china colonising tibet

[queennzinga]

as an anti-imperialist (a fairly new one but learning albiet) i fully support china and their rising economy and see their progress as a direct challenge to the western worlds hegemony. i dont mean to be all liberal/lefty, this is fully in the context of an anti imperialist, how do we then justify their occupation of tibet? i feel a bit torn about where i stand and when people ask me this i cant find a reasonable answer

[The CPSU Chairman]

as an anti-imperialist (a fairly new one but learning albiet) i fully support china and their rising economy

China is a Capitalist state and Chinese workers are some of the most exploited in the world. The only people seeing much benefit from this rising economy are the Chinese capitalist class, as in any other Capitalist state in the world.


and see their progress as a direct challenge to the western worlds hegemony.

To leftists, it shouldn't matter whether a bourgeois power is in the West or the East. We're about workers' liberation, not about replacing one group of imperialists with another.


i dont mean to be all liberal/lefty,

1: Those aren't the same thing.
2: If you don't mean to be a leftist, a website catering specifically to the left seems like a strange place for you (not that i'm encouraging you to leave; by all means stay and learn).


this is fully in the context of an anti imperialist, how do we then justify their occupation of tibet? i feel a bit torn about where i stand and when people ask me this i cant find a reasonable answer

Complicated issue. There are a variety of opinions on it in the left. I personally have no interest in Tibetan independence myself. I don't think there's much of a basis for it. And I think the only thing it would really accomplish would be to cause Tibet to become just like what the Soviet republics of Central Asia became for example. Obviously national liberation movements are often relevant to the left, but I don't think Tibet is really one of those cases. That's just my personal opinion of course. Sometimes so-called national struggles are really nothing more than a distraction from the thing we leftists should mainly be focusing on: class struggle.

Also, I don't think there's really any "colonization" going on in Tibet. If there is, it must be the most half-assed colonization in history. I just recently looked at Tibet's demographics and it's like 92% ethnic Tibetan, and only about 4% Han. Considering there are only about 2 or 3 million people in all of Tibet, fewer people than you'd find in a single major (or even minor) Chinese city, it seems to me that if China wanted to colonize Tibet and make it Han-majority, it could accomplish it in about a year, never mind the 60 years it's taken so far.

Don't get me wrong, i'm not defending the Chinese government. As I said it's just another bourgeois state now, and in fact it's one of the world's most repulsive governments as far as i'm concerned. I also don't give a damn about whether Tibet is historically Chinese or not (although that was the rationale in 1951, as Tibet was regarded as basically another part of fractured China that Mao was trying to reunify), which is something leftists shouldn't be concerned about but a lot of people seem to get bogged down on. I just don't think there's really a basis for Tibetan independence, or any kind of campaign on the part of Beijing to turn it into a Han colony (if there was, i'd support independence). And frankly, I think Tibet, as things are, is better off as part of China than it would be as an independent state. Even with the way things are there right now.

[manic expression]

It's not an occupation, Tibet is one of the many nations recognized and supported by the People's Republic of China. The liberation of Tibet from feudalism has uplifted the Tibetan people from serfdom and theocracy, established key rights and even privileges for the people of Tibet, improved the lives of all Tibetans and defended the nation from imperialist meddling.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

It's not an occupation, Tibet is one of the many nations recognized and supported by the People's Republic of China. The liberation of Tibet from feudalism has uplifted the Tibetan people from serfdom and theocracy, established key rights and even privileges for the people of Tibet, improved the lives of all Tibetans and defended the nation from imperialist meddling.

The problem with this viewpoint is that it reduces it to a choice between Feudalism and Chinese authoritarian Capitalism. It may have been such a stark choice in 1950, but in 2012 a lot has changed. Tibet has changed, and so have the Tibetans. It has more links with the outside world, economic and cultural alike. And it has become more and more obvious that China's commitment to Socialism is at best dubious, at worst an outright lie and propaganda designed to keep the internal left in check. The reduction of the whole problem to Feudalism-vs-Maoism overlooks the modern complaints which Tibetans are making and basically ignores most of their arguments as well as overlooking the current nature of the PRC. Certainly, if modern Leftists have their suspicions about the real nature of the PRC, why should we be surprised that Tibetans are skeptical themselves?

The biggest thing is that it is a reductionistic account of Tibetan history and whatnot. It was not some evil theocratic conspiracy that made Tibet a backwards serfdom, but technologically limited means of production and isolation from the world entrenched by its geographical remoteness.

It should also be noted that the paternalistic arguments used in favor of the PRC's occupation of Tibet are the same used in favor of the USA's occupation of Afghanistan and other Imperialist adventures around the world. The "need" to modernize some "backward" society by force is always a convenient pretext for an occupation.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Ought not the people of Tibet have some say about their status? The Chinese Communist party is a top-down dictatorial institution and its policies toward Tibet are a classic example of why we must advocate for workers' democracy, not a dictatorship of a single vanguard party.

[Ocean Seal]

We don't support China, we don't support Tibet.
We carefully assess the situation and realize several things
1. The Dali Lama is basically a feudal theocrat
2. He/the nationalist movement in Tibet isn't interested in national liberation
3. China isn't exactly turning Tibet into a client state in the same way that it has turned NK, parts of Southeast Asia and Africa into client states.

Pretty much the end result is that China is bad and repressive and we should organize everyone from Tibet to Beijing against China, but that the case of Tibet is not one of national liberation.

[Ostrinski]

as an anti-imperialist (a fairly new one but learning albiet) i fully support china and their rising economy and see their progress as a direct challenge to the western worlds hegemony.If you are an anti-imp then you are anti-Chinese. Speaking in terms of ideological consistency, how do you go about supporting a state that enforces capital expansion while at the same time supporting states that resist capital expansion? You've got to work out the kinks. I advise tanking anti-imperalism. We don't oppose the western world nor support the eastern world, we oppose capital and support labor.


i dont mean to be all liberal/lefty, this is fully in the context of an anti imperialist, how do we then justify their occupation of tibet? i feel a bit torn about where i stand and when people ask me this i cant find a reasonable answerWe don't oppose nor support China's dealings with Tibet. Nor do we support/oppose some sort of Tibetan national liberation struggle as neither involve the class struggle.

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

I absolutely hate when people in the West (particularly liberals) worship the Dalai Lama as this univeral symbol of peace and democracy. He only wants to return to Tibet to reestablish a theocracy with all the privileges and power for himself, yet he talks so much about happiness and peace. He wants happiness for himself and peace for his theocracy. I do not like the People's Republic of China, but I particularly despise the Dalai Lama and all the liberals that worship him. They need to get their heads out of their asses and stop thinking about the Dalai Lama's Tibet as this place where everyone will be the most happiest and free person on the planet. The Dalai Lama is not this magical drug dealer that will take everyone's problems away.

[Regicollis]

In my view the only people qualified to make decisions for Tibet are the Tibetans themselves. Not the lamas, not the Chinese, not the liberals who romanticise pre-occupation Tibet.

My hope is that the Tibetans will get their own democratic society where they can decide over their own resources and practice their culture freely.

As for the Dalai Lama he is truly representing a medieval institution but the vast majority of Tibetans are Buddhists and to them the Dalai Lama is an important figure. I also don't think the Dalai Lama has the wish nor the ability to turn Tibet back to its feudal state if he were one day to return. He would at most be a figure head.

[gorillafuck]

He only wants to return to Tibet to reestablish a theocracy with all the privileges and power for himself, yet he talks so much about happiness and peace. He wants happiness for himself and peace for his theocracy.that clearly wouldn't be the result of Tibet gaining independence.

[Red Rabbit]

So much misinformation in this thread.

Thanks to the (current) Dalai Lama, Tibet was undergoing some major reforms to make it a more democratically run state and radically decreasing the power that religious officials had.

However, China came in and decided to fuck everything up by declaring the Dalai Lama a "tyrant" and that there were going to "liberate" Tibet by installing a new authoritarian government.

Sounds a little like another country that can't mind its own business, don't you think?

