is intent upon establishing permanent military bases
in Afghanistan, which occupies a strategic position bordering on the former
Soviet republics, China and Iran.
-
- Moreover, the US and NATO have also established since
1996, military ties with several former Soviet republics under GUUAM (Georgia,
Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Moldava). In the post 9/11 era, Washington has
used the pretext of the "global war against terrorism" to further
develop a U.S. military presence in GUUAM countries. Uzbekistan withdrew
from GUUAM in 2002.(The organization is now referred to as GUAM).
-
- China has oil interests in Eurasia as well as in sub-Saharan
Africa, which encroach upon Anglo-American oil interests.
-
- What is at stake is the geopolitical control over the
Eurasian corridor.
-
- In March 1999, the U.S. Congress adopted the Silk Road
Strategy Act, which defined America's broad economic and strategic interests
in a region extending from the Eastern Mediterranean to Central Asia. The
Silk Road Strategy (SRS) outlines a framework for the development of America's
business empire along an extensive geographical corridor.
-
- The successful implementation of the SRS requires the
concurrent "militarization" of the entire Eurasian corridor as
a means to securing control over extensive oil and gas reserves, as well
as "protecting" pipeline routes and trading corridors. This militarization
is largely directed against China, Russia and Iran.
-
- The militarization of the South China Sea and of the
Taiwan Straits is also an integral part of this strategy which, in the
post 9/11 era, consists in deploying "on several fronts".
-
- Moreover, China remains in the post-Cold War era a target
for a first strike nuclear attack by the US.
-
- In the 2002 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), China and Russia
are identified along with a list of "rogue States" as potential
targets for a pre-emptive nuclear attack by the US. China is listed in
the NPR as "a country that could be involved in an immediate or potential
contingency". Specifically, the Nuclear Posture Review lists a military
confrontation over the status of Taiwan as one of the scenarios that could
lead Washington to use nuclear weapons against China.
-
- China has been encircled: The U.S. military is present
in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Straights, in the Korean Peninsula
and the Sea of Japan, as well as in the heartland of Central Asia and on
the Western border of China's Xinjiang-Uigur autonomous region. Moreover,
as part of the encirclement of China, "Japan has gradually been amalgamating
and harmonizing its military policies with those of the U.S. and NATO."
(See Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, Global Military Alliance: Encircling Russia
and China, Global Research, 10 May 2007)
-
- Weakening China from within: Covert Support to Secessionist
Movements
-
- Consistent with its policy of weakening and ultimately
fracturing the People's Republic of China, Washington supports secessionist
movements both in Tibet as wall as in the Xinjiang-Uigur autonomous region
which borders onto North Eastern Pakistan and Afghanistan.
-
- In Xinjiang-Uigur, Pakistani intelligence (ISI), acting
in liaison with the CIA, supports several Islamist organizations. The latter
include the Islamic Reformist Party, the East Turkestan National Unity
Alliance, the Uigur Liberation Organization and the Central Asian Uigur
Jihad Party. Several of these Islamic organizations have received support
and training from Al Qaeda, which is a US sponsored intelligence asset.
The declared objective of these Chinese-based Islamic organizations is
the "establishment of an Islamic caliphate in the region" (For
further details see Michel Chossudovsky, America's War on Terrorism, Global
Research, Montreal, 2005, Chapter 2).
-
- The caliphate would integrate Uzbekistan, Tajikistan,
Kyrgyzstan (West Turkestan) and the Uigur autonomous region of China (East
Turkestan) into a single political entity.
-
- The "caliphate project" encroaches upon Chinese
territorial sovereignty. Supported by various Wahabi "foundations"
from the Gulf States, secessionism on China's Western frontier is, once
again, consistent with U.S. strategic interests in Central Asia. Meanwhile,
a powerful U.S.-based lobby is channeling support to separatist forces
in Tibet.
-
- By tacitly promoting the secession of the Xinjiang-Uigur
region (using Pakistan's ISI as a "go-between"), Washington is
attempting to trigger a broader process of political destabilization and
fracturing of the People's Republic of China. In addition to these various
covert operations, the U.S. has established military bases in Afghanistan
and in several of the former Soviet republics, directly on China's Western
border.
