Fullness, emptiness –

beyond the concepts and words,

where is awareness?

Why Big Business needs China Games success
By Benjamin A Shobert (Asia Times Online)

Only occasionally do the eyes of the world fix on one event as they do on the Olympic Games. The blessing and curse awaiting those countries that play host to the Olympics have much to do with the world's undivided attention.

For countries with something to hide, such as the Soviet Union during the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics, the Games become about more than sheer athleticism or the indomitable human spirit exemplified in athletic endeavors. The Games become about
projecting on to the world an image of what the country wishes to be and how it hopes to be seen - however disconnected such aspirations may be from reality.

Next year's Beijing Summer Olympics will be no exception, and may become the standard-bearer for countries that seek to use the Games to reshape their global image.

China understandably has much to be proud of: its immense economic growth, an ascending middle class, a relatively peaceful absorption of Hong Kong and Macau, as well as increasing influence in pivotal geopolitical issues. But China also struggles with the aftermath of its totalitarian past, remnants of which are best seen in the government's inconsistent record on human rights. This month's State Department Report on Human Rights made this forcefully clear:

Although the [Chinese] constitution asserts that "the state respects and preserves human rights", the government's human-rights record remained poor, and in certain areas deteriorated. There were an increased number of high-profile cases involving the monitoring, harassment, detention, arrest, and imprisonment of journalists, writers, activists, and defense lawyers, many of whom were seeking to exercise their rights under law. The government tightened restrictions on freedom of speech and the press, including stricter control and censorship of the Internet.

China has come far in almost every way imaginable - much further than many pundits are willing to acknowledge - but the status of Beijing's general jurisprudence, its at best uneven and at worst heavy-handed record of suppressing dissent, and an intrusive position by the state into private affairs ranging from religious affiliation to reproductive choice have all combined to make Beijing realize it has much to lose if the 2008 Olympics are improperly managed.

The upside potential of a well-orchestrated Olympics is obvious, but the downside risk of protests and political strife could seriously undermine the message Beijing wishes to send about its foray into the 21st century as an enlightened power.

Sponsor reputations at stake
Beijing is not the only stakeholder in the Olympics with much to lose if the Games do not go off uneventfully. Multinational sponsors, as well as others who are more generally involved in the Chinese economy, could see a backlash against their presence in and reliance on China if disruptions occur. Witness the aftermath of protests at the World Bank/International Monetary Fund meetings as a small portent of what could happen if the much murkier aspects of China's human-rights record and rule of law lurch into the spotlight.

Demonstrations about working conditions and workers' rights will not be new, and consequently are likely to suffer from the unfortunate acceptance by most Americans due to economic necessity. However, a spotlight on questions of personal freedom in China, concepts Americans draw from within the lexicon of their citizenship, holds the potential to be much more upsetting.

It is not outside the realm of possibility to see US public opinion turn increasingly sour on China if political dissent is militantly stifled during the Olympics. In such a case, the repercussions would evidence themselves not only through increasingly brittle political exchanges, but the cold shoulder of consumers toward companies they believe empower an unjust Chinese system.

Multinationals can weather many sorts of storms, and appear to be primarily anticipating stormy skies over the question of how they treat their workers. Anticipating this, most are working in advance of the Games to establish standards and policies that will at a minimum provide them with plausible deniability of China's darker practices, and yet hold the potential to enact meaningful change.....[continues]

Read more here:

     A robin twitters,

     blackbirds shrill and a dog barks -

     in perfect silence.

You follow the map

exactly, knowing there is

neither path nor goal.

.

     Even “letting go”

     implies there is a someone

     who should do something.

Rural Chinese Kids Face Trafficking Risk

Filed at 5:08 p.m. ET

BEIJING (AP) -- Rural Chinese children increasingly risk being sold or forced to become beggars, petty thieves or sex workers as their farmer parents flock to cities looking for work, an international rights group said Wednesday.

China has a thriving black market in girls and women who are sold as brides, as well as babies who are abducted or bought from poor families for sale to childless couples or those who have one child and want more.

The government says that it has cracked down harshly on such cases, and that the trend is decreasing.

But Kate Wedgwood, Save the Children's country director for China and North Korea, said there are no reliable figures for the number of children being trafficked and the continued mass migration from farms to cities is sure to make the problem worse.

''We already know the risks (of child trafficking) are exacerbated by migration, so I think the likelihood is that it will increase,'' she said.

In recent years, an estimated 150 million to 200 million people have moved from the countryside to urban areas where their labor in factories and on construction sites has fueled China's breakneck economic growth.

Several hundred million more are expected to leave China's vast rural hinterland over the next 15 to 20 years.

Poor rural children from ethnic communities are the most at risk because they have limited command of Mandarin Chinese and often don't know their rights, Wedgwood said. Disabled kids and children of parents with HIV/AIDS also face increased risk of being trafficked and are sometimes forced into panhandling.

She estimated that there are tens of thousands of boys from far western China's Xinjiang region who have been bought or kidnapped by gangs who force them into pickpocketing and other nonviolent crime in China's eastern cities.