[gorillafuck]

It's not an occupation, Tibet is one of the many nations recognized and supported by the People's Republic of China. The liberation of Tibet from feudalism has uplifted the Tibetan people from serfdom and theocracy, established key rights and even privileges for the people of Tibet, improved the lives of all Tibetans and defended the nation from imperialist meddling.I thought the PSL sided with the USSR over China?:confused:

[l'Enfermé]

The 14th Dalai Lama calls himself a "Half-Marxist, Half-Buddhist". The whole issue is more complicated than some here pretend it is.


A: Of all the modern economic theories, the economic system of Marxism is founded on moral principles, while capitalism is concerned only with gain and profitability. Marxism is concerned with the distribution of wealth on an equal basis and the equitable utilization of the means of production. It is also concerned with the fate of the working classes--that is, the majority--as well as with the fate of those who are underprivileged and in need, and Marxism cares about the victims of minority-imposed exploitation. For those reasons the system appeals to me, and it seems fair. I just recently read an article in a paper where His Holiness the Pope also pointed out some positive aspects of Marxism.
As for the failure of the Marxist regimes, first of all I do not consider the former USSR, or China, or even Vietnam, to have been true Marxist regimes, for they were far more concerned with their narrow national interests than with the Workers' International; this is why there were conflicts, for example, between China and the USSR, or between China and Vietnam. If those three regimes had truly been based upon Marxist principles, those conflicts would never have occurred.


The failure of the regime in the former Soviet Union was, for me, not the failure of Marxism but the failure of totalitarianism. For this reason I still think of myself as half-Marxist, half-Buddhist.


That is not to say that I admire or support the Dalai Lama or those that struggle for Tibetan independence on religious grounds. And that is not to say that the Chinese occupation of Tibet destroyed the unprecedentedly brutal feudalism that existed in Tibet at the time, but it should be obvious to everyone that at this point, the occupation of Tibet by the PRC has no progressive characteristics.

We should be for a free Tibet - but a free Tibet without the Dalai Lama or the Buddhist clergy.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

The Dalai Lama's claims to be Marxist are interesting and can be seen in a number of ways. While he is right that Marxism is a more moral and just system, he seems to miss a critical part of Marxist analysis which is that Marx wanted to justify his system in economic laws and not morality or a notion or justice. However, like the liberation theologians of the Catholic church, it should not be any surprise that a religious person focuses more on "idealist" themes like the moral component of Communism.

He also claims to be fighting for Tibetan autonomy and local democracy, and not independence. In other words, it is a Red Herring to argue that the Tibetan Exiles or the Dalai Lama in specific is asking for a return to the feudal system which existed 62 years ago. If the Tibetan Exiles are all lying and really do intend to impose an archaic system of government, there's really not a lot of evidence.



And that is not to say that the Chinese occupation of Tibet destroyed the unprecedentedly brutal feudalism that existed in Tibet at the time,

Tibet was no more brutal of a feudal country than any other feudal country. It merely retained some of the uglier aspects of Feudal justice at a much later date than others because of its social and economic isolation. However the material conditions in Tibet means that the feudalism is not coming back. Thus I don't see how it is particularly "unprecedented". For instance, in Feudal Japan under Tokugawa, Samurai had the right to kill a peasant if that Samurai felt the peasant had disrespected him in any way, shape or form. Feudalism is almost always brutal.

Remember that feudalism is grounded in the means of production, and while it has correlating ideological beliefs, the cruelty which exists in feudalism is not one based in ill-will towards the peasants but the scarcity of a primitive economy mixed with unequal ownership over land.



We should be for a free Tibet - but a free Tibet without the Dalai Lama or the Buddhist clergy.There's nothing wrong with Buddhist monks or the Dalai Lama living in Tibet. Insofar as religion is an "opiate of the masses", until real socialism exists talking about a society "without" religion or a clergy is naive, likewise insofar as religion is an important cultural institution which connects them to the rest of their society or transcendent values. The problem is when monastic orders accrue political power or economic influence.



What's interesting now is how quick the Chinese government is to try to slander or impugn the motives of anybody protesting against their system. The self-immolations are a result of China's refusal to let the Tibetans discuss the issue of independence freely amongst themselves.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/07/tibetan-immolators-outcasts-criminals-china


Tibetan self-immolators are outcasts, criminals and mentally ill, claims China

Dalai Lama accused of manipulating and supporting Tibetans who set themselves on fire in protest against Chinese rule

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/About/General/2012/3/7/1331113569043/Wu-Zegang-007.jpg Wu Zegang, head of Aba prefecture in Sichuan, blamed the Dalai Lama for a spate of self-immolations by Tibetans. The exiled Buddhist leader has said he does not encourage such protests against Chinese rule. Photograph: Andy Wong/AP

Chinese officials have sought to discredit Tibetans who set themselves on fire in protest (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/protest) at China (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/china)'s rule over their region, calling them outcasts, criminals and mentally ill people manipulated by the exiled Dalai Lama (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/dalailama).
"Some of the suicides are committed by clerics returning to lay life, and they all have criminal records or suspicious activities. They have a very bad reputation in society," Wu Zegang, an ethnic Tibetan who is Beijing's top administrator in Aba, Sichuan province, told reporters on Wednesday.
He said the self-immolations were "orchestrated and supported" by the Dalai Lama and Tibetan independence forces. He said that before setting themselves on fire, the immolators shouted "independence for Tibet (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/tibet) and other slogans that aim to divide the nation".
The Dalai Lama has said he does not encourage the self-immolations. However, Chinese officials have sought to portray the past year's wave of about two dozen immolations – including three since Saturday – as the result of outside orchestration rather than what activists say is local unrest over the government's suppression of Tibetan religion and culture.
Many of the protesters have been linked to a Buddhist monastery in the mountainous Aba prefecture.
The most recent immolations in Aba occurred just days ago. A 32-year-old mother of four set herself ablaze and died on Saturday and an 18-year-old identified only as Dorje died after self-immolating on Monday, according to earlier reports from the International Committee for Tibet and US broadcaster Radio Free Asia.
The official Xinhua news agency confirmed the immolation of another woman on Saturday in neighbouring Gansu province (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/07/tibet-woman-on-fire-china), but said the 20-year-old student may have been pushed to suicide because of pressure at school and a head injury.
China has confirmed some but not all of the approximately 25 immolations reported by overseas media and Tibetan rights advocates since last year, and there are competing tallies of immolations and deaths from different groups.
Li Changping, a member of the Communist party committee that governs Sichuan, who recently visited Aba and Ganzi prefecture in Sichuan, where several immolations have also been reported, said that "about 20 or so" people have set themselves on fire in Sichuan in the past two years.
Such acts show no signs of abating, even as China ratchets up security and seals off Tibetan areas to outsiders, making it impossible to know what is happening.
China blames supporters of the Dalai Lama for encouraging the self-immolations and anti-government protests that have led to the deaths of an unknown number of Tibetans at the hands of police.
The Dalai Lama has praised the courage of those who engage in self-immolation and has attributed the protests to what he calls China's "cultural genocide" in Tibet. But he also says he does not encourage the protests, noting that they could invite an even harsher crackdown.
Authorities have reportedly detained and forced into re-education classes hundreds of Tibetans who went to India to receive religious instruction from the Dalai Lama, who is accused by China of campaigning to split Tibet from the rest of China. The Dalai Lama says he is seeking only increased autonomy for Tibet.
China says it treats minority groups such as Tibetans fairly, and pours tens of billions of yuan into improving living conditions in their areas.
This is a sensitive time for Tibet, and for all of China. China's annual legislative session, a time when security is tightened across the country, began on Monday. March is also when Tibetans mark significant anniversaries, including that of the unsuccessful 1959 revolt that caused the Dalai Lama to flee, and deadly anti-government riots that rocked the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, in 2008.

[manic expression]

The problem with this viewpoint is that it reduces it to a choice between Feudalism and Chinese authoritarian Capitalism. It may have been such a stark choice in 1950, but in 2012 a lot has changed. Tibet has changed, and so have the Tibetans. It has more links with the outside world, economic and cultural alike. And it has become more and more obvious that China's commitment to Socialism is at best dubious, at worst an outright lie and propaganda designed to keep the internal left in check. The reduction of the whole problem to Feudalism-vs-Maoism overlooks the modern complaints which Tibetans are making and basically ignores most of their arguments as well as overlooking the current nature of the PRC. Certainly, if modern Leftists have their suspicions about the real nature of the PRC, why should we be surprised that Tibetans are skeptical themselves?
You might disagree with PRC policy until your face turns blue, it has little immediate consequence to the liberation of Tibet and the historical fact that Tibet is part of China.


