China Willing to Take a Black Eye

Have you been wondering as I have why spokespersons as high as Premier Wen Jiabao have been so adamant about the Dalai Lama's culpability in the recent tumults in Tibet? China might even be risking a boycott of the Olympic Games. Well part of the reasoning goes like this. China knows it will be condemned internationally. However domestic opinion trumps all other concerns. Invoking an image of a China yet again harassed and humiliated by outsiders i.e. foreign press, plays well at home and also in the Chinese diaspora around the world. At home the central communist power in Beijing must be seen to not tolerate or be soft on its own minorities and their independence movements eg Tibet, Xinjiang muslims and Taiwan. Otherwise it risks letting the genie out of the bottle and the government's own insecurity faced with internal upheavals means it must be seen to be unforgiving. CBC Radio, The Current, Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008.