-
- The militarization of the South China Sea and of the
Taiwan Straits is also an integral part of this strategy.(Ibid)
-
- The Lhasa Riots
-
- The violent riots in Tibet's capital in mid-March were
a carefully staged event. In their immediate aftermath, a media disinformation
campaign supported by political by Western leaders directed against China
was launched.
-
- There are indications that US intelligence played a behind
the scenes role in what several observers have described as a carefully
premeditated operation.(See our analysis below).
-
- The Lhasa event in mid-March was not a spontaneous "peaceful"
protest movement as described by the Western media The riots involving
a gang of mobsters were premeditated. They had been carefully planned.
Tibetan activists in India associated with the Dalai Lama's government
in exile "hinted they were indeed expecting the disturbances. But
they refuse to elaborate how they knew or who their collaborators were"
(Guerilla News)
-
- The images do not suggest a mass protest rally but rather
a rampage led by a few hundred individuals. Buddhist monks were involved
in the rampage. According to China Daily (March 31, 2008), the Tibetan
Youth Congress (TYC) based in India, considered by China as a "hard-line
organization" affiliated to the Dalai Lama, was also behind the violence.
The TYC's training camps are funded by the National Endowment for Democracy
(NED). (See the text of the Congressional Hearings regarding NED support
to the TYC)
-
- Video footage confirms that civilians were stoned, beaten
and in some cases killed. Most of the victims were Han Chinese. At least
ten people were burned to death as a result of acts of arson, according
to statements of the Tibet government. These statements were confirmed
by several eyewitness reports. According to a China Daily report:
-
- "Five shop assistants at a clothing store were burnt
to death before they had any chance to escape. A 1.7-meter-tall man named
Zuo Yuancun was torched down to chunks of horrid flesh and skeletons. A
migrant worker had his liver stabbed and bled by mobsters. A woman was
beaten hard by the attackers and had her ear sliced off." (People's
Daily, March 22, 2008)
-
- Meanwhile, the Western media casually described the looting
and arson as a "peaceful demonstration" which the Chinese authorities
suppressed with the use of force. There are no accurate reports (from Chinese
and Western news sources) on the nature of the Chinese police operation
launched to repress the riots. Western press reports point to the deployment
of more than 1000 soldiers and police in the Tibetan capital.
-
- Businesses, schools were attacked, cars were set on fire.
According to Chinese reports, there are 22 dead and 623 injured. "Rioters
set fire at more than 300 locations, mostly private houses, stores and
schools, and smashed vehicles and damaged public facilities."
-
-
-
-
-
- The planning of the riots was coordinated with the media
disinformation campaign, which accused the Chinese authorities of having
instigated the looting and arson. The Dalai Lama accused Beijing of "disguising
its troops as monks" to give the impression that Buddhist monks were
behind the riots. The claims were based on a four year old photograph of
soldiers dressing up as monks in a theatrical stage performance (See South
China Morning Post, 4 April 2008).
-
- The mainland newspaper {People's Daily] said the security
forces quelling riots in Lhasa could not possibly have been wearing the
uniforms shown in the photograph because they were summer uniforms, unsuitable
for the cold March weather.
-
- It also said the PAP had changed to new uniforms in 2005,
which feature shoulder emblems. The armed officers shown in the photograph
were in old-style uniforms which had been phased out after 2005. ... Xinhua
said the photograph was taken during a performance years ago, when soldiers
borrowed robes from monks before performing on stage. (Ibid)
-
- The Dalai Lama's claim that the Chinese authorities had
instigated the riots, quoted in the Western media, is supported by a statement
of a former Communist Party official Mr. Ruan Ming who "claims the
CCP carefully staged the incidents in Tibet in order to force the Dalai
Lama to resign and to justify future repression of the Tibetans. Mr. Ruan
Ming was a speechwriter for former CCP General Secretary Hu Yaobang."