The biggest thing is that it is a reductionistic account of Tibetan history and whatnot. It was not some evil theocratic conspiracy that made Tibet a backwards serfdom, but technologically limited means of production and isolation from the world entrenched by its geographical remoteness.I never said it was evil or conspiratorial, I implied it was an illegitimate theocracy that was maintaining medieval-esque rule and flirting with imperialist powers as a way to keep the Tibetan people separated from the other peoples of China. Geographical remoteness and limited means of production form no counterargument to the proponents of the liberation of Tibet.


It should also be noted that the paternalistic arguments used in favor of the PRC's occupation of Tibet are the same used in favor of the USA's occupation of Afghanistan and other Imperialist adventures around the world. The "need" to modernize some "backward" society by force is always a convenient pretext for an occupation.Except they aren't. Similarity in claims has no relevance, it's what's done and why that counts. At any rate, the US has rarely claimed to be a modernizing force per say, it's claimed to be a democratizing force, but most prominently in Afghanistan and in Iraq it's claimed self-defense. If you review Bush's speech on the eve of the invasion of Iraq, "freeing its people" comes very last in his list of objectives, and has come not at all in reality.

In Tibet, on the other hand, people were objectively freed from serfdom. That's an objective piece of progress that in and of itself distinguishes it as not only apart from but as the opposite of US imperialism.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

You might disagree with PRC policy until your face turns blue, it has little immediate consequence to the liberation of Tibet and the historical fact that Tibet is part of China.


Who the blazes decided that Tibet is a "historical part of China"? Ireland is a historical part of the UK, but as far as the Irish people were concerned, that historical claim was utterly meaningless. There is no such thing in the world as a people who are "naturally" or "historically" a member of one national grouping or another, on the contrary these national groupings are little more than social institutions. If most Tibetans do not associate with the Chinese government, then the Tibetans are not a "historical" part of China in any substantive way, just like when the Irish got sick of British arrogance, they kicked them out despite some 4 centuries of single government (with, it should be noted, help from German Imperialists!).



I never said it was evil or conspiratorial, I implied it was an illegitimate theocracy that was maintaining medieval-esque rule and flirting with imperialist powers as a way to keep the Tibetan people separated from the other peoples of China. Geographical remoteness and limited means of production form no counterargument to the proponents of the liberation of Tibet.
How was it an illegitimate theocracy, at least any more than any other government from the feudal era? Who made the Tibetans among the "peoples of China"? I think the declaration of Tibet being a historical part of China is no more legitimate than Tibet's demand for independence.

As for geographical remoteness, I was merely using it as a counter-argument to the notion that Tibet's feudalism was somehow uniquely the fault of a reactionary Buddhist clergy or because the Dalai Lama was some kind of greedy autocrat. However, what it DOES mean for the "liberation" of Tibet is that Chinese military intervention was in no, way, shape or form a necessary condition for Tibet's modernization. Basically, the notion that Tibet would not have modernized without PLA tanks driving down the streets of Lhasa is paternalistic towards Tibetans. What was needed was to break down the barrier between Tibet and the outside world. The Chinese invasion acted to break that barrier, however it's never the case that an outside invasion is the only way to open a society economically and socially, and that particular way of doing so had certain costs for the Tibetans which many in that community disapprove of.



Except they aren't. Similarity in claims has no relevance, it's what's done and why that counts. At any rate, the US has rarely claimed to be a modernizing force per say, it's claimed to be a democratizing force, but most prominently in Afghanistan and in Iraq it's claimed self-defense. If you review Bush's speech on the eve of the invasion of Iraq, "freeing its people" comes very last in his list of objectives, and has come not at all in reality.

In Tibet, on the other hand, people were objectively freed from serfdom. That's an objective piece of progress that in and of itself distinguishes it as not only apart from but as the opposite of US imperialism.Well, Tibet's serfdom was not removed overnight either. It took years of conflict and effort to do so. The USA can just say that its attempt to reform Afghanistan is merely hampered by logistics. Certainly, like during the Soviet invasion, parts of Afghanistan are seeing economic and social improvement. GDP growth was 8.5% in 2010 according to Wikipedia, which implies that Capitalism is coming in and growing roots there much as it did in Maoist Tibet * . However the point in both cases is that it assumes that foreigners are the only people with the capability of bringing revolution to a society, which is paternalistic, plain and simple.

As for the pretext of Bush and Mao, both used pretexts which had nothing at all to do with modernizing the feudal economy, etc. Mao said that all religion was reactionary and that the Chinese needed to come in and change that (the PRC later walked back from that and allow monks to practice their faith, but not freely), and he also used this red herring which you seem to be using that Tibet is somehow a "historical" part of China even though they speak a different language, have a different culture, and largely follow a different religion.

(* I obviously don't support the US war effort there, I'm merely trying to show how the logic is similar)

[manic expression]

Who the blazes decided that Tibet is a "historical part of China"? Ireland is a historical part of the UK, but as far as the Irish people were concerned, that historical claim was utterly meaningless. There is no such thing in the world as a people who are "naturally" or "historically" a member of one national grouping or another, on the contrary these national groupings are little more than social institutions. If most Tibetans do not associate with the Chinese government, then the Tibetans are not a "historical" part of China in any substantive way, just like when the Irish got sick of British arrogance, they kicked them out despite some 4 centuries of single government (with, it should be noted, help from German Imperialists!).
No, Ireland is an historical colony of the UK, and part of it still is. No one would argue that Ireland is part of England and Scotland, the two powers that merged to create Great Britain. Tibet, contrastingly, saw no such dynamic, it was a part of China since the Yuan Dynasty and showed an acceptance of that for centuries before the PRC even came into existence.


How was it an illegitimate theocracy, at least any more than any other theocratic government? Who made the Tibetans among the "peoples of China"? I think the declaration of Tibet being a historical part of China is no more legitimate than Tibet's demand for independence.It was illegitimate because it was a theocracy.

And if you do not recognize nationality as more than a "mere social institution", then why do you care if Tibet is independent or not?


As for geographical remoteness, I was merely using it as a counter-argument to the notion that Tibet's feudalism was somehow uniquely the fault of a reactionary Buddhist clergy. However, what it DOES mean for the "liberation" of Tibet is that Chinese military intervention was in no, way, shape or form a necessary condition for Tibet's modernization. Basically, the notion that Tibet would not have modernized without PLA tanks driving down the streets of Lhasa is paternalistic towards Tibetans.It was not uniquely the "fault" of any single group, but the clergy did attempt to perpetuate that state of affairs and therefore must be held responsible for their actions. The feudalists were never forced to take the course that they did, and so they get no excuse by being isolated or remote.

Perhaps the PRC intervention wasn't the only manner that Tibet could have been emancipated, but as it turned out, the liberation of Tibet proved to be what liberated the people of Tibet. Counterfactuals serve no purpose other than to distract us from that fact.


Well, Tibet's serfdom was not removed overnight either. It took years of conflict and effort to do so. The USA can just say that its attempt to reform Afghanistan is merely hampered by logistics. Certainly, like during the Soviet invasion, parts of Afghanistan are seeing economic and social improvement. GDP growth was 8.5% in 2010 according to Wikipedia, which implies that Capitalism is coming in and growing roots there much as it did in Maoist Tibet. However the point in both cases is that it assumes that foreigners are the only people with the capability of bringing revolution to a society, which is paternalistic, plain and simple.

As for the pretext of Bush and Mao, both used pretexts which had nothing at all to do with modernizing the feudal economy, etc. Mao said that all religion was reactionary and that the Chinese needed to come in and change that (the PRC later walked back from that and allow monks to practice their faith, but not freely), and he also used this red herring which you seem to be using that Tibet is somehow a "historical" part of China even though they speak a different language, have a different culture, and largely follow a different religion.GDP growth, to me, signifies very little other than the profit margins of the richest. The people of Tibet can point to real improvements in their social position, their daily lives and their access to the fundamentals of dignified human life. Can we say the same for Iraq and Afghanistan? I think not.

