Nov. 3 – China flexed its diplomatic muscles in Bangladesh on Monday, persuading the authorities to close a photo exhibit on Tibet.
The exhibit, “Tibet 1949-2009″ was forcibly closed by police in Dhaka following complaints by Chinese embassy officials over the exhibition which was organized by the Students for a Free Tibet.
“We were scheduled to open on Sunday, but the police didn’t allow us inside,” Shahidul Alam, the curator of the exhibition told Agence France-Presse. “Chinese embassy officials had earlier come to meet me and requested (that we) cancel the show.”
Armed Bangladeshi police barricaded the gallery to prevent admission. The organizers instead held protests on the streets claiming outrage that “a foreign governments influence is determining what can and cannot be shown in an independent gallery in a democratic country.”
Alam alleges that he received offers of assistance and collaborative projects with China if he canceled the exhibition. Upon refusing to do so, his gallery website had been hacked into and defaced, and he had received “threatening” phone calls.
“That a democratic government took such a heavy-handed approach because of sensitivity to a foreign government’s whims is disgusting,” he told DNA.
The Dalai Lama is also due to visit the Tawang Monastery next week, just a few hundred yards from the current Indian border with Tibet in moves that are likely to spur further confrontation with China.
Another blatant example of China bullying independent countries. And a clear example of the imperialist mindset of the gang of thugs (Chinese Communist Party) that governs China.
I must say it doesn’t look good does it. If the statements of bribery are true then the Chinese Embassies around the world seem prepared to be corruptive and subversive to promote their national agendas. There have been similar worrying incidents in New Zealand, Australia and Germany recently. That isn’t diplomacy. I hope China begins to reign in such behavior from their foreign missions.