The carrot nearly always beats the stick; lessons in how to win the Tibet PR game

By Hugh Jorgen

I'm no angel; my parents will regrettably attest to that. Taking the family car out for a late-night joy ride when I was 12 years old and getting caught by the cops was probably one of the higher profile moments of my childhood that will forever exclude me from owning my own pair of wings. But if I had to describe myself as either a bad boy or a nice guy, I guess I'd have to put a tentative checkmark in the box next to the latter. So I was somewhat heartened to come across this article on a Harvard University study. This is another one of those "human nature" experiments that tests our innate tendencies toward niceness or nastiness, punishment or rewards. In this particular experiment, researcher Howard Nowak focused on human behavior in brinkmanship-style situations. Essentially, his findings indicate that punishment by adversaries may not be as effective as incentives. More interestingly, adversaries who lean toward offering incentives tend to get what they want. In other words, nice guys do finish first.

It's with this tiny bit of scientific enlightenment that I dare to draw a parallel with the current Tibet conflict in an attempt to glimpse the big picture. In this case, the game would be the "Court of Public Opinion" and the players are obviously native Tibetans vs. the Chinese government. In my humble opinion, regardless of what the magnitude of these protests is or the reason behind them, the Chinese government has lost this round. There are plenty of deep-seated, historical reasons for the protests and the debate continues about who the real victims are. But in a wider context, the reasons for the unrest may not be as important right now as the results of it. The reality is that the damage has been done. Those results, and the opinions and sentiments of the international community, stem, in large part, from credibility - and China's central government has been running low on that for a long time.

Credibility is something that takes a long time to earn, and, like trust, can be lost in an instant. But credibility, and having more of it than your adversary, comes in extremely handy in the court of public opinion. It can make the difference in swaying public opinion in your favor. The Dalai Lama, for instance, has for decades built up vast amounts of international credibility. For starters, he does not and never has advocated violence. He is charismatic and inspirational. He is a man of peace and compassion whose message of mutual respect has been embraced by people and governments from around the world. He welcomes other points of view. He does not seek independence for Tibet. He has repeatedly stated he only seeks a degree of autonomy for Tibet. The Dalai Lama meets with world leaders and average people regularly and - more importantly- he speaks to them in words and language they can understand.

By contrast, the Chinese government is afraid of words. It believes words can somehow lead to destabilizing its grip on power, and as such, it expends colossal amounts of energy and resources to control words. The evidence of this fear is endless. Youtube is blocked, website access is squeezed, foreign reporters are barred from Tibet, and international news broadcasts are censored incessantly. But it goes well beyond just suppressing freedom of speech. It relentlessly propagates its own message through state-run media. Whether it's protests in Tibet or the recent snow job during the spring festival, the message is always the same and always one-sided: the government is in control and the government is doing a wonderful job of looking after the welfare of the Chinese people. Several of my younger Chinese friends, who come from various regions of China, tell me younger generations are becoming increasingly disaffected by what they call empty words from their government. For historical reasons, they say, Chinese leaders have always felt compelled to consistently preach morality to the people. The problem is the message has never been updated and it no longer resonates with large segments of the population. One friend recently told me that the inability of the government to speak to and connect with the people is leading to an ever-widening chasm between Chinese leaders and the younger generations. To achieve the same old predictable message in English, state-run media like Xinhua and CCTV consistently roll out a dusty old basket of archaic phrases. Chris Obrien, a former Xinhua editor, has written a great piece on the garbled language that is constantly churned out by state-run agencies.

This political terminology even has a Chinese name: ti fa. "Unswervingly promoting a moderately prosperous society", "deepening trust in an all-round way", "extending bilateral cooperation for win-win results", and "vowing to strengthen strategic ties with country X" are vague, stiff phrases that are rolled out daily on the propaganda conveyor belt. They sound important, but really don't mean anything.

Let's be clear: every government does propaganda. But there is a difference between effectively controlling the message, and floating out the same old crap. In this case, the PR folks in the central government could use a refresher course on getting their message out to the international community in the 21st century. Wagging your finger at a deeply religious man who has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and is looked up to by billions of people and trying to convince the world that he is the nefarious mastermind of a "clique" that was instrumental in promoting unrest in his homeland is absolutely pointless. In fact, it makes you look foolish. And how was this menacing "Dalai clique" conjured up? Has the Dalai Lama, as the central government would have us believe, been parading around a Beverly Hills mall with a bunch of valley girls saying things like "That's sooo whatever"? The bottom line is when you try to feed the world and your own people the same old tired one-sided lines, sooner or later most everyone catches on and changes the channel. Bye bye credibility. So when an inevitable crisis comes along and the foreign media smells blood, who are you going to believe? The Nobel Peace Prize winner or the folks who are unswervingly vowing to suppress other points of view, in an all round way? My guess is the score in this latest round is Dalai Lama 1, Chinese central government 0.

The solution to these recurring dilemmas is to start allowing more access to both sides of the story - and there will always be more than one side of the story. If a thinking person doesn't get more than one side of the story, the reaction will always be one of suspicion about the messenger. Stop looking like you have something to hide. If you look like you have something to hide, you probably do. Take your itchy trigger finger off that censor button. In the case of Tibet, open up a dialogue with the indigenous people to find out what they need beyond a flashy new railway and flush toilets. (Had Serbians done a better job of this earlier, cartographers could put their markers and maps back in their desks). Instead of expending vast amounts of energy on trying to convince the world there is no problem in Tibet, use that energy to preempt the inevitable flare-ups. Stop demonizing their spiritual leader and learn what it will take to the ease this simmering resentment. And while you're at it, start talking with the Dalai Lama. He's not such a bad guy. More importantly, he's got international credibility - and he's nice.

It's important to note that the Harvard study focused on individuals, not countries, ethnic groups or governments, but it is not unreasonable to extrapolate the wider implications of this study. As the study's co-author, David Rand, notes from the results: "In general, the thing that is most, sort of, rational and best for your own self-interest is to be nice." That's the kind of message anyone could believe.

Hugh Jorgen works in Chinese state-run media. Zhongnanhai welcomes submissions at cam@zhongnanhaiblog.com.