World Tibet Network News Thursday, April 23, 1998

The New York Times Friday, April 17, 1998

By MARK LANDLER

HONG KONG -- Apple Computer, the self-styled rebel of the American computer industry, has removed images of the Dalai Lama from an advertising campaign in Asia for fear of offending China. Apple has used Tibet's exiled spiritual leader in the United States, where he appears as one of a series of revolutionary figures from politics, academia, culture and business. But he will be conspicuously absent from Apple's ads here, which will feature Muhammad Ali, Mohandas Gandhi, AlfredHitchcock, Pablo Picasso and Amelia Earhart. "Where there are political sensitivities, we did not want to offend anyone," said Sue Sara, a spokeswoman for Apple's Asia-Pacific division in Sydney, Australia. "We needed to decide on images that were appropriate across the region." Sara said the Chinese government had not put pressure on Apple to leave the Dalai Lama out of its advertising. But she added, "Our management here is Chinese, so we're pretty aware of the sensitivities." The Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959 after the Chinese army p

ut down anuprising there, leaving thousands dead, laying waste to Buddhist monasteries and forcing monks to flee. China annexed the secluded country and has kept firm control since. The Dalai Lama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 for his nonviolent efforts to regain some autonomy for Tibet, remains a potent symbol of resistance to Chinese oppression. Apple's decision drew a tart response from the Dalai Lama's spokesman in London, who said the Tibetan leader had given the company permission to use his image around the world and had not been told that it would not be used in the Chinese campaign. "It is unfortunate that they see an advantage in using him selectively, "said Tseten Samdup, the spokesman for the Dalai Lama. "Obviously, it has to do with not offending China, which is such a huge market for them." In fact, mainland China is now a tiny market for Apple. The company, whichis based in Cupertino, Calif., shipped just over 10,000 Macintosh and Notebook computers to the country in 1997, according t

o Dataquest, a technology-market research company in Hong Kong.

That compares with 170,000 personal computers shipped by IBM, the largest non-Chinese supplier. But the overall Chinese market generated 2.2 million shipments of personal computers in 1997, mostly by domestic manufacturers, according to Dataquest. So there is plenty of room for Apple to grow. Apple's ad campaign, which just began running on television and inmagazines and newspapers here, is not directed at mainland China. But it is running in regional publications like Time and Fortune magazines and the Asian Wall Street Journal, which are distributed on the mainland. The campaign plays on Apple's carefully honed image as an upstart thumbing its nose at the computer establishment. An early television commercial showed black-and-white images of famous figures, as the narrator, the actor Richard Dreyfuss, intoned: "Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes. Because the people who arecrazy enough to think they can change the world usually do." The p

rint ads feature the image of a single person, with the slogan "Think Different." So far, in the United States, Apple has used everyone from the media mogul Ted Turner to the jazz musician Miles Davis. The Dalai Lama began appearing in ads in January and is on the back cover of the current issue of Time. Apple has given conflicting responses since its decision not to use the Dalai Lama was first reported in The South China Morning Post on Monday. Acompany executive initially said Apple wanted people who were more recognizable in the region than the Dalai Lama. But that explanation seemed far-fetched, given its plans to use Amelia Earhart, who is hardly a householdname here. On Tuesday, Apple acknowledged that the company's decision had little to do with the Tibetan leader's recognition factor. He has been a well-known figure in Asia for years, with one public-opinion pollster in Hong Kong estimatingthat fewer than 20 percent of Hong Kong residents did not know of him. In Apple's case, the decision to excise

the Dalai Lama will have little effect on its overall campaign. Samdup, the Tibetan leader's spokesman, said the Dalai Lama would not ask to be removed from Apple's ads in the United States. He said the religious and political leader was not paid for the use of his likeness, though some Tibetan organizations may receive donations of computer equipment from the company. Still, the decision has symbolic importance for Apple, which has use devocative advertising to cultivate the image of a corporate underdog taking on industry titans like IBM. "The Dalai Lama really stands for our message in the United States," said an Apple spokeswoman in the United States, Rhona Hamilton. "But in China, hemay not get across the message that Apple is trying to send."