I feel grateful to the Western media for their distorted coverage of the recent riots in Lhasa and a few other places. Thanks to their distortion, a new force has arisen – the voices of ordinary Chinese people around the world.
They are telling the world through commentaries and videotapes on the Web, letters to politicians and the media, and by peaceful rallies and demonstrations that Tibet is, was and will always be part of China.
They are telling the world that the Chinese nation is composed of 56 ethnic groups and they all belong to one family. They want integration of their home. And they will say "No" to any attempt to split Tibet from China.
Never before have ordinary Chinese people raised their voices so openly, clearly and resolutely to the world on issues related to China's Tibet. As a journalist who has worked for nearly three decades in China's international communications, I feel an unprecedented reinforcement in these expressions.
This is real people power, not orchestrated by the Chinese government, but incurred by the Western media.
In fact, many of the critics of the Western media's distorted reports are also critical of the Chinese government and official media. However, they share the same bottom line, which is articulated by an unknown netizen at BBS of tianya.cn, a popular Chinese portal:
"However dissatisfied I am with my salary, I won't support the Taiwan secessionists; and
"However disappointed I am in my life, I won't do anything to dissociate my nation."
Actually, this is a political position of the grassroots Chinese spanning different age groups in different countries. As elaborated by a netizen identified as "akaaaa" and a law major, "We Chinese no longer harbor a blind faith in Western media's reports and we have learned to make our own analysis."