(quoted in The Epoch Times)
-
-
- 2003 photograph used by the media to accuse China of
having deliberately instigated the riots. "This [2003] photo was apparently
made when soldiers were ordered to put on robes to play as actors in a
movie." See http://buddhism.kalachakranet.org/chinese-orchestrating-riots-
tibet.htm
-
- The Role of US Intelligence
-
- The organization of the Lhasa riots are part of a consistent
pattern. They constitute an attempt to trigger ethnic conflict in China.
They serve US foreign policy interests.
-
- To what extent has US intelligence played an undercover
role in the current wave of protests regarding Tibet?
-
- Given the covert nature of intelligence operations, there
is no tangible evidence of direct CIA involvement. However, there are various
Tibetan organizations linked to the Tibet "government in exile"
which are known to be supported by the CIA and/or by the CIA's civilian
front organization, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
-
- The CIA's involvement in channeling covert support to
the Tibetan secessionist movement goes back to the mid-1950s. The Dalai
Lama was on the CIA's payroll from the late 1950s until 1974:
-
- The CIA conducted a large scale covert action campaign
against the communist Chinese in Tibet starting in 1956. This led to a
disastrous bloody uprising in 1959, leaving tens of thousands of Tibetans
dead, while the Dalai Lama and about 100,000 followers were forced to flee
across the treacherous Himalayan passes to India and Nepal.
-
- The CIA established a secret military training camp for
the Dalai Lama's resistance fighters at Camp Hale near Leadville, Colorado,
in the US. The Tibetan guerrillas were trained and equipped by the CIA
for guerrilla warfare and sabotage operations against the communist Chinese.
-
- The US-trained guerrillas regularly carried out raids
into Tibet, on occasions led by CIA-contract mercenaries and supported
by CIA planes. The initial training program ended in December 1961, though
the camp in Colorado appears to have remained open until at least 1966.
-
- The CIA Tibetan Task Force created by Roger E McCarthy,
alongside the Tibetan guerrilla army, continued the operation codenamed
"ST CIRCUS" to harass the Chinese occupation forces for another
15 years until 1974, when officially sanctioned involvement ceased.
-
- McCarthy, who also served as head of the Tibet Task Force
at the height of its activities from 1959 until 1961, later went on to
run similar operations in Vietnam and Laos.
-
- By the mid-1960s, the CIA had switched its strategy from
parachuting guerrilla fighters and intelligence agents into Tibet to establishing
the Chusi Gangdruk, a guerrilla army of some 2,000 ethnic Khamba fighters
at bases such as Mustang in Nepal.
-
- This base was only closed down in 1974 by the Nepalese
government after being put under tremendous pressure by Beijing.
-
- After the Indo-China War of 1962, the CIA developed a
close relationship with the Indian intelligence services in both training
and supplying agents in Tibet." (Richard Bennett, Tibet, the 'great
game' and the CIA, Global Research, March 2008)
-
- The National Endowment for Democracy (NED)
-
- The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which channels
financial support to pro-US opposition groups around the World has played
a significant role in triggering "velvet revolutions" which serve
Washington's geopolitical and economic interests.
-
- The NED, although not formally part of the CIA, performs
an important intelligence function within the arena of civilian political
parties and NGOs. It was created in 1983, when the CIA was being accused
of covertly bribing politicians and setting up phony civil society front
organizations. According to Allen Weinstein, who was responsible for setting
up the NED during the Reagan Administration: "A lot of what we do
today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA." ('Washington Post',
Sept. 21, 1991).
-
- The NED provided funds to the "civil society"
organizations in Venezuela, which initiated an attempted coup against President
Hugo Chavez. In Haiti, the NED supported the opposition groups behind the
armed insurrection which contributed to unseating President Bertrand Aristide
in February 2004. The coup d' Etat in Haiti was the result of a carefully
staged military-intelligence operation. (See Michel Chossudovsky, The Destabilization
of Haiti, Global Research, February 2004)
-
- The NED funds a number of Tibet organizations both within
China and abroad. The most prominent pro-Dalai Lama Tibet independence
organization funded by the NED is the International Campaign for Tibet
(ICT), founded in Washington in 1988. The ICT has offices in Washington,
Amsterdam, Berlin and Brussels. Distinct from other NED funded Tibet organizations,
the ICT has a close cozy and " overlapping" relationship with
the NED and the US State Department::
-
- Some of ICT's directors are also integral members of
the 'democracy promoting' establishment, and include Bette Bao Lord (who
is the chair of Freedom House, and a director of Freedom Forum), Gare A.