The arguments of the PRC are not paternalistic at all...I don't think it's ever been argued that the Tibetan people weren't capable of emancipating their country, but evidently they weren't able to at the time, and it's un-communist to sit there and say "oh well my sisters and brothers are being oppressed in a feudal society and I can help change it but I won't because that might be construed as paternalistic 60 years from now". The saying about changing the world and not always interpreting it comes to mind.

On religion, Buddhism is still regularly practiced in Tibet and monasteries are still running...if it was Mao's intention to destroy religion then he didn't do a very good job at it (as you alluded to). Tibetan language, culture and religion are all recognized, respected and supported by the PRC, as befitting any internationalist government.

Tibet speaks its own language and has its own culture and/or religion but so does Inner Mongolia, Canton, Shanghai, Xinjiang, Guangxi and dozens of other nationalities. China is far more than Han Chinese, to say otherwise would be to undermine a century's worth of internationalism on the part of the peoples of China.

[Tim Cornelis]

1. The Dali Lama is basically a feudal theocrat


I absolutely hate when people in the West (particularly liberals) worship the Dalai Lama as this univeral symbol of peace and democracy. He only wants to return to Tibet to reestablish a theocracy with all the privileges and power for himself, yet he talks so much about happiness and peace.

I absolutely hate it when people confuse the Dalai Lama of the 1950s with the contemporary Dalai Lama.

The Dalai Lama stepped down as the political leader and argues, consistently, in favour of democracy in Tibet.


Dalai Lama proclaims success of Tibetan democracy, hands over government duties to elected Tibetan leader

(http://www.savetibet.org/media-center/ict-press-releases/dalai-lama-proclaims-success-tibetan-democracy-hands-over-government-duties-elected-tibe )

Also, the Dalai Lama said:


"Of all the modern economic theories, the economic system of Marxism is founded on moral principles, while capitalism is concerned only with gain and profitability. Marxism is concerned with the distribution of wealth on an equal basis and the equitable utilisation of the means of production. It is also concerned with the fate of the working classes — that is, the majority — as well as with the fate of those who are underprivileged and in need, and Marxism cares about the victims of minority-imposed exploitation. For those reasons the system appeals to me, and it seems fair."

So now all Marxist-Leninists should advocate Tibetan independent for socialist national liberation.

[Grenzer]

as an anti-imperialist (a fairly new one but learning albiet) i fully support china and their rising economy and see their progress as a direct challenge to the western worlds hegemony. i dont mean to be all liberal/lefty, this is fully in the context of an anti imperialist, how do we then justify their occupation of tibet? i feel a bit torn about where i stand and when people ask me this i cant find a reasonable answer

So in other words, you plan on taking anti-imperialist action by supporting Chinese imperialism in hopes that China will replace the United States as the highest imperialist hegemon? Nice.

[Tim Cornelis]

In any case, supporting China for its "anti-imperialism" is beyond ridiculous. It is the rising new imperialist power actively pursuing a policy of land grabbing in Africa, exploiting workers in Peru (for example, I read a news report about how anti-imperialist slogans were now aimed at China rather than the US).

[ColonelCossack]

The Dalai Lama is a theocrat. And he's a feudalist. It might be worse than living in Iran if Tibet became independent with him as leader, possibly.

[Deicide]

Read my sig op (specifically the part in bold).

[Tim Cornelis]

The Dalai Lama is a theocrat. And he's a feudalist. It might be worse than living in Iran if Tibet became independent with him as leader, possibly.

Again, no he's not. He stepped down as political leader and now only fulfills a spiritual role (he has no political power), he also favours democracy. The government of Tibet (in exile) is democratic.

Y'all who's claiming the Dalai Lama is a feudal theocrat just be rationalising Chinese imperialism

[Grenzer]

Perhaps the PRC intervention wasn't the only manner that Tibet could have been emancipated, but as it turned out, the liberation of Tibet proved to be what liberated the people of Tibet. Counterfactuals serve no purpose other than to distract us from that fact.

Liberated them how? All it did was exchange the boot crushing them from a Tibetan one to a Chinese one. This was not "liberation." This is just rhetoric to justify imperialism and neocolonialism. Your rhetoric is really not that much different from that supporting US interventionism. I can already anticipate the absurd counter claim: "But China was internationalist!" The PRC was never internationalist, but nationalist from the beginning, even going so far as to side with the United States to advance their national interests.


GDP growth, to me, signifies very little other than the profit margins of the richest. The people of Tibet can point to real improvements in their social position, their daily lives and their access to the fundamentals of dignified human life. Can we say the same for Iraq and Afghanistan? I think not.

Why does this matter? This is no different than supporting reformism. You can also say that the universal health care programs of Western Europe improve the lives of the workers there, but you don't support that. Why? Because you're inconsistent. We should support movements that are socialist, if they aren't, then the gains are illusory.


The arguments of the PRC are not paternalistic at all...I don't think it's ever been argued that the Tibetan people weren't capable of emancipating their country, but evidently they weren't able to at the time, and it's un-communist to sit there and say "oh well my sisters and brothers are being oppressed in a feudal society and I can help change it but I won't because that might be construed as paternalistic 60 years from now". The saying about changing the world and not always interpreting it comes to mind.

Just as in the Afghanistan thread, you're supporting imperialism and racist paternalism again. You're essentially saying that the Tibetans were incapable of liberating themselves at any point, so they have to be "liberated" at the point of a gun. This is no different than the White Man's Burden. As Rafiq aptly pointed out, imperialism can often create problems worse than the ones it set out to solve. Also, using the "it's anti-communist to not support imperialism when it's done by a red flag" card again? I'm disappointed, but I can't say surprised.


On religion, Buddhism is still regularly practiced in Tibet and monasteries are still running...if it was Mao's intention to destroy religion then he didn't do a very good job at it (as you alluded to). Tibetan language, culture and religion are all recognized, respected and supported by the PRC, as befitting any internationalist government.

So I guess the destruction of dozens of temples was just collateral damage then?


Tibet speaks its own language and has its own culture and/or religion but so does Inner Mongolia, Canton, Shanghai, Xinjiang, Guangxi and dozens of other nationalities. China is far more than Han Chinese, to say otherwise would be to undermine a century's worth of internationalism on the part of the peoples of China.

China internationalist.... what a joke. They've always had a very racialist mindset and policy. Once again, those that support "national liberation" have been outed as paternalistic and nationalistic hypocrites, and supporters of imperialism in addition. Perhaps they could even be said to be third world chauvinists, since they seem to opportunistically oppose only that imperialism which originates in the West.

The Chinese acquisition of Tibet was not motivated by sentimentality. I daresay that this is "unmaterialist." They saw it as easy prey for their territorial and neocolonial ambitions, and they were right.

Ok lads, cue in the Sparts now. We know they are big fans of racist paternalism and imperialism as well.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

No, Ireland is an historical colony of the UK, and part of it still is. No one would argue that Ireland is part of England and Scotland, the two powers that merged to create Great Britain. Tibet, contrastingly, saw no such dynamic, it was a part of China since the Yuan Dynasty and showed an acceptance of that for centuries before the PRC even came into existence.


China held pretty much all of Asia as vassals to varying degrees at various points in history. Why are the claims of Imperialist China in any way legitimate in a modern context? Vietnam and Korea were also "parts" of the Chinese empire, yet that is not recognized today. And it's not like Tibet didn't have a large amount of autonomy at various points in history or outright independence, albeit as a vassal-state until the early 1900s. But that is all besides the point-these ancient claims really have no place in current discourse.



It was illegitimate because it was a theocracy.

And if you do not recognize nationality as more than a "mere social institution", then why do you care if Tibet is independent or not?
Theocracy is no more legitimate or illegitimate than any other form of state, especially autocratic ones. As for the issue of "social institutions", they are valuable insofar as the people themselves care for them or see a use for them. Nor am I arguing that Tibet should be "independent" or otherwise, but it should be up to the Tibetan people themselves and they should certainly be granted more autonomy than they currently are.



