The emergence of China as an economic superpower

Seems like I have a lot of catching up to do. After going on an Easter trip (minimal exposure to CNN) and peering into an introductory course on drop shipping, I saw 100 people dead in Lhasa. Yes, the violence has passed its climax and shops are returning to their day-to-day operations (even tourists are seen running around), but there is a deeper issue at hand. Perhaps what both sides (being Beijing and Dharamsala) said in this propaganda war isn't necessarily correct, but the angry Tibetan mobs should take the blame this time around, not to mention how the western media is continuously skewed in their favor.

The uprising in Lhasa is moot. We saw people wielding swords (see picture), lamas performing flying kicks into a door, and a Han motorcyclist punched off his bike for no reason (or for the reason that he was watching the mob from afar). All that is captured on Youtube for non-Chinese viewers. What is not moot and remains a heated debate on the internet is the propaganda war between the two sides. It used to be Beijing versus Dalai Lama in Round 1, when DL began preaching for peace, a peace that Beijing accused DL of dissolving into violence to capture the Olympic moment (it worked; one Thai Olympic torch bearer said she would refuse the prestige to send a strong message to Beijing about Tibet. Not sure if Beijing got that message though).

Then came the unexpected, or the expected, depending on how you look at it. Western media, as usual, portray Lhasa monks as the victims and the abused (even going so far as to use Nepalese monk riot pictures to pose as Tibetan-monks-under-abuse-by-Chinese-police pictures). Apparently that wasn't okay for long. Before another wave of Tibetan propaganda was sent through western media airwaves, Chinese and overseas Chinese sent this clear message: Tibet has been a part of Chinese history since the beginning of time (the span of European and American history speaking). So began the new war front: CNN versus 1.3 billion Chinese people. What began as an innocuous picture on a CNN news article was found to be the most damming propaganda of all: a horde of angry rioters throwing stones were cropped out of a picture involving military trucks and burning cars. Now it's just burning cars and deadly military trucks. How convenient. As an added bonus, netizens slammed Nancy Pelosi for meeting the Dalai Lama and giving a warm, loving speech for a free Tibet.

Seems like no one knows what everyone is talking about anymore.