Smith (who has previously served as principal deputy assistant secretary
in the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and
Labor), Julia Taft (who is a former director of the NED, the former U.S.
Assistant Secretary of State and Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues,
has worked for USAID, and has also served as the President and CEO of InterAction),
and finally, Mark Handelman (who is also a director of the National Coalition
for Haitian Rights, an organization whose work is ideologically linked
to the NED's longstanding interventions in Haiti).
-
- The ICT's board of advisors also presents two individuals
who are closely linked to the NED, Harry Wu, and Qiang Xiao (who is the
former executive director of the NED-funded Human Rights in China).
-
- Like their board of directors, ICT's international council
of advisors includes many 'democratic' notables like Vaclav Havel, Fang
Lizhi (who in 1995 at least was a board member of Human Rights
in China), Jose Ramos-Horta (who serves on the international advisory board
for the Democracy Coalition Project), Kerry Kennedy (who is a director
of the NED-funded China Information Center), Vytautas Landsbergis (who
is an international patron of the British-based neoconservative Henry Jackson
Society see Clark, 2005), and until her recent death, the "mid-wife
of the neocons" Jeane J. Kirkpatrick (who was also linked to 'democratic'
groups like Freedom House and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies).
(Michael Barker, "Democratic Imperialism": Tibet, China, and
the National Endowment for Democracy Global Research, August 13, 2007)
-
- Other NED funded Tibet organizations include the Students
for a Free Tibet (SFT) referred to earlier. The SFT was founded in 1994
in New York City "as a project of US Tibet Committee and the NED-financed
International Campaign for Tibet (ICT). The SFT is most known for unfurling
a 450 foot banner atop the Great Wall in China; calling for a free Tibet."
(F. William Engdahl, Risky Geopolitical Game: Washington Plays 'Tibet Roulette'
with China, Global Research, April 2008).
-
- The SFT together with five other Tibet organizations
proclaimed last January "the start of a 'Tibetan people's uprising"
... and co-founded a temporary office in charge of coordination and financing."
( Ibid)
-
- "The NED also funds the Tibet Multimedia Center
for "information dissemination that addresses the struggle for human
rights and democracy in Tibet," also based in Dharamsala. And the
NED finances the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy.(Ibid)
-
- There is a division of tasks between the CIA and the
NED. While the CIA provides covert support to armed paramilitary rebel
groups and terrorist organizations, the NED finances "civilian"
political parties and non governmental organizations with a view to instating
American "democracy" around the World.
-
- The NED constitutes, so to speak, the CIA's "civilian
arm". CIA-NED interventions in different part of the World are characterized
by a consistent pattern, which is applied in numerous countries.
-
- PsyOp: Discrediting the Chinese Leadership
-
- The short-term objective is to discredit the Chinese
leadership in the months leading up to the Beijing Olympic games, while
also using the Tibet campaign to divert public opinion from Middle East
war and the war crimes committed by the US, NATO and Israel.
-
- China's alleged human rights violations are highlighted
as a distraction, to provide a human face to the US led war in the Middle
East. Moreover, US sponsored war plans directed against Iran are barely
acknowledged by the Western media. Moreover, with Tibet making the headlines,
the real humanitarian crisis in the Middle East is not front page news.
-
- More generally, the issue of human rights is distorted:
realities are turned upside down, the extensive crimes committed by the
US and its coalition partners are either concealed or justified as a means
to protecting society against terrorists.
-
- A "double standards" in the assessment of human
rights violations has been instated. In the Middle East, the killing of
civilians is categorized as collateral damage. It is justified as part
of the "global war on terrorism". The victims are said to be
responsible for their own deaths.