It was not uniquely the "fault" of any single group, but the clergy did attempt to perpetuate that state of affairs and therefore must be held responsible for their actions. The feudalists were never forced to take the course that they did, and so they get no excuse by being isolated or remote.
Geography made them isolated and remote. It's not exactly easy to transport goods and ideas up onto the plateau of Tibet, especially with pre-industrial technology. And when Japan was opened up the old feudal order was replaced by internal pressures, not external ones. There's no reason to think that they were any more hostile to outsiders than any other pre-industrial East Asian Kingdom.



Perhaps the PRC intervention wasn't the only manner that Tibet could have been emancipated, but as it turned out, the liberation of Tibet proved to be what liberated the people of Tibet. Counterfactuals serve no purpose other than to distract us from that fact.
Well, in that case I think we should abandon the whole argument about Tibet once being a feudal theocracy altogether. The reality is that Tibetans right now, in 2012, continue to feel like the PRC does not speak for them regardless of whatever past developments the Chinese attribute to themselves. Tibetan leaders like the Dalai Lama do not talk about independence but increased autonomy and religious rights, as well as for the exiles in India and Nepal to return to or live in Tibet without being harassed by the state security apparatus.



GDP growth, to me, signifies very little other than the profit margins of the richest. The people of Tibet can point to real improvements in their social position, their daily lives and their access to the fundamentals of dignified human life. Can we say the same for Iraq and Afghanistan? I think not.
Of course they can point to real improvements after 60 years of development. That has to do with technology and the changing modes of production. There's no reason to believe that the Chinese government was the singular, necessary factor in that, or that they needed to take authoritarian means to do so.



The arguments of the PRC are not paternalistic at all...I don't think it's ever been argued that the Tibetan people weren't capable of emancipating their country, but evidently they weren't able to at the time, and it's un-communist to sit there and say "oh well my sisters and brothers are being oppressed in a feudal society and I can help change it but I won't because that might be construed as paternalistic 60 years from now". The saying about changing the world and not always interpreting it comes to mind.
I don't think its very "communist" to rely on direct, armed military intervention and annexation as the best ways of projecting the revolution. Right now the Chinese government lacks credibility among many Tibetans and is instead trying to deal with that lack of credibility by force. Even if the initial invasion was not "paternalistic" (i dispute that but lets grant it to you), the continued refusal to let the Tibetans openly and freely debate the issue of sovereignty certainly is paternalistic.



On religion, Buddhism is still regularly practiced in Tibet and monasteries are still running...if it was Mao's intention to destroy religion then he didn't do a very good job at it (as you alluded to). Tibetan language, culture and religion are all recognized, respected and supported by the PRC, as befitting any internationalist government.
The religion is, however, tightly regulated by the government. The most famous example is how monks are forced to go to "denunciation sessions" to condemn their religious leaders like the Dalai Lama. Even if you dislike the political, temporal system of pre-Maoist Tibet, that doesn't change the fact that many of those Lamas remain a critical part of the religion.

As for Afghanistan ... you are right to be critical about GDP however education rates, transport networks and utilities are getting improvements too. It's something the US propagandists routinely point to as proof of how the war there is being "won".



Tibet speaks its own language and has its own culture and/or religion but so does Inner Mongolia, Canton, Shanghai, Xinjiang, Guangxi and dozens of other nationalities. China is far more than Han Chinese, to say otherwise would be to undermine a century's worth of internationalism on the part of the peoples of China.And what if any one of those groups do not want to be a part of "China" any more? I know that Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang have seen serious ethnic problems between the minorities and large migrant Han communities who tend to have more access to economic opportunities because they speak Mandarin.

[Grenzer]

Again, no he's not. He stepped down as political leader and now only fulfills a spiritual role (he has no political power), he also favours democracy. The government of Tibet (in exile) is democratic.

Y'all who's claiming the Dalai Lama is a feudal theocrat just be rationalising Chinese imperialism

I think it is fair to say that this is only an opportunistic move on his part. In his younger days, he was quite tyrannical and supported brutal CIA action. There is little to respect in the Dalai Lama IMHO; however, you are right. The main purpose most people seem to have in demonizing him is to justify Chinese imperialism.

[manic expression]

China held pretty much all of Asia as vassals to varying degrees at various points in history. Why are the claims of Imperialist China in any way legitimate in a modern context? Vietnam and Korea were also "parts" of the Chinese empire, yet that is not recognized today. And it's not like Tibet didn't have a large amount of autonomy at various points in history or outright independence, albeit as a vassal-state until the early 1900s. But that is all besides the point-these ancient claims really have no place in current discourse.
Varying degrees being the important variable. Korea was a Chinese protectorate for much of its history, but there is no claim made by the PRC for control over that region as it was always recognized as an independent state on both sides. So obviously it's not just being a vassal/tributary/protectorate, it's more than that. Tibet wasn't just any of those it was part of the Chinese experience.

These "ancient claims" have to do with the succession of states. If not for that, then the PRC would have no claim to call itself "China", let alone anything else.


Theocracy is no more legitimate or illegitimate than any other form of state, especially autocratic ones.So you think a theocracy is just as good as a working-class government?


As for the issue of "social institutions", they are valuable insofar as the people themselves care for them or see a use for them. Nor am I arguing that Tibet should be "independent" or otherwise, but it should be up to the Tibetan people themselves and they should certainly be granted more autonomy than they currently are.If I'm getting this right, you don't particularly care about nationality and you don't even think it's a real thing, you just don't like Tibet being part of China because this group of people who aren't really a separate people unless you think nationality is concrete should have more say than they do now......


Geography made them isolated and remote. It's not exactly easy to transport goods and ideas up onto the plateau of Tibet, especially with pre-industrial technology. And when Japan was opened up the old feudal order was replaced by internal pressures, not external ones. There's no reason to think that they were any more hostile to outsiders than any other pre-industrial East Asian Kingdom.Wait, so you're arguing that post-Meiji Japan stands as a positive example in Asian history? You know what they did to Korea and China and the Philippines and a lot of other places, right? Anyway, the only immediate reason that Japan opened up to the outside world was because an American battleship gave them an offer they couldn't refuse.


Well, in that case I think we should abandon the whole argument about Tibet once being a feudal theocracy altogether. The reality is that Tibetans right now, in 2012, continue to feel like the PRC does not speak for them regardless of whatever past developments the Chinese attribute to themselves. Tibetan leaders like the Dalai Lama do not talk about independence but increased autonomy and religious rights, as well as for the exiles in India and Nepal to return to or live in Tibet without being harassed by the state security apparatus.Who feels negativity towards the PRC? Unrest has been minimal and isolated at most...and reactionary at any rate.

The Dalai Lama, as has been said here, is a snake in the grass who'll say anything to boost his western popularity and make himself look more sympathetic. The man has been practicing this act for awhile, it's no surprise he still tricks people with it.


Of course they can point to real improvements after 60 years of development. That has to do with technology and the changing modes of production. There's no reason to believe that the Chinese government was the singular, necessary factor in that, or that they needed to take authoritarian means to do so.The government of the people of Tibet was the central factor in that. And any development so far in industrial history takes some form of state organization.


I don't think its very "communist" to rely on direct, armed military intervention and annexation as the best ways of projecting the revolution. Right now the Chinese government lacks credibility among many Tibetans and is instead trying to deal with that lack of credibility by force. Even if the initial invasion was not "paternalistic" (i dispute that but lets grant it to you), the continued refusal to let the Tibetans openly and freely debate the issue of sovereignty certainly is paternalistic.Why is that not communist? Why shouldn't liberated workers and peasants in one area fight for the liberation of workers in another area, especially when they're in the same country?

There was no annexation, either.

Class conscious Tibetans have no stomach for separatist talk, that's the only "restriction" on debate. It's important to note that Han Chinese are subject to the same expectation: just as one example, the growing hanfu movement has been very clear that it's only about celebrating their culture and heritage, nothing more. Not being able to throw around separatist rhetoric without so much as a second thought is not seen well in China...after decades of divide and conquer, they know the dangers it brings.


The religion is, however, tightly regulated by the government. The most famous example is how monks are forced to go to "denunciation sessions" to condemn their religious leaders like the Dalai Lama. Even if you dislike the political, temporal system of pre-Maoist Tibet, that doesn't change the fact that many of those Lamas remain a critical part of the religion.I smell exaggeration, provide a source on that. It's truly hilarious how the "Free Tibeters" complain about "authoritarian" restrictions on monasteries...like raising the age to become a monk to 18. :rolleyes: Oh my stars, what oppression.


