The Chinese state-controlled media, Xinhua, reported that a seminar was held on 18 December to celebrate the 20th anniversary of "China's Tibet", "an important Tibet-related magazine" in the Communist's Tibeten Autonomous region (TAR). But every page of the magazine is filled with the twenty years' propaganda and censorship put in place by the Chinese Communist Party.
The so-called "China's Tibet", a Chinese political tool first published in 1989, puts forth a paper edition in Chinese, Tibetan and English, as well as an electronic magazine in Chinese and English. "The magazine was issued in more than 180 countries and regions," Xinhua claimed.
A thorough investigation by world media over the last 60 years has demonstrated the news agency Xinhua's involvement in the Chinese Communist Party's system of propaganda and censorship. There is a Tibetan saying for the Chinese media's propaganda, "welcome China and crazy world."
The Internet is more heavily monitored, censored and manipulated in all parts of Tibet than in other Chinese provinces. Several bloggers and other Internet users were arrested and sentenced in Tibet in 2009, charged for posting articles on the Internet, writing books, looking at online photos of the Tibetan flag and His Holiness the Dalai Lama, inciting separatism and "communicating outside the country" for sending emails, photos and SMS messages about Tibet-related issues, including the March 2008 protests in Tibet.
Affirming its authority, the TAR government this month celebrated the 20th anniversary of "China's Tibet's" publication with fireworks and military parades. But there remains a need to evaluate the past decades of the Chinese media's bias, in the name of the Tibetan people's basic right to be truthfully informed.
