In an editorial, ‘Walking along a French Corner, Revealing T|bet’s History” (走上法国街头，展示西藏历史) in yesterday’s Global Times, Professor He Qing (of Tsinghua and Zhejiang Universities) writes:

During the 10 years I spent in France, I conversed with countless French people about T|bet. You could say that for every 10 French people, 9 would be of the opinion ‘T|bet is an independent state – China’s army invaded and is currently occupying (T|bet).’ I’m not sure if this is because of the French education system, the media, or the result of long-term indoctrination. Regardless, the general conviction (among French) is that T|bet is an independent country. 

This sounds positively like me talking about other sorts of cognitive biases – like how we yuppies take voting so seriously despite the absurdity of the whole project. I digress. He continues:

… for a long time, the Western mainstream has engaged in the ‘oppose and contain China’ strategy with the aim of splitting T|bet (from China) by means of long-term propaganda. 

This was in reference to Sarkozy having met with the Dala| |ama - an event that always gets a fair bit of mainstream media coverage here. If you followed only official reporting, you might conclude everyone was hopping mad – my impression from conversations with countless Han people on Chinese corners is that “Of course T|bet is a part of China. Say, sure has been warm lately. Nice coat.”

It’s interesting to me to try to understand how deeply certain convictions and beliefs are held. Perhaps I’m wrong, and have misled myself about numerous topics, T|bet not the least of them? Obviously information and data need to be trusted – but how far can someone self-deceive for the sake of security, gain, or preconception? 

If we are simply puppets, may we should have the clarity to see the strings.