China resents 'gross interference'

[shan]

CHINADAILY


China lashed out at US President George Bush's meeting with the Dalai Lama, calling the meeting a "gross interference" in its internal affairs.

"China is strongly resentful of this and resolutely opposes it, and has made repeated solemn representations to the US side," Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said Wednesday.

He again urged the US side to correct its wrongdoings and stop interfering in China's internal affairs in any form.

Liu said such a meeting "seriously violated" the norms of international relations and gravely hurt the feelings of the Chinese people.

"It is a gross interference in China's internal affairs," Liu added.

Liu's remarks were the latest response in a string of Chinese protests about the decision to award the Dalai Lama the US Congressional Gold Medal in a public ceremony earlier yesterday.

Despite stern warnings from Beijing, Bush met with the Dalai Lama in the White House on Tuesday

The meeting is the third since Bush took office in January 2001, but the first public appearance with the Dalai Lama for a sitting US president.

Liu reiterated that Tibet is an inalienable part of China, saying China is firmly against any country and any people using this issue to interfere with its internal affairs.

"The words and deeds of the Dalai Lama in past decades have demonstrated that he is a political refugee engaged in secessionist activities under the camouflage of religion," Liu said, adding that any attempt to interfere in China's internal affairs using the Dalai issue is "doomed to failure".

"Chinese people's resolve to safeguard the nation's sovereignty and territorial integrity is firm and unshakeable."

'Farce'

Also on Wednesday, top religious affairs official lashed out at the Dalai Lama's US congressional award and meeting with US President George W. Bush, saying he had staged a "farce".

"It's like a Peking Opera, and the Dalai Lama is the protagonist singing his long-time attempts to split the motherland and seek 'Tibet independence'", said Ye Xiaowen, director of the State Administration of Religious Affairs, at a press briefing during the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.

When no one sang along, the Dalai Lama claimed he had dropped his "independence" claim and wanted a "higher degree of autonomy" and "Greater Tibet" instead, Ye said.

"Both are the same old claim of 'independence' in guised forms."

One who betrays his own country must feel isolated wherever he is, said Ye. "When he feels isolated and miserable, he would stage a farce with the Westerners, hoping to exert more influence."

Quoting the Bible, Ye told "those who watched the Dalai Lama's farce" not to do unto others as it would not have others do unto it.

The religious affairs official warned the Dalai Lama, 72, to repent and mend his ways. "The Dalai Lama question is quite easy to solve, as long as he stops his secessionist activities," he said. "I hope he'll solve this problem in his life."

He said the central government has been in contact and consultation with the Dalai Lama's envoy. "Any attempts to split China are doomed to failure, whether the Dalai Lama is alive or not."

[The Smoking Man]

Oh the troubles this must cause Polly.

Her two heroes hate each other Hu and the Dalai.

 

China: Dalai Lama award undermines ties

By ANITA CHANG, Associated Press Writer
11 minutes ago

China warned the United States on Thursday that its honoring of the Dalai Lama "gravely undermined" relations between the two countries, demanding Washington stop supporting the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader and take steps to repair ties.

The Foreign Ministry statement was the most vociferous yet in weeks of protests against Congress' decision to award the Dalai Lama its highest civilian honor, personally bestowed by President Bush in a ceremony Wednesday.

"The move of the United States is a blatant interference with China's internal affairs which has severely hurt the feelings of the Chinese people and gravely undermined the relations between China and the United States," Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told reporters.

In a sign of Beijing's pique, Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi also summoned U.S. Ambassador Clark Randt to formally protest the giving of the award.

The Dalai Lama is lauded in much of the world as a figure of moral authority, but China reviles him as a Tibetan separatist. The 72-year-old monk and Nobel Peace Prize laureate reiterated in Washington that he wants "real autonomy" for Tibet, not independence.

The strains over the Dalai Lama come as the U.S. and China try to manage a host of issues that have tested their abilities to cooperate. While the two have worked closely on North Korea, their positions are further apart in pressuring Iran over its nuclear program and Myanmar for crushing a democracy movement. Friction also persists over trade and Taiwan.

