[1999] CIA’s War Against China

by Ralph McGehee, December 1999

The US has again asked the UN to condemn China’s human rights record. Our nervousness over this issue is increased by the scheduled reversion of Hong Kong to Chinese rule next year. The condemnation request has been accompanied by a barrage of media stor ies about China’s treatment of orphans, the Laogai prison system, the lack of political freedom and other issues. Observers of international political developments will recognize such stories as the standard accompaniment of operations by the CIA/NED to alter or overthrow target governments. The US corporate-owned media, in league with government agencies, orchestrate media coverage to demonize states in conflict with corporate plans. (Many of the media stories seem to be generated by the “privately funded” US-based Human Rights Watch/Asia). Once and if the Chinese government is changed and serves well the corporate state, even if any abuses multiply — we will hear no protest.

CIA’s War Against China
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Tibet: The CIA’s Cancelled War

Tibet: The CIA’s Cancelled War

However there was one dramatic departure from the minimalist approach. For nearly two decades after the 1950 Chinese takeover of Tibet, the CIA ran a covert operation designed to train Tibetan insurgents and gather intelligence about the Chinese, as part of its efforts to contain the spread of communism around the world. Though little known today, the program produced at least one spectacular intelligence coup and provided a source of support for the Dalai Lama. On the eve of Richard Nixon’s historic 1972 meeting with Mao, the program was abruptly cancelled, thus returning the US to its traditional arms-length policy toward Tibet. But this did not end the long legacy of mistrust that continues to color Chinese-American relations. Not only was the Chinese government aware of the CIA program; in 1992 it published a white paper on the subject. The paper included information drawn from reliable Western sources about the agency’s activities, but laid the primary blame for the insurgency on the “Dalai Lama clique,” a phrase Beijing still uses today.