Don't make a rod for your own back

Yet more free advice for the Chinese leadership

The narrow-mindedness of the Chinese government on the Tibet issue, and the heavy-handedness of its manipulation of the news coverage of related events, makes the problem larger, probably makes it unsolvable - and unleashes a whole wave of new problems too.

The official viewpoint - utterly inflexible, and dinned into the skull of every Chinese person from early childhood onwards - is this: The Dalai Lama wants independence for Tibet. China's strength lies in China's unity; therefore any attempt to separate one part of China away from the whole is an attempt to weaken China, and is EVIL. Anyone who shows any sympathy for the Dalai or for the Tibetans is in fact advocating Tibetan indepedence and thus the weakening of China, and is EVIL.

Unfortunately, of course, that means US - the foreigners, the outsiders, the waiguoren. All of us. We feel sorry for the Tibetans, we question the military crackdown, we suggest that perhaps the Dalai isn't such a bad chap, we worry about China's fitness to host the Olympics - therefore we are trying to destroy China and we are EVIL.

There was a pretty nasty demonstration outside one of the international schools in the Embassy district yesterday afternoon: a crowd of young Chinese chanting, "Death to foreigners!"

Way to go, boys! That's really going to enhance your international image and give a needed boost to Olympic tourism. Oh yeah. Target a school (in which there were, apparently, some kids having weekend classes of some kind), shout death threats. Classy. You couldn't keep it to "Keep your noses out of Tibet" or "Hands off our Olympics". Oh no.

Chinese nationalism is particularly virulent - a volatile blend of arrogance and insecurity, a massive collective inferiority complex. Nationalism is rarely a pretty thing, but in China it seems to me to be especially insular and xenophobic, especially unthinking and violent.

And it is consciously created and manipulated by the leadership: promulgating this rabid sense of national unity (and a sense of standing alone against an uncomprehending, disdainful, hostile outside world) is seen as the only way to distract the people's attention from the numerous shortcomings of the Party's rule. It really is all too uncomfortably reminiscent of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four: the Dalai Lama is an Emmanuel Goldstein figure, the focus of regular doses of 'Two Minutes Hate'.

And one of the scariest parts of yesterday's ugliness is this: demonstrations like this do not happen spontaneously in China. No, they are centrally planned and co-ordinated by the Party, usually organized by the Communist Youth League and largely using university students (such, at least, was how the anti-Japanese protests were staged here a few years ago; and I have been told that the mobbing of the US Embassy after the Sarajevo incident was contrived in much the same way). People are told where to go, what to chant, and whether they can throw bricks. Really. There were simultaneous demonstrations of this nature in several Chinese cities yesterday - and they were being reported in detail by Xinhua News almost as they were happening. So, spontaneous expressions of popular feeling? I think not. But it is perhaps even more alarming that somebody at the upper levels of the Party thought that this would be a good way to respond to foreign criticisms of China over Tibet and the Olympics. It is, I'm sorry to say, startling evidence of just how criminally naive - and how morally backward - this country's leadership still is.

Very few people, as far as I can see, have openly advocated independence for Tibet. The Dalai Lama has specifically disowned the idea (and there is absolutely no reason to doubt his sincerity on this). Engaging in dialogue with the Dalai would probably do much to defuse the violence of Tibetans' resentment of Chinese rule; it would certainly do much to disarm overseas criticism of China and improve the prospects for a happy and successful Olympics this summer. It might be of benefit to all parties. It at least provides the possibility of a way forward.

But the Dalai Lama is Goldstein: he exists only to be derided and vilified.

And hence, on the Tibet issue (and thus on the Olympic issue) there is no way forward for China.

And perhaps this really is the thinking of the Chinese leadership: "Boy, we really seem to have painted ourselves into a corner on Tibet, and now it looks as if the Olympics are going to be a complete PR disaster for us. How did we not see this coming? Well, we can't let people start blaming us for this. We'd better make them blame the foreigners instead."

Unfortunately, when you whip up a frenzy of foreigner-bashing sentiment like this, things can very easily get out of control. Riot police were on hand yesterday - though more to emphasise the "importance" of the demonstration than because they might actually have been needed. If things continue like this, though, it might possibly one day lead to anti-foreigner riots. I think it certainly will lead to isolated instances of violence against foreigners here. We have all started to be a little more cautious when we go out - and that is a great, great shame, because China is usually a very safe country, a very friendly country for foreigners.

This is a very dangerous game the Chinese leadership is playing; it's a policy that could well explode in their faces. I mean, of course, in terms of creating public order problems which it may struggle to contain, and which may encompass other targets than the ones originally spoonfed to the people via the propaganda machine (once people start to riot, they discover that it's fun). In PR terms, it was an instant disaster anyway: many of the foreigners working here contemplate leaving; Olympic tourist bookings dwindle even further; the tarnishing of the Games with boycotts and protests becomes ever more inevitable.

But, it seems, they really don't care about making the problems worse; they only care about not being blamed for them by their own people. This is the mentality that must change - or China's rise to being a fully modernized country and a great world power may be delayed indefinitely.

Update: A journalist friend who witnessed some of Saturday's anti-foreigner demonstration in Beijing says that the protesters weren't shouting anything quite as bad as "Death to the foreigners!", that it was mostly more stuff like "Down with the French!" (The French are taking most of the flak at the moment, because they seem to be at the forefront of discussions about whether to boycott the Olympic opening ceremony. Moral leadership from the French?? Whatever next?!) He questions whether my original source could understand Chinese all that well.

I always felt it was intrinsically unlikely that the protesters (or, rather, the senior cadres who were scripting the event) would have been that intemperate in their language. But then, in this country, you never know. I don't think my sceptical friend was present during the picketing of the French school in Sanlitun. And one of the two warning text messages I received about this was supposedly passed on from a journalist who was at the scene and does understand Chinese well. I wasn't there myself, so I can't say for sure. I think it only fair to record that there is some doubt as to what was actually being shouted by the protesters.

I don't think there's any doubt that it was an unsavoury episode, fuelled by a generalised xenophobia rather than any reasoned critique of the French government, the hostility - and latent violence - of the crowd underscored by the deployment of the riot police (although, as I already observed above, I think this was part of the theatre of the event, part of the 'message' the leadership wanted to convey, rather than an essential precaution).

I also learned last night that a few foreign journalists working here have received individual death-threats (by e-mail, I presume), and that one of them has decided to take a break from the country for a while rather than put up with all the hassle here.

Things just keep getting worse and worse for the Zhongnanhai boys.

I wonder what June will have in store for us this year? Nothing good, I don't suppose.