The decision by Washington to honor the Dalai Lama is a setback to Beijing's efforts to lend legitimacy to China's often harsh rule over Tibet and undermine support for the spiritual leader, who remains popular among Tibetans despite fleeing into exile 48 years ago after a failed uprising.

Thousands of Tibetan exiles celebrated the award Thursday in Dharmsala, the Indian town where the Dalai Lama set up his government in exile. Tibetan flags, which are banned in Chinese-controlled Tibet, flew from buildings. Shops and schools were closed, and the exiles had a daylong picnic with dance performances at the Dalai Lama's Tsuglakhang temple.

"This award doesn't just honor the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan people but all the peace-loving people in the world," said Dawa Tsering, a parliamentarian in the government in exile.

Liu, the Chinese spokesman, said Washington's actions encouraged Tibetan separatists, and demanded it take corrective action.

"China urges the United States to take effective measures immediately to remove the terrible impact of its erroneous act, cease supporting and conniving with the separatist activities of the Tibet independence forces ... and take concrete steps to protect China-U.S. relations," Liu said.

Though Beijing warned earlier this week of serious consequences, Liu refused to say what China would do and did not specify what redress Washington should make.

China pulled out of a planned strategy session the U.S. had arranged on Iran Wednesday, citing "technical reasons," but said the countries involved would discuss setting another meeting date.

Despite the bluster, Beijing is unlikely to take actions that would jeopardize relations with the U.S., its largest trading partner, and increasingly a diplomatic one, experts said.

"I think there will be meetings postponed or canceled," said Joseph Fewsmith, a Chinese politics expert and professor at Boston University. But "I don't think that China wants to throw the whole relationship into difficulty because of this particular meeting."

Besides the access to the valuable American market, China is also counting on the Bush administration to rein in Taiwan, which Beijing considers a renegade province. Taiwan's democratic government has taken steps toward formalizing the de facto independence it has enjoyed since splitting from China 58 years ago — moves that Beijing has said could bring war.

"China's future development is so closely tied to a functional relationship with the U.S. that it's hard to see it really wishing to damage that in any fundamental way," said Tony Saich, a professor of international affairs at Harvard University.

[The Smoking Man]

China summons US ambassador to protest over Dalai Lama

2 hours, 56 minutes ago

China lodged an official protest on Thursday over the honouring of the Dalai Lama in Washington, while bluntly rejecting US President George W. Bush's advice on how to handle the Tibet issue.

Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi summoned the US ambassador in Beijing to receive China's angry response to the unprecedented reception by Bush and US lawmakers of the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader.

"China urges the United States to take effective measures immediately to remove the terrible impacts of its erroneous act," foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said, warning again that bilateral ties had been damaged.

He said China called on the United States to "cease supporting... separatist activities of the Tibet independent forces, stop interfering in China's internal affairs and to take concrete steps to protect Sino-US relations."

Liu said Yang had delivered China's "strong protest" to US ambassador Clark Randt on Thursday.

The blistering response came after Bush on Wednesday defied repeated warnings from China and awarded the Dalai Lama the Congressional Gold Medal -- US lawmakers' highest civilian honour -- at the US Capitol building.

"They will find this good man to be a man of peace and reconciliation," Bush said of the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize winner.

"Americans cannot look to the plight of the religiously oppressed and close our eyes or turn away."

It was the first time a sitting US president had appeared in public with the Dalai Lama, whom China accuses of being a dangerous figure agitating for Tibetan independence.

Bush, who on Tuesday also met with the Dalai Lama privately at his White House residence, urged China to open talks with the revered 72-year-old Buddhist icon.

"It's in their interest to meet with the Dalai Lama," Bush said, prompting a terse response from Liu.

"As to how to handle the Dalai Lama and Tibet issues, Chinese people are very clear about what to do and do not need to be lectured by other countries," Liu said.

But while Liu repeated China's warning that this week's events in the United States had severely damaged ties between the two powers, he refused to answer reporters' questions on what other specific actions China would take.

China sent troops into Tibet in 1950 and officially "liberated" it the following year.

