The Vajra Parrot Squawks!

The new Wikileaks disclosures give a fascinating, behind-the-scenes glimpse at things Tibetan. Indeed, out of 250,000 confidential cables, the Guardian newspaper compiled the following stats:

- 198 of the cables have the word “Tibet” as a part of their subject,
- 134 have “Tibetan” in the subject header,
- 41 contain the word “Tibetans,”
- 144 contain the word “Dalai,”
- 133 contain the word “Lama,”
- and 26 cables mention “Lhasa.”

In addition, 1,145 of the cables contain the word “Tibet” in their contents,
- 828 contain “Tibetan,”
- 776 cables contain the word “Dalai,”
- whilst 1,346 contain “Lama.”

The leaks seem to confirm that the Beijing Politburo control a hacking unit known as Ghostnet, which targets both the US Government, Google and the Dalai Lama (to name but a few).

Some interesting, Tibet-related tidbits follow ...

When Paris announced that it was going to make the Dalai Lama an honorary citizen, Beijing threatened to withdraw its sister city status in protest (however Paris went ahead regardless - bless the French - and Beijing didn't make good on its childish hissy fit).

Beijing also threatened the German government with similar dire retributions (as if anyone would even care about whether a Chinese city is twinned with it or not) when the Dalai Lama made visits there. None of these threats were carried out.

Beijing had some success with the Korean government, however, which cancelled a public lecture the Dalai Lama had planned to give on Cheju Island several years ago.

More relevant to us Brits, Beijing had tried to work their magic on the UK government, initially demanding that the Dalai Lama's visit be cancelled, but then backpedalling and asking only that government officials didn't meet His Holiness.

So what can we gain from this information? Clearly the subject of Tibet, given the amount of content mentioned earlier, is still a very real diplomatic issue and, for the "People's" Republic of China, very much a thorn in their side. Yet again, the childish posturing and temper-tantrums of the PRC, and its petulant demands that other nations dance to its tune, dominate. But then, we didn't need Wikileaks to show us that, did we?