The heavy coverage is definitely more prevalent in the English language local papers than the Chinese ones, but it’s prominent in both. How prominent? The People’s Daily has a fixed banner at the top with the headline “Riots in Lasa” (spelling intentional). Hell, they even have a special section of the website dedicated to the situation. China Daily has a slightly more subtle banner for a special section called “Lasa Riots.” We all know that the coverage is completely biased, but let me give you the clearest example in my eyes. I’ll give you all the sentences with either the word “police” or “army” in one of the most prominent article in the People’s Daily:

On the temple roof, about a dozen monks stood and threw stones at police.

Damn dirty monks!

As the riot intensified, a group of people tipped over a police wagon, and then flipped a nearby car...

56 cars were damaged or burned. Dozens of public security officers and scores of armed police were injured, 10 in serious condition…

After the riots began, Party and government officials of the Tibet Autonomous Region reacted quickly. They deployed the police to disperse the violence, and firefighters to put out the fire and evacuate those trapped inside burning buildings…

Local authorities say more than 580 people have been rescued by the armed police, including three Japanese tourists, as well as teachers and students in a primary school and a middle school. There were no foreigners among the casualties…

In their handling of the incident, China’s public security and armed police have exerted the highest restraint. They did not use any deadly weapons, not even when their own lives were threatened. Some riot police were cornered and beaten. Others were stoned. Armed police on duty outside the gate of the Romache Temple were surrounded and attacked by rioters. None of them fired on their attackers…

By Wednesday, more than 150 rioters had turned themselves in to police, and handed over what they had looted.

Number of mentions of the army: zero. Number of mentions of soldiers: zero. [Update: This article may explain why there are so few police references. They weren't there.]

A look over the Chinese versions of the sites showed that they were saying basically the same thing, although the articles were much less prominent. The lead story on 人民日报 for example, was about economic and scientific development.

But the most important aspect of this coverage is that China has decided to blanket their media, particularly English-language media, with stories that give the narrative they want to convey. There were simply too many stories coming out of the West that portrayed the incident badly to allow that version to be the only one out there. So the Chinese put out their own account, and attacked the messenger. They said the problem was not the uprising, but rather the media’s bias (sounds like a certain candidate I know).

Will this new strategy work? Perhaps. To a degree anyway. It is important for them to put their version out there because it sews the seeds out doubt in people’s minds. While they are inclined to believe that China is acting irresponsibly and brutally, it is difficult to find reliable proof. Yet in the end the strategy is doomed to failure. Westerners simply have too much access to a wide variety of news sources, and the government’s misguided attempts to restrict access to websites only made people think think they have something to hide.

In the long-run this may be subtle but critical turning point. China seems to understand that it has miscalculated. Suddenly everything from YouTube to the hated BBC has been unblocked. It seems that they have realized winning an argument does not happen when you present the only opinion, but rather when it is the most convincing.

The coverage, and specifically the lack thereof, makes me wonder what’s really going on. My gut reaction is to believe that the Chinese are cracking down brutally. However, the admittedly limited, reports coming out of TWC seem to paint a different picture. It is not that I believe the Chinese are blameless–far from it. Instead, it appears that the Chinese are attempting to show restraint, but failing miserably to convey this message to the world.

Surely, were this one or two decades ago, all dissent would have long been crushed. And indeed, it appears that many TWCers have been killed, and probably most of these were needless. However, I get the nagging feeling that maybe, just maybe, the Chinese have been somewhat cornered here. What response, exactly, were they to have to a rebellion in TWC? Sure, they could have conceded the territory, but what country would do that at the first hint of an uprising? Condemning them for this is not assessment of the current policy, but rather a reflection of mistakes made in the past.

All of this makes me wonder if the Chinese Government’s biggest miscalculation was blocking out media. I’m sure many will accuse me of being naive or brainwashed, but I think my record of criticizing China when necessary speaks for itself. When I see a government, be it mine, or others, doing wrong, I speak out. Yet, in this case, it seems like China was so afraid about what might be reported, that they hid a truth that was less bad than reports would indicate.

From afar people expected the worst. And it’s entirely possible that things are really as bad as being portrayed. However, I wonder if foreign media would be reporting more favorably if they had access to the areas. There have been reports of guns being fired, but what else would you expect when people are looting and rioting? People have said that TWCers have been beaten, but there has not been any context. It is nearly impossible to get proper perspective on what is happening.

And if the Western media has been wrong, if the reports have incorrectly condemned China, I point a finger not at the journalists trying to get the story right, but instead at the Chinese Government, which has stopped reporters from seeing the truth, whatever it may be. I find the reports that China has responded responsibly credit. But without a proper means to verify them, I remain extremely skeptical.

It as almost as if China does not trust itself to act responsibly. The country is afraid of what it is capable of doing, because the leadership knows what has happened in the past all too well. And in this mistrust of itself, China is unable to escape from its past and embrace its future.

I am in no position to calculate the propriety of China’s response to the recent developments in TWC. However, I am certain that the country will never escape its past if it cannot trust itself to react responsibly under the watch of a concerned international community. How can a country expect the world to see China differently if it still sees itself through the same old lens?