As for Afghanistan ... you are right to be critical about GDP however education rates, transport networks and utilities are getting improvements too. It's something the US propagandists routinely point to as proof of how the war there is being "won".Transportation networks are a means of controlling the country, hardly very impressive. Utilities haven't seriously been improved throughout much of the country and education rates were once so bad that they could have been raised if you dropped a bunch of books in the middle of Kabul one day...the problem being that that status quo had been setup by imperialism's friends.

But that aside, the US never went into Afghanistan with the primary intention of helping the people...it was always an (phony) act of self-defense.


And what if any one of those groups do not want to be a part of "China" any more? I know that Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang have seen serious ethnic problems between the minorities and large migrant Han communities who tend to have more access to economic opportunities because they speak Mandarin.So first the PRC doesn't do enough to defend non-Mandarin languages, and now the PRC is bad because it's not teaching everyone good enough Mandarin. You can't have it both ways. From what I've heard, even within the Han nation there can be some miscommunication because dialects and accents can differ.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Varying degrees being the important variable. Korea was a Chinese protectorate for much of its history, but there is no claim made by the PRC for control over that region as it was always recognized as an independent state on both sides. So obviously it's not just being a vassal/tributary/protectorate, it's more than that. Tibet wasn't just any of those it was part of the Chinese experience.

These "ancient claims" have to do with the succession of states. If not for that, then the PRC would have no claim to call itself "China", let alone anything else.


a succession of states is a succession of institutions, it says nothing about the needs or loyalties of the people within those states, as my example of the UK shows. There's no substantive difference between the relationship you define between China and Korea and China and Tibet, especially once Tibet had declared independence in the 1910s. I certainly don't think anybody would take a hypothetical Chinese claim over Mongolia, which incidentally became independent at the same time.



So you think a theocracy is just as good as a working-class government?
State=/=Government, I'd be all for a worker's government but it doesn't seem like such an institution really exists in Tibet.



If I'm getting this right, you don't particularly care about nationality and you don't even think it's a real thing, you just don't like Tibet being part of China because this group of people who aren't really a separate people unless you think nationality is concrete should have more say than they do now......
I never said it wasn't a "real thing", merely that it is a social institution and thus fluid.



Wait, so you're arguing that post-Meiji Japan stands as a positive example in Asian history? You know what they did to Korea and China and the Philippines and a lot of other places, right? Anyway, the only immediate reason that Japan opened up to the outside world was because an American battleship gave them an offer they couldn't refuse.
That's irrelevant, Tibet lacks the material resources to go on an Imperialistic pan-Asian crusade, unlike Japan.



Who feels negativity towards the PRC? Unrest has been minimal and isolated at most...and reactionary at any rate.

The Dalai Lama, as has been said here, is a snake in the grass who'll say anything to boost his western popularity and make himself look more sympathetic. The man has been practicing this act for awhile, it's no surprise he still tricks people with it.
It's been "Reactionary" ... according to the PRC state press. I would rather let the Tibetans speak for themselves. As for your words about the Dalai Lama, I'm not here to defend him or anyone else, but if you've already decided that the Tibetan exile cause is duplicitious without even letting them speak for themselves, then the whole issue will never be resolved.



The government of the people of Tibet was the central factor in that. And any development so far in industrial history takes some form of state organization.
Why did that need to be the Chinese state? Why does that legitimate continued Chinese dominance?



Why is that not communist? Why shouldn't liberated workers and peasants in one area fight for the liberation of workers in another area, especially when they're in the same country?

There was no annexation, either.
Tibet declared independence in the 1910s, it was annexation. As for why not to impose revolution from abroad, well because when Communist ideology is spread Imperialistically it is not a revolutionary ideology but an ideology imposed on the people from above.



Class conscious Tibetans have no stomach for separatist talk, that's the only "restriction" on debate. It's important to note that Han Chinese are subject to the same expectation: just as one example, the growing hanfu movement has been very clear that it's only about celebrating their culture and heritage, nothing more. Not being able to throw around separatist rhetoric without so much as a second thought is not seen well in China...after decades of divide and conquer, they know the dangers it brings.
The CHINESE STATE has no stomach for it, and local loyal tibetans take part. The pro-Chinese Tibetans are certainly there and should not be ignored, but the villification of anti-Chinese figures is simplistic. It doesn't allow for an honest and open debate.



I smell exaggeration, provide a source on that. It's truly hilarious how the "Free Tibeters" complain about "authoritarian" restrictions on monasteries...like raising the age to become a monk to 18. :rolleyes: Oh my stars, what oppression.
The dalai lama denunciations and reeducation programs are commonly quoted, I think they were mentioned in a Guardian article I posted earlier even. There was also a protest just a few weeks ago where Chinese police killed Tibetans.



Transportation networks are a means of controlling the country, hardly very impressive. Utilities haven't seriously been improved throughout much of the country and education rates were once so bad that they could have been raised if you dropped a bunch of books in the middle of Kabul one day...the problem being that that status quo had been setup by imperialism's friends.
And the status quo in Tibet was set up by the Chinese Imperialist Qing dynasty. As for all the improvements being in the interests of the US ... well that's kind of the point, the US and the PRC are both smart enough to know that if you don't improve the living standards of these societies, that the people will rebel. It doesn't mean that they are bringing the means of production into the hands of workers though.



But that aside, the US never went into Afghanistan with the primary intention of helping the people...it was always an (phony) act of self-defense.
Yes and I'm sure China's critics say the same about the conquest of Tibet



So first the PRC doesn't do enough to defend non-Mandarin languages, and now the PRC is bad because it's not teaching everyone good enough Mandarin. You can't have it both ways. From what I've heard, even within the Han nation there can be some miscommunication because dialects and accents can differ.It's not bad because they don't teach enough Mandarin, it's that the economic conditions that they are creating are largely enfranchising only Mandarin speakers now. The PRC should do more to ensure that economic opportunities exist for Tibetan speakers if they are really interested in "preserving" the culture, likewise for Turkestan and Mongolia.

[Yazman]

I support Tibetan independence if they want it but I don't think those fucking monks should have any role in the government. Anybody who had slaves and/or land-locked serfs is not somebody who I will ever support.

I have to laugh at people saying he supports democracy though, as if a bourgeois electoral system is somehow democratic. Pulling a lever every few years without any actual political power or control over policy is not democratic, imo.

[manic expression]

a succession of states is a succession of institutions, it says nothing about the needs or loyalties of the people within those states, as my example of the UK shows. There's no substantive difference between the relationship you define between China and Korea and China and Tibet, especially once Tibet had declared independence in the 1910s. I certainly don't think anybody would take a hypothetical Chinese claim over Mongolia, which incidentally became independent at the same time.
It's commonly-accepted international law, and really the only way to categorize a state in relation to the nationalities therein.


State=/=Government, I'd be all for a worker's government but it doesn't seem like such an institution really exists in Tibet.
Giving something another title doesn't change what it is.


I never said it wasn't a "real thing", merely that it is a social institution and thus fluid.
If it's fluid then why do you have a problem with Tibet being part of China like it has been for about 800 years?


That's irrelevant, Tibet lacks the material resources to go on an Imperialistic pan-Asian crusade, unlike Japan.
Japan didn't have too many resources, either...then they built factories. Still, the reason they opened up to the outside world was because it was that or be bombarded by American gunships...it was against their wishes.

And if Tibet has such a lack of material resources then how could the PRC possibly be "colonialist" or "imperialist" or whatever other label you're misusing by liberating Tibet?


It's been "Reactionary" ... according to the PRC state press. I would rather let the Tibetans speak for themselves. As for your words about the Dalai Lama, I'm not here to defend him or anyone else, but if you've already decided that the Tibetan exile cause is duplicitious without even letting them speak for themselves, then the whole issue will never be resolved.
It's been reactionary according to any humane assessment of the crimes committed.

Oh, please...the Dalai Lama was running to the CIA even before he got kicked out, and now he's portraying himself as some loveable, huggable, cuddly messenger of peace? Not even Gandhi was that duplicitous.


