Nick Kristof’s Arrogant Idiocy

Regular readers of Tibet Will Be Free know that New York Times columnist Nick Kristof has a long history of wankery when it comes to his writing on Tibet and China. Kristof is a Sinophile through and through — he is married to a Chinese woman and spends a significant amount of time in China every year — but lately Kristof has declared himself the Self-Appointed Negotiator and Moderator of the solution to the Tibet question. I don’t know why he’s decided to do this, I suppose to appear Serious and Reasonable, but I try to avoid divining the intentions of opinion columnists when they find themselves on thought experiments on serious matters.

Anyway, Kristof’s column this weekend related to China, but avoided the subject of Tibet. Instead Kristof tells the world about his Daring Adventure applying for a permit to protest in a “protest zone” inside Beijing (but nowhere near Olympic venues). Not shockingly, Kristof fails, but in so doing he displays some of the highest order arrogance I have ever seen a columnist display in print on any subject ever. Kristof glosses over the fact that at least six petitioners have been arrested or disappeared, going so far as to praise the Chinese security forces for duping people (with an assist from the I.O.C.) into admitting they are people the PRC would want to silence. Kristof fails to mention that foreigners weren’t allowed to protest in the first place as he engages in his worthless experiment. Worst of all, he takes the fact that no petitions are being approved, a fact that speaks only to the Chinese authorities new-found public relations savvy, and states that all of this shows that China is magically going in the right direction.

Kristof invites his readers to comment on his column and last night I took the opportunity. Here’s what I wrote in response:

Mr. Kristof -

Your glibness about the fact that Chinese petitioners imprisoned and disappeared for taking the Chinese authorities at their word that protests would be permitted is truly sickening. You gloss over the fact that BOCOG and the Chinese government made a P.R. move by announcing the existence of these protest zones. Yet not only do you casually admit that that Chinese security are arresting petitioners, you (ironically???) praise them for doing so when you write:

“What I didn’t realize is that Public Security has arrested at least a half-dozen people who have shown up to apply for protest permits. Public Security is pretty shrewd. In the old days it had to go out and catch protesters in the act. Now it saves itself the bother: would-be protesters show up at Public Security offices to apply for permits and are promptly detained. That’s cost-effective law enforcement for you.”

You then go on to fail in getting a permit for your inane protest. despite reports at the time of the announcement of this policy that protests were *for Chinese citizens only* and would not be granted to foreigners, your column never mentions it.

How can any reasonable human being, let alone a columnist at the paper of record, look at a situation where (1) petitioners are arrested for applying for a permit and (2) a foreign columnist fails to attain one and say “In coming months…we will see some approvals granted”? You are speculating and praising things that not only have not yet occurred, but the opposite has occurred.

The Chinese government has used the Olympics to whitewash their human rights record and the “protest zones” were one piece of that. Mr. Kristof, you yourself are now whitewashing the atrocity that is this “protest zone” ploy. You, sir, are now complicit in whatever happens to the “at least a half-dozen people who have shown up to apply for protest permits.”

You should be ashamed of yourself. I hope the Public Editor of the Times is reading these comments and I hope your work will undergo intense internal scrutiny. This is truly sickening, depraved work Mr. Kristof. Shame on you.

— Posted by F.X. Leach