Ethnic minority girls from Yunnan province and the Guangxi region in the south are at risk of being forced into the sex trade within China and also in Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand and Malaysia, she said.

Children left behind in villages are vulnerable because they are often looked after by grandparents -- who often need care themselves -- or by institutions that lose track of the children.

However, those who migrate with their parents are also in danger because they are thrust into unfamiliar surroundings with limited social services, and their parents are often busy working.

Wedgwood wants China to redefine child trafficking to include victims up to 18 years of age and children who are forced into work to pay off family debts. China currently defines victims of child trafficking as kids up to 14 years old who are sold or kidnapped.

     Today, tomorrow –

     when do “I” get enlightened?

     When no-one is left!

Amala and Yungchen Lhamo in Dublin, 2005

Yungchen Lhamo is probably the single most famous singer ever to emerge from Tibet. Although she now lives in exile in the comparative safety of New York City, her life began under very different circumstances.

She was born in 1966, the year that Chairman Mao unleashed the chaos of the Cultural Revolution on the People’s Republic of China, and its occupied territories, including Tibet and Xingjiang. By this time Tibet had already been suffering under the bitter yoke of Chinese colonization since the invasion of 1951. The popular uprising of 1959 against Chinese rule, which resulted in the Dalai Lama’s flight into exile in India, had also resulted in a period of brutal repression which left 1.2 million Tibetans dead, and over 6,000 monasteries, temples and other cultural institutions destroyed. By the time of the Cultural Revolution, Tibet had already seen about half a million people die of starvation during Mao’s disastrous Great Leap Forward (1958-1962). Tibet had become effectively one vast labour camp. The horrors of the Cultural Revolution were just another twist of the knife, which completed the destruction of most of Tibet’s traditional culture, society, structures and environment. This included the decimation of Tibet’s wildlife, and the clear-felling of millions of hectares of virgin forest.

It was in a labour camp near Lhasa that Yungchen was born to Amala. Yungchen Lhamo's name means "Goddess of Song," a name prophetically given to her by a holy man soon after she was born.  Amala and her mother were in the labour camp because their family was accused of supporting the Khampa guerilla campaign against the Chinese invaders. (Kham, annexed into Szechuan in 1951, was the heavily forested southeastern province of Tibet). So persistent and horrific was the torture to which Amala and her mother were subjected, that the mother begged Amala to kill her. (Of course she didn’t.) At this point she had been hanging up with dislocated shoulders from her arms tied behind her back for two weeks. It was from her grandmother that Yungchen learned many of the devotional songs which still form part of her repertoire. To this day Amala cannot talk about her experiences in the labour camps. Yungchen survived the camp, but her brother did not, having died of starvation and forced labour. Yungchen herself was put to work in a Chinese carpet factory at the age of five.

With Mao’s death and the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976, conditions in Tibet improved slightly. Eventually Yungchen and her surviving family was released. She married, and had a son, but even in the 1980s (and still today) to sing of Tibetan independence, or of devotion to HH the Dalai Lama was to risk imprisonment without trial,  torture and death. So in 1989, Yungchen took her baby son in her arms, and escaped over the Himalayas to India, and moved to Australia in 1993, before finally settling in the USA in 2000.

Lhamo's international success as a Tibetan singer is unprecendented. She has toured the world, singing unaccompanied a combination of songs of her own composition and traditional Buddhist chants andmantras. She has performed with artist like Annie Lennox, Billy Corgan from Smashing Pumpkins, Peter Gabriel, Sheryl Crow, etc, bringing her traditions to new audiences. She has toured extensively as a part of the WOMAD World music festivals.

Her work supports the Yungchen Lhamo foundation, which provides medical care for Tibetan refugees, and particularly artificial limbs for Tibetan children who have lost their feet or legs due to frostbite escaping over the Himalayas from Chinese-occupied Tibet.

Yungchen has also performed in support of many Tibet organizations, including Tibet House New York, The Milarepa Fund, Students For a Free Tibet, Tibet Relief Fund, Australian Tibet Council, The Dalai Lama Trust New Zealand, AIPLP, the Pema Tsal School in India and for such aid groups as Amnesty International, Walk Against Want, Reebok Human Rights Awards, IUCN and Survival International.

To date Yungchen has recorded four CDs, three on Peter Gabriel’s Real World label.

Tibetan Prayer

Tibet, Tibet

Coming Home

Ama

     When chaos threatens,

     plunge deeply into its heart,

     till you find laughter.

Devil's Advocate: Dalai Lama

Posted Sunday , April 08, 2007 at 20:55Updated Monday , April 09, 2007 at 09:17

Email Print

TIBET'S SPIRIT: The Dalai Lama says the Tibetan movement goes beyond him.

      

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Karan Thapar: After almost 50 years of Tibetan uprising, where does the Tibet issue stand today? That’s the key issue Karan Thapar asked His Holiness Dalai Lama in an exclusive interview on Devil’s Advocate.

Your Holiness, it’s almost been 30 years since you adopted the middle way, giving up Tibet’s claims of independence and instead accepting meaningful autonomy within China. The problem is that Chinese have shown no flexibility, no willingness to accommodate you and on the other hand, the Tibetan Youth Congress is calling for a more strident, assertive policy. Are you falling between two stools?