Why did that need to be the Chinese state? Why does that legitimate continued Chinese dominance?
Because Tibet is part of China.


Tibet declared independence in the 1910s, it was annexation. As for why not to impose revolution from abroad, well because when Communist ideology is spread Imperialistically it is not a revolutionary ideology but an ideology imposed on the people from above.
It's not annexation if the declaration of independence is illegitimate, which it was in this case.

You keep repeating that it's imperialist without giving us any more information. It's not imperialism, it was internationalist. Just because you disagree with it doesn't mean you can hurl whatever ill-defined word at it.


The CHINESE STATE has no stomach for it, and local loyal tibetans take part. The pro-Chinese Tibetans are certainly there and should not be ignored, but the villification of anti-Chinese figures is simplistic. It doesn't allow for an honest and open debate.
Ah, yes, those poor ultra-nationalist separatists are so unfairly vilified. :rolleyes:


The dalai lama denunciations and reeducation programs are commonly quoted, I think they were mentioned in a Guardian article I posted earlier even. There was also a protest just a few weeks ago where Chinese police killed Tibetans.
I'll not criticize if monks denounce a foreign-based agent trying to destroy their society. I'd like to see specifics on the protest, we've seen violent thugs portrayed as "peaceful protestors" in the imperialist media before.


And the status quo in Tibet was set up by the Chinese Imperialist Qing dynasty. As for all the improvements being in the interests of the US ... well that's kind of the point, the US and the PRC are both smart enough to know that if you don't improve the living standards of these societies, that the people will rebel. It doesn't mean that they are bringing the means of production into the hands of workers though.
No, it was set-up by the Yuan Dynasty IIRC and continued by the peoples of China.

Transportation is something that every military needs...it would be like applauding the Crusader States for building a network of castles.


Yes and I'm sure China's critics say the same about the conquest of Tibet
We're talking about stated objectives here, not insinuation. Go look at the speeches, "freeing the people" came very low on the list, and the US' case to the UN was about supposed nuclear/chemical weapons, not about the dictatorial nature of Saddam's regime.


It's not bad because they don't teach enough Mandarin, it's that the economic conditions that they are creating are largely enfranchising only Mandarin speakers now. The PRC should do more to ensure that economic opportunities exist for Tibetan speakers if they are really interested in "preserving" the culture, likewise for Turkestan and Mongolia.
Mandarin is the most prominent language in the country, of course you'll get some bonus if you speak it well. That aside, the PRC is the only place on the planet where you can see the Mongolian script on signs, restaurants...by law it has to be everywhere. Not even in Mongolia (the country) is this possible, without the PRC's policy on this it's possible we'd be talking of the Mongolian script as extinct. Tibetan language schools/classes are pretty common throughout the autonomous region, too. That's not the behavior of a government that wants to suppress a language.

But yeah, there can be more done to ensure economic opportunities for Tibetan speakers, so I agree with you there.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

It's commonly-accepted international law, and really the only way to categorize a state in relation to the nationalities therein.


International law is a bourgeois institution which should not be given any kind of final say regarding the rights of nationalities. Mongolia was also a part of ancient China, but I would disapprove of any Chinese occupation of Ulan Bator.

Anyways, if we're going to go by "history", then the Tibetans deserve more autonomy as when they were a Chinese vassal they were largely self-governing. They are an "autonomous region" right now but there are legitimate concerns about how "autonomous" it really is and there are many Tibetans living outside of it-not only in exile but in neighboring provinces. Since increased autonomy, not independence, is the main demand, the argument by history is not particularly relevant anyways.



If it's fluid then why do you have a problem with Tibet being part of China like it has been for about 800 years?
It doesn't matter what it "has been" for 800 years it matters what the members of these ethnic groups think right now. Again, I don't consider the historical status of Imperialist states like the Yuan and Qing dynasties to be at all relevant. It was only a "part" of China because the Chinese state had many more people and was an aggressive military power-people would rather be China's vassal and get "protection" while paying some tribute than have their kingdom sacked.



Japan didn't have too many resources, either...then they built factories. Still, the reason they opened up to the outside world was because it was that or be bombarded by American gunships...it was against their wishes.

And if Tibet has such a lack of material resources then how could the PRC possibly be "colonialist" or "imperialist" or whatever other label you're misusing by liberating Tibet?
It's not so much a lack of minerals, it's the fact that it's only a few million people living in a sparse and infertile environment. There may be plenty of minerals in the ground but they lacked all the conditions necessary to turn what resources Tibet does have into a worldwide war machine. Tibet would have never become a world-empire the way Japan did. As for Japan being opened "by force"-this is true, but once that initial opening occurred the Japanese elite were happy to run with it, and the Tibetans had already had a limited opening thanks to British Imperialists about 50 years ago (although it did not lead to much modernization in the short-term)



Oh, please...the Dalai Lama was running to the CIA even before he got kicked out, and now he's portraying himself as some loveable, huggable, cuddly messenger of peace? Not even Gandhi was that duplicitous.
The Dalai Lama was 25 when he got sent into exile, he was never in power as a real adult and afterwards he said the CIA manipulated the Tibetans, which means he was hardly a very loyal proxy for US interests.

I agree with the notion that Tibet was not the Shangri-La that some naive Westerners think it was, but I don't think the Dalai Lama is the horrible, evil man which the Chinese State says either. He's just a monk who happened to have been given a theocratic position at a young age. He was 15 when the Chinese occupied Lhasa.



Because Tibet is part of China.
Ireland is a part of Great Britain. Kurdistan is a part of Turkey. The West Bank is a part of Israel. It doesn't matter what some bourgeois state says or whatever ancient empires did, it matters what the people who live there think right now.



It's not annexation if the declaration of independence is illegitimate, which it was in this case.
How was it more illegitimate than any other "declaration of independence" in history? It was made by the people who had basically been running Tibet for centuries, albeit as Vassals-naturally, when the Chinese state seemed weak, they declared independence.



Ah, yes, those poor ultra-nationalist separatists are so unfairly vilified. :rolleyes:
"ultra-nationalist"? How are they any more "ultra-nationalist" than any other ethnic group which fights against a State it sees as imposed on them by force? We're not talking about skinheads here, we're talking about an Ethnic group with a sizable portion which feels the Chinese State does not represent them. That's not "ultra-nationalism". The opinion of many in the Tibetan Exile community is relatively moderate, their demand is more autonomy and not even independence, which does not seem like an "ultra-nationalist" position to me.



I'll not criticize if monks denounce a foreign-based agent trying to destroy their society. I'd like to see specifics on the protest, we've seen violent thugs portrayed as "peaceful protestors" in the imperialist media before.
"foreign-based agent"? He is a widely-revered religious leader there who renounced his temporal power some time ago. The whole point is that they are not willingly denouncing him, but being sent there by the Chinese State precisely because many people in Tibet still revere him. I've met people from the Tibetan exile community, they don't see themselves as serving "foreign entities" and they certainly aren't all "ultranationalists," they are merely people who don't think that the PRC represents them. Now, maybe you disagree with them. I myself do not think national liberation struggles are always a good way to expend one's energy. However they do have legitimate complaints, which go ignored because the Chinese vilify all of them.

There are other legitimate issues-for instance, practicing Buddhists cannot be in the "Communist" Party which means the huge chunk of Tibetans who are religious are alienated from the State. There is the fact too that the Chinese state demands the right to "nominate" or "approve" of Lamas when it should be the choice of the religious followers (the Tibetan practice of finding child-monks should be dissuaded but the Chinese state intervening in religious selection is not the way to go about that). There was also wide-spread destruction of monasteries and the killing of monks during the cultural revolution. So it's not like Tibetan Buddhists are as "free" as it is made out, even if they are allowed to practice their faith publicly. Even if the Chinese State is really out to protect them and their interests, they have good evidence to be suspicious of the motives of the PRC, and instead of recognizing that the PRC just ignores them and accuses them of all being reactionaries.

