Thoughts on Earthquake In China News Coverage

Recently read an article in the Guardian about the earthquake situation in China. I bothered to read the comments as well. Here's my take:

Chinese army is approximately 2.3 million (standing - reservists, etc. included, approximately 7 million). China is lauded by some for having sent "tens of thousands" of members of the army to the area. Tens of thousands, of a standing army over 2 million - to an area whose population is approximately 10 million? Let's do the math: 10,000,000 / 130,000 (the only solid number I saw) = 1 troop for every 77 members of the most directly afflicted population. Which doesn't sound that bad, until you consider the figure that in some areas, as much as 80% of the buildings collapsed. Wow. Sounds like North Korea, able to explode nuclear devices (with the unspoken intent of threatening South Korea with the prospect of nuking Seoul (a city of 14 million) - I mean really, if you were Kim Jong Il and you had a nuke, where would you aim it?) but unable to prevent millions of their own people of dying from starvation. Or the US for that matter - Hurricane Katrina and where is the military? Afghanistan? Iraq?

Among the comments, the usual trash - Westerners exploiting tragedy to condemn China (an activity enjoyed, ironically enough, by neo-liberals and neo-cons as well), Chinese exploiting the tragedy and the slanted anti-Chinese Western bias (again, liberal and conservative alike) to proliferate their own propaganda, Dalai Lama supporters doing what they do, Chinese and American Christians (i.e. - the two groups that feel most threatened by the Dalai Lama), and modern western intellectual atheists bashing the Dalai Lama - using historical facts of course, but with a frivolous and misleading rhetorical bias....my God, is anyone still sane in the world?

Two wrongs do not make a right. A and B do not exist in a binary opposition by which if A is correct, than B is wrong, or vice versa.

Nothing can be properly understood outside it's social, political, and economic context.

Perhaps the two greatest impediments to legitimate analysis are 1) projecting specifics (however accurate) into generalizations, and 2) telescoping general statements, understandings, etc. (however accurate) into specifics.

Reading from the article to the bottom of the comments, the Dalai Lama took a wild trip from "saintly" to "Communist collaborator" to "feudal tyrant" and many stops in between. Instead of throwing rocks at each other, let's focus on the bigger picture, shall we?

1) The Dalai Lama, although he was a religious figurehead of an exploitative feudal system, cannot be held responsible for all abuses of power which occurred during his time in power.

2) To what degree he was a figurehead and to what degree he was not should be properly researched and understood in proper historical context before anyone makes any accusations about his tyranny or claims about his saintliness. Regardless, one has to admit that however saintly he might be/might have been, there's only so much that can be done in terms of social justice by anyone.

3) To the Chinese who are saying "If the Dalai Lama is so "saintly" why isn't he doing more to help the earthquake victims?" - what are you looking for? The Dalai Lama to chant mantras and lift buildings off of people, or to make a public announcement about how much money he will be giving to the Chinese government to aid the victims? Are either of these scenarios reasonable? Probable? They are all I can image within the field of what you seem to be hinting at.....

4) That the Dalai Lama was a ruler of one government when he left 1) does not make him a hypocrite or liar for proposing a different government for Tibet in the future. He's in a unique position to propose whatever he chooses when he's at the table with the Chinese government. To be sure, open democracy in Tibet would be difficult at this point, what with the transplantation of ethnic Han in Tibet. China certainly went out of its way to establish this difficulty and render the prospect of Tibetan autonomy nothing more appealing than either a disaster or a catastrophe. You can only dislocate so many natives with transplants before autonomy for the natives becomes an inherent tyranny over the transplants - or, depending on the numbers - vice versa.

5) Bad journalism is bad journalism. However, when there's a lack of sources, rumors and opinions become fact quite quickly. If China wants to be represented more fairly in the foreign press, let more foreign press into China. Don't expect good PR abroad from the newscorps you won't let into your country. News people are realists (when they're not making things up - perhaps we should call them cynics instead....) - when they don't have solid evidence, they assume the worst, rather than the best. Why? It sells. That doesn't make it right, but it does make it real.

6) When a journalist refers to the Chinese government as being goons and thugs, the Chinese government can resentment at being referred to as "goons and thugs" but it has no right to proliferate the misunderstanding that the journalist referred to the Chinese people as "goons and thugs." This is why the Chinese people have such a twisted view of history. This is why they are so "supportive" of the Chinese government. All they have every known is propaganda, to such a degree that - when the propaganda (by 'propaganda' I mean 'persuasive transmission of information both true and false) actually happens to be valid - because it's within the context of such an enormous, over-arching state agenda of manufactured consent - it can't really be said to have any value - passive consumption of a state-sponsored truth is as distorting as the passive consumption of a state-sponsored lie.

7) Yes, America/Western Europe, there is a sick irony to be seen here: The liberated free-market individual isn't very easily to mobilize in times of trouble. Brainwashed conformists who have no real notion of identity outside of "member of the state" are in many ways much more motivated to donate their time when it comes to these sorts of things, and the concept of 'profit-motive' - falling in the field somewhere between 'unlikely' and 'non-existant' (China being what it is - i.e. Communist) doesn't serve as an impediment towards (if such a thing exists) the human propensity to help others. Is humanitarianism not humanitarianism if it's inspired by a state apparatus of psychological control whose primary mechanism is fear, rather modern Western post-enlightenment liberal ideology?

8) Statements such as "How much money did you send?" and "What have you done to help?" are usually uttered by people who haven't provided any aid themselves, and the only people who feel hurt by them are the people who did help, and feel guilty about not having been able to have helped more. Such statements can be effective for raising funds or bodies for relief efforts, but with regards to discussion about politics, they are persuasive, rather than analytical - meaning that they are useless, misleading, and anyone using them in such a context immediately risks immediate self-invalidation.

9) Criticism and analysis should never betray the bias of the commentator. If it does, it should be considered invalid - completely and immediately. Really now, do you think anyone will take you the least bit seriously when your primary intent is stone-throwing, and journalistic/critical/analytical integrity is secondary?

I could go on and on, citing passages and so forth, but why bother?

Chris