Dalai Lama: Firstly, we are fully committed about democracy. So, among our community, there are different views, even very serious criticisms of certain policies. However, our position is not seeking independence, but trying to achieve genuine autonomy that Chinese Constitution also provided. I think that though concrete research has not yet come, the Chinese intellectuals and educationists are showing genuine support and appreciation for our approach...................................................

To read the rest of the interview follow this link:

http://www.ibnlive.com/news/world/04_2007/tibetans-arent-seeking-independence-from-china-37994.html

Sooner or later

all that is you will be dead.

Better drop it now.

First there is a gate,

But when you have found the key-

Nothing to open!

You suppose you choose.

But do you create your thoughts?

Where does you begin?

Whatever distance

I cover on late-night walks,

silence is untired.

Advocates Sue Yahoo In Chinese Torture Case

By Ariana Eunjung Cha and Sam Diaz

Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, April 19, 2007; Page D01

SHANGHAI, April 18 -- A human rights group sued Yahoo on Wednesday, accusing the Internet giant of abetting the torture of pro-democracy writers by releasing data that allowed China's government to identify them.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, says the company was complicit in the arrests of 57-year-old Wang Xiaoning and other Chinese Internet activists. The suit is the latest development in a campaign by advocacy groups to spotlight the conduct of U.S. companies in China.

As they seek a slice of the booming Chinese market, Yahoo and other American companies have sometimes set aside core American values, such as free speech, to comply with the communist government's laws.

The suit, in trying to hold Yahoo accountable, could become an important test case. Advocacy groups are seeking to use a 217-year-old U.S. law to punish corporations for human rights violations abroad, an effort the Bush administration has opposed.

In 2003, Wang began serving a 10-year sentence on charges that he incited subversion with online treatises criticizing the government. He is named as a plaintiff in the Yahoo suit, which was filed with help from the World Organization for Human Rights USA, based in Washington.

Yahoo is guilty of "an act of corporate irresponsibility," said Morton Sklar, executive director of the group. "Yahoo had reason to know that if they provided China with identification information that those individuals would be arrested."

Wang's wife, Yu Ling, said her husband is imprisoned in a labor camp and has been subjected to beatings. In an interview in Washington, she said through an interpreter that American technology companies such as Yahoo should be held to a high standard in their overseas conduct. She said Yahoo gave the Chinese government personal information tied to e-mail accounts that Wang used to distribute his writings,

The suit says that in 2001, Wang was using a Yahoo e-mail account to post anonymous writings to an Internet mailing list. The suit alleges that Yahoo, under pressure from the Chinese government, blocked that account. Wang set up a new account via Yahoo and began sending material again; the suit alleges that Yahoo gave the government information that allowed it to identify and arrest Wang in September 2002. The suit says prosecutors in the Chinese courts cited Yahoo's cooperation.

Jim Cullinan, a spokesman for Yahoo, of Sunnyvale, Calif., said he could not comment on the suit or the specifics of Wang's case because he had not seen the papers Wednesday afternoon. But he said Yahoo condemns the suppression of speech.

Free Tibet Campaign is launching a major new petition.

The world's youngest known political prisoner is turning 18.

Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, also known as Tibet's 11th Panchen Lama, was
abducted in 1995 at age 6 by Chinese occupying forces. He has been
missing ever since.

Angered by the fact that Gedhun Choekyi Nyima had been recognised by HH the Dalai Lama as the authentic reincarnation, The Chinese authorities imposed their own surrogate Panchen Lama on Tibet. He resides in Beijing "for security reasons."

Also "disappeared" along with the six-year old Panchen Lama was his immediate family. Neither he nor they have been seen since. Neither journalists nor United Nations representatives have been permitted to visit them. Their whereabouts are unknown. It is not known even if they are still alive.

Visit this website to:

<> Find out more
<> Watch the campaign movie
<> Sign the online petition demanding his release

http://www.freetibet.org/campaigns/panchen/index.html

We urge you to take a few moments for the boy that has spent 12 years
under house arrest.

China stole a boy, its time they returned the man!


To sign the petition now
http://www.petitionthem.com/?sect=detail&pet=3839


Thank you for your support.

Free Tibet Campaign

Please ask your friends, cousins, neighbours, colleagues, strangers,
the person you fancy on the bus to do the same...because it's a good thing!


<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
F R E E   T I B E T   C A M P A I G N
28 Charles Square, London N1 6HT, UK
Phone: +44 (0)20 7324 4605
Fax: +44 (0)20 7324 4606
Web: http://www.freetibet.org
Email: mail@freetibet.org
- an independent membership organisation campaigning in support of
the rights of the Tibetan people to freedom and independence.
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><

Look in the mirror,
not only seeing your face -
seeing the seeing.

The miracle is

the breathtaking beauty

of ordinary things.

Sun in a sand-pool

opens a sudden window –

lurching emptiness.

While there’s a doer

dreaming it’s doing something,

the doer is done for.