The Dalai Lama fled his homeland in 1959 following a failed uprising against Chinese rule. He insists that he wants autonomy for Tibet rather than independence, a claim that China rejects.

The United States and the United Nations do not question China's sovereignty over Tibet.

However China's atheist communist rulers have come under international criticism for decades over alleged religious and political persecution in the devoutly Buddhist region.

The Dalai Lama on Wednesday used the high-profile ceremony to again insist he only wanted autonomy for his homeland, and not independence, and called for talks with China's leaders.

But he also warned of "grave" social and environmental problems occurring in Tibet under Chinese rule.

"Every year, the Chinese population inside Tibet is increasing at an alarming rate," he said.

"And, if we are to judge by the example of the population of Lhasa (the region's capital), there is a real danger that the Tibetans will be reduced to an insignificant minority in their own homeland."

The Dalai Lama also warned that the rapid increase in Tibet's population was posing a "serious threat" to the region's environment.

[Drive By]

im with china on this one. we had the giggling fool here a couple of months ago and all of the naieve , otherwise very consiervative, fools flocked to hear him crap on with pearls like "look to the sky and the sea for the signs' (i did but couldnt find any). funny he never mentions democracy either, nor the lives of previous dali lamas.

[The Smoking Man]

US search engines 'hijacked' in China: analysts

by Rob Lever
2 hours, 39 minutes ago

US Internet search engines in China were being hijacked and directed to Chinese-owned Baidu, analysts said Wednesday, speculating that the move was in retaliation for Washington's award to Tibet's exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.

Analysts at Search Engine Roundtable, a website focusing on Internet search, said Chinese users trying to search on Google, Yahoo and Microsoft websites were being directed to the Chinese search engine.

Google confirmed the blocking of its Chinese search engine and Microsoft said it was looking into the matter.

"It seems like China is fed up with the US, so as a way to fight back, they redirected virtually all search traffic from Google, Yahoo and Microsoft to Baidu, the Chinese based search engine," analysts Danny Sullivan and Barry Schwartz wrote at Search Engine Roundtable.

The authors said it was not clear exactly how or why the searches were being redirected, but China is known for tightly controlling the Internet and using a variety of filters to screen out search results for issues relating to dissidents or the 72-year-old Tibetan spiritual leader.

"Some have accused Baidu of hijacking the traffic, but we think it's likely that China is upset with the US over the award it granted to the Dalai Lama and is retaliating by hurting US-based search engines," Sullivan and Schwartz said.

On Wednesday, US President George W. Bush called for an end to "religious repression" in China as he defiantly became the first US leader to appear in public with the Dalai Lama.

The Tibetan spiritual leader accepted the Congressional Gold Medal, lawmakers' highest civilian honor, in a formal ceremony in the US Capitol's ornate Rotunda -- a move certain to further enrage leaders in Beijing.

A Google spokesman told AFP: "We've had numerous reports that Google.cn and other search engines have been blocked in China and traffic redirected to other sites."

"While this is clearly unfortunate, we've seen this happen before and are confident that service will be restored to our users in the very near future," the spokesman said.

Microsoft, queried about the incident, said through a spokesman: "We are looking into this matter."

On the Webpronews website, Doug Caverly wrote: "In all likelihood, Baidu, by itself, isn't powerful enough to pull off this switch. Onlookers suspect the Chinese government."

TechCrunch analyst Duncan Riley also cited the "hijacking" and added, "the redirects are more widespread than we first thought" and that the Google-owned video site YouTube also was being blocked.

"There is some suggestion that the news of the Dalai Lama being awarded a prize by US President George W. Bush may be behind the move, but this is unable to be confirmed," Riley said.

"I've written previously on the possibility that China may use its firewall as an economic tool as opposed to a censorship tool alone, and although censorship may be partially behind today's blanket ban of US search sites, the redirect to Baidu would indicate an economic motive."

Digital Market Blog said it was able to confirm the hijacking as well.

"In our office there's about 30 machines ... If you do a search on Yahoo.com (any search) you get redirected to Baidu (as shown below) and shown Chinese results," the analysts from the site wrote.

[Drive By]

im amazed they havent invented a fake internet yet.