-
- The Olympic Torch
-
- Carefully timed demonstrations on China's human rights
violations in Western capitals have been set in motion.
-
- A partial boycott of the Olympic games seems to be underway.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner (a strong protagonist of US interests
who has a relationship to the Bilderbergs), has called for a boycott of
the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. Kouchner said the idea should be
discussed at a meeting of EU foreign ministers
-
- The Olympic torch was lit at a ceremony in Greece, which
was disrupted by "pro-Tibet activists". The event was sponsored
by "Reporters Without Borders", an organization known to have
links to US intelligence. (See, Diana Barahona, Reporters Without Borders
Unmasked, May 2005). "Reporters Without Borders" also receives
support for the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
-
- The Olympic Torch is symbolic. The Psychological operation
(PsyOp) consists in targeting the Olympic torch in the months leading up
the Beijing Olympic games.
-
- At each phase of this process, the Chinese leadership
is denigrated by the Western media.
-
- Global Economic Implications
-
- The Tibet campaign directed against the Chinese leadership
could backlash.
-
- We are at the crossroads of the most serious economic
and financial crisis of modern history. The unfolding economic crisis bears
a direct relationship to the US sponsored military adventure in the Middle
East and Central Asia.
-
- China play a strategic role with regard to US military
expansionism. So far it has not exercised it Veto power in the United
Nations Security Council in relation to the several US sponsored UNSC resolutions
directed Iran.
-
- China also plays a central role in the global economy
and financial system.
-
- Resulting from an accumulated trade surplus with the
US, China's now holds 1.5 trillion dollars worth of US debt instruments
(including US Treasury bills). It has the ability to significantly disrupt
international currency markets. The US dollar would plunge to even lower
levels, were China to sell off its dollar denominated debt holdings.(For
further details see: F. William Engdahl, op cit)
-
- Moreover, China is the largest producer of a wide range
of manufactured goods which constitute, for the West, a significant share
of monthly household consumption. Western retail giants rely on the continued
and uninterrupted flow of cheap labor industrial commodities from China.
-
- For the Western countries, China's insertion into the
structures of global trade, investment, finance and intellectual property
rights under the World Trade Organization (WTO) is absolutely crucial.
Were Beijing to decide to curtail its "Made in China" manufacturing
exports to the US, America's fragile and declining manufacturing base would
not be able to fill the gap, at least in the short run.
-
- Moreover, the US and its coalition partners including
the UK, Germany, France and Japan have important investment interests in
China. In 2001, the US and China signed a bilateral trading agreement prior
to the accession of China to the WTO. This agreement allows US investors,
including the major Wall Street financial institutions, to position themselves
in Shanghai's financial and trading system as well as in China's domestic
banking market.
-
- While China is, in some regards, the West's "cheap
labor industrial colony", China's relationship to the global trading
system is by no means cast in steel.
-
- China's relationship to global capitalism has its roots
in the "Open Door Policy" initially formulated in 1979. (Michel
Chossudovsky, Towards Capitalist Restoration. Chinese Socialism after Mao,
Macmillian, London, 1986, chapters 7 and 8)
-
- Since the 1980s, China has become the main supplier of
industrial goods to Western markets. Any threat against China and/or military
venture directed against China's Eurasian allies including Iran could potentially
disrupt China's extensive trade in manufactured goods. China's export oriented
industrial base is the source of tremendous wealth formation in the advanced
capitalist economies. Where does the wealth of the Walton family, owners
of WalMart, originate? WalMart does produce anything. It imports cheap
labor commodities "Made in China" and resells them in the US
retail market at up to ten times their factory price.
-
- This process of "import led development" has
allowed the Western "industrialised" countries to close down
a large part of their manufacturing outlets. In turn, China's industrial
sweat shops serve to generate multibillion dollar profits for Western corporations,
including the retail giants, which purchase and/or outsource their production
to China.
-
- Any threat of a military nature directed against China
could have devastating economic consequences, far beyond the familiar upward
spiral in the price of crude oil.
-
- http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8625
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