While Nixon and Frost are currently in the movie houses across the country, it's well to remember that the United States and China are rather quietly marking three decades of diplomatic relationships, ushered in, of course, by Richard Nixon himself. Secretary of State John Negroponte was recently in Beijing to commemorate these three decades by watching, of all things, a ping-pong tournament, and one that was designed to mark the "ping-pong diplomacy" inaugurated by Nixon and Chairman Mao (full story here.)
Our relationship with China, of course, has a deep impact on our response to Tibet. Human rights abuses against the Tibetans are proceeding apace, with the latest installment involving what one source, at least, is calling the "live corpses." Abused and tortured Tibetan prisoners are now being turned over to their families at the point of death, and their release is being tallied by the Chinese as a freed prisoner. It's difficult to underestimate the wretched cleverness of the Chinese in matters of this sort.
Americans who actively support Tibetan rights find themselves now between a rock and a hard place. It's become common for us to see China as a "market," to shrug our shoulders, and to prepare ourselves for the inevitable and ongoing relationship between our two countries. Have a look at the labels on your clothes, your coffee cups, your running shoes, and see just how implicated you are in supporting China and their policies in Tibet. Even if you've done all you can to avoid buying Chinese, your fellow citizens haven't, and so the soul you save is your own. Tibetans are still dying.
But China is not simply a "market," any more than we are (or used to be in healthier economic times). It's helpful
to remind ourselves continually that China is a nation of frequent and frequently suppressed protests; it's a nation whose history seems organized around long periods of fruitful and productive isolation followed by periods of troubled immigration and exposure; it's a nation of some of the bravest and most intelligent dissidents on the world stage. Example? Gao Yaojie, or Grandma Courage, as she is known in China. Here is a woman who has heroically fought for AIDS awareness in China, and at age 81 is still going strong. Read her story here. You'll notice that she has all the qualities we associate with the spiritually accomplished: kindness, compassion, fearlessness, and a wry humor about her lifelong struggle for an open society.
China has many such people . . . they don't control the media, they don't run the government, they don't command the armies, but they are contributing to China's national life, to its pulse, if you will, and we must never forget that. In fact, we should continually visualize China as a nation with a healthy share of silent liberators.
It wouldn't be far from the truth; not as I'd visualize it. Besides, I'm having trouble discovering anything else worth doing.