[The Smoking Man]

Microsoft is working on it. To have the Chinese do it would be redundant.

[shan]

sometimes I even hope that I can find some facts to support or verify you guys' arguments, but what we see is that the facts are always driving the other way around and prove what you said are downright wrong, I remember clearly that not long ago, smokie predicted that china's export will suffer a big plunge on the concern of the recalls, but quite opposite to it, the FACTS told us our export volume is still rocketing, even including the toys business

therefore I am telling you , even you use the most sarcastic and irony words to attack China , we are still the second world power in this era and neither of your mother countries can vie with us and I ensure you will be the worst t predictors if you don’t change your standpoints,

Sunglasses look cool but it makes you call white black

[Drive By]

yes china is the worlds second biggest superpower but i cant see it overtake australia as number one. remember we invented the long weekend. what has china ever done for lazy people.

[Polly]

Shit is probably the most repulsive and foulest substance on earth, yet it fertilizes the soil and helps the most bountiful crops, the sweetest fruits and the prettiest flowers grow.

Likewise hardship, obstacles and suffering, hardly palatable, can horn our patience, wisdom, endurance, understanding, compassion and determination.  Without them we can never begin to go up to a higher level.

Just as poverty-stricken China, as washed out as a clean slate, has found that her "cheapness" has enabled her to enjoy absolute advantage in every aspect of globalisation. 

In the same way the Dalai and the USA will have helped China unwittingly though their act is calculated to serve purposes otherwise. 

This is the dualistic nature of the paradigm, the Way, and every thing, phenomenon, notion, ideas, action, commission and omission on earth.  This is the classic Chinese belief of opposites spawninig each other as in .

   

[Art]

Earth calling Polly - Come in Polly..... Earth calling Polly........ What planet are you on??

Shan I imagine Russia like me will be very surprised to hear you have leaped above them in the super power stakes. When did that happen??

I'm curious what measure are you using to determine super power status?

GDP per capita China = 107th
GDP growth rate China = 11th
Exports China = 4th
Employment rate China = 50th
Life expectancy China = 103rd

If you mean it in military terms then China is a long long long way behind the US and Russia with a nuclear capability on a par with France and Israel.

I don't say this to denigrate China I just think it is important that posters should make some attempt to stick to facts rather than spout rhetoric.

[shan]

sorry , i heard  this from dialogue ,and now i find it's misleading

t

the right description should be like this:

By all of these measures, China is not now a superpower, nor is it likely to emerge as one soon. It is establishing itself as a great power, on par with Great Britain, Russia, Japan, and, perhaps, India. China is today a serious player in the regional politics of Asia, but also is just one of several. At a broader level, in global affairs, its stature and power are growing, but in most respects it remains a regional power, complementing the cast of other great powers under the overarching dominance, however momentary, of the United States.

China’s rise over the past two decades has been spectacular from any perspective and deserves attention and respect, especially in view of the difficult course of China’s attempt to adapt to the modern world since the nineteenth century. From the perspective of realist geopolitics, however, it does not merit the alarm and trepidation that the announcement of an arriving superpower might conjure. Napoleon, in that regard, may be right, but not yet and not soon.

[Art]

I fully agree China has come on in leaps and bounds in the past couple of decades particularly in the last 10 years and deserves a lot of credit for pulling herself out of the mire years of centralist communist ideology had dragged her down into. It may surprise you to know but the West with the possible exception of the US wish China nothing but good on her economic road to recovery. The world is delighted to have China play a full role in the international business community and to hear her add her voice to world affairs (again with the possible exception of the US  )

China now needs to look ahead at the next 10 years and decide what sort of country they would like to be. Up to now China's ruthless domestic policies of dog eat dog are understandable as she strives to gain a solid economic foothold but as will soon be the case once all the people are warmly clothed, housed and fed China will have some decisions to make. Will she follow the US role model where money is God and trample on anyone or any country who stands in the way of personal enrichment or will she adopt a more compassionate approach where all individuals matter rather than adopting policies which benefit only the elite few.

Time will tell.

[shan]

i really agree to what you said , and thanks for your compassion and understanding .