As for "violent protests", that's the same kind of cheap shot used by rightwing propaganda in Europe and America. When a number of protesters are killed by police with no police deaths in an area famous for ethnic unrest it behooves us to be skeptical of the State. In the least, we should try to learn why they are protesting before they are dismissed as "violent thugs." You would not be so skeptical I am sure if this was Fox News calling an Occupy protest a bunch of "violent thugs"



Mandarin is the most prominent language in the country, of course you'll get some bonus if you speak it well. That aside, the PRC is the only place on the planet where you can see the Mongolian script on signs, restaurants...by law it has to be everywhere. Not even in Mongolia (the country) is this possible, without the PRC's policy on this it's possible we'd be talking of the Mongolian script as extinct. Tibetan language schools/classes are pretty common throughout the autonomous region, too. That's not the behavior of a government that wants to suppress a language.

But yeah, there can be more done to ensure economic opportunities for Tibetan speakers, so I agree with you there.I don't think the central government of China wants to "repress" the language in any kind of conspiratorial way, but Han migrants and the State and Private enterprises that move into these areas all give preference to Mandarin speakers. In places like Urumqi, Tibet and Inner Mongolia the Han form a sort of economic elite and have better access to jobs because of their language skills and shared culture, in not only the private but the state enterprises. In such circumstances I can understand why local people feel discontent. Especially when the so-called State enterprises are not equal in that respect, it is only natural that local people will feel alienated from their government. They feel shut out because the members of the ethnic majority of the State that they live in has more power than the members of the ethnic minorities. Now, in any situation like this, it should not be any surprise at all that the locals seek independence or increased autonomy. These are the material conditions which create national liberation movements. Tibetan independence probably won't help build socialism or whatever, but insofar as they do not feel like the Chinese state really represents them or their interests it is only logical that many will agitate for independence or increased autonomy. Instead of vilifying them all, sending them to prison or driving them into exile, the Chinese state should try to negotiate a middle ground to ensure that these contradictions are at least minimized, even if Tibet remains a part of China.

[manic expression]

International law is a bourgeois institution which should not be given any kind of final say regarding the rights of nationalities. Mongolia was also a part of ancient China, but I would disapprove of any Chinese occupation of Ulan Bator.
Then how would you go about classifying countries and respective nationalities, then? Can the Republic of Cuba not call itself "Cuba" because it isn't the same government that was around when Cuba was defined as a nationality?

IIRC Mongolia was only once part of China, during the Yuan Dynasty when it was run by Mongols. The rest of the time it was referred to as a frontier area.


Anyways, if we're going to go by "history", then the Tibetans deserve more autonomy as when they were a Chinese vassal they were largely self-governing. They are an "autonomous region" right now but there are legitimate concerns about how "autonomous" it really is and there are many Tibetans living outside of it-not only in exile but in neighboring provinces. Since increased autonomy, not independence, is the main demand, the argument by history is not particularly relevant anyways.
We're not going by history for cues on how different nationalities should be treated...thankfully.


It doesn't matter what it "has been" for 800 years it matters what the members of these ethnic groups think right now. Again, I don't consider the historical status of Imperialist states like the Yuan and Qing dynasties to be at all relevant. It was only a "part" of China because the Chinese state had many more people and was an aggressive military power-people would rather be China's vassal and get "protection" while paying some tribute than have their kingdom sacked.
If you think the Yuan Dynasty is "imperialist" then I'm very sorry but you're off the mark by some centuries.

The reasons you give are essentially the same reason that Berlin is the capital of Germany. Are you going to lecture us on the grave injustices done to Bavarian nationhood and how Bavaria should be independent?


It's not so much a lack of minerals, it's the fact that it's only a few million people living in a sparse and infertile environment. There may be plenty of minerals in the ground but they lacked all the conditions necessary to turn what resources Tibet does have into a worldwide war machine. Tibet would have never become a world-empire the way Japan did. As for Japan being opened "by force"-this is true, but once that initial opening occurred the Japanese elite were happy to run with it, and the Tibetans had already had a limited opening thanks to British Imperialists about 50 years ago (although it did not lead to much modernization in the short-term)
A few million people living in a sparse and infertile environment...kind of like Scotland, I suppose. But anyway, there's no reason to think Tibet wouldn't have been happy with Japan-style modernization so long as roughly the same elites (so long as they accepted it) got to run the show. Then Bhutan better watch out because Tibet is coming and they mean business.


The Dalai Lama was 25 when he got sent into exile, he was never in power as a real adult and afterwards he said the CIA manipulated the Tibetans, which means he was hardly a very loyal proxy for US interests.
He said lots of things, I still believe him as far as I can throw him. Plus, 25 is plenty old for a monarch...Peter the Great was 10 when he got on the throne and look what he did.


I agree with the notion that Tibet was not the Shangri-La that some naive Westerners think it was, but I don't think the Dalai Lama is the horrible, evil man which the Chinese State says either. He's just a monk who happened to have been given a theocratic position at a young age. He was 15 when the Chinese occupied Lhasa.
Well, I hold him responsible for the position he held and his chosen course of action after he was deposed. If he retired to private life I'd be the first one to appreciate it. As it turned out, he's only been out for more publicity ever since he was thrown out, and so it's hard to think of him as much more than an opportunist. He's not evil, but he's definitely not progressive and seems to only have his own image and fame in mind.


Ireland is a part of Great Britain. Kurdistan is a part of Turkey. The West Bank is a part of Israel. It doesn't matter what some bourgeois state says or whatever ancient empires did, it matters what the people who live there think right now.
And what do Tibetans think? Why do you keep alluding to this principle without demonstrating any weight given to your side?

Furthermore, the countries you mention do not consider themselves in the terms the PRC does. GB is England and Scotland, Turkey is the country of the Turks and I don't even need to tell you what Israel thinks. China, on the other hand, has defined itself from its first inception in modern form as a country of many nations, of many ethnicities and many languages.


How was it more illegitimate than any other "declaration of independence" in history? It was made by the people who had basically been running Tibet for centuries, albeit as Vassals-naturally, when the Chinese state seemed weak, they declared independence.
In addition to the obvious illegitimacy of a group of theocratic lords declaring themselves independent from a young republic, it was a violation of what China was building at the time. Look at the early Republican flag...Tibet is one of the five ethnicities of the country. If Tibet had been allowed to separate, the partnership that was modern China would have fallen.

So yes, on second thought, it's about as illegitimate as Jefferson Davis and Friends saying that Old Dixie was free and independent.


"ultra-nationalist"? How are they any more "ultra-nationalist" than any other ethnic group which fights against a State it sees as imposed on them by force? We're not talking about skinheads here, we're talking about an Ethnic group with a sizable portion which feels the Chinese State does not represent them. That's not "ultra-nationalism". The opinion of many in the Tibetan Exile community is relatively moderate, their demand is more autonomy and not even independence, which does not seem like an "ultra-nationalist" position to me.
Attacking Han Chinese for the "crime" of being Han Chinese strikes me as ultra-reactionary, personally.

How do you know Tibetans living in Tibet feel that way?

Tibet is already autonomous...asking for more autonomy is in effect working for secession.


"foreign-based agent"? He is a widely-revered religious leader there who renounced his temporal power some time ago. The whole point is that they are not willingly denouncing him, but being sent there by the Chinese State precisely because many people in Tibet still revere him. I've met people from the Tibetan exile community, they don't see themselves as serving "foreign entities" and they certainly aren't all "ultranationalists," they are merely people who don't think that the PRC represents them. Now, maybe you disagree with them. I myself do not think national liberation struggles are always a good way to expend one's energy. However they do have legitimate complaints, which go ignored because the Chinese vilify all of them.
Oh, please, spare me the "widely-revered religious leader" line. Having a good image in liberal western circles does not make you a widely-revered religious leader. His religion is Tibetan Buddhism, and he isn't even recognized as the leader of that religion in Tibet. Widely revered my left hand (props to whomever gets the reference re: Indian religious practices).

I will not believe without evidence that the PRC is spending its time forcing monks to yell at pictures of an exiled leader.


There are other legitimate issues-for instance, practicing Buddhists cannot be in the "Communist" Party which means the huge chunk of Tibetans who are religious are alienated from the State. There is the fact too that the Chinese state demands the right to "nominate" or "approve" of Lamas when it should be the choice of the religious followers (the Tibetan practice of finding child-monks should be dissuaded but the Chinese state intervening in religious selection is not the way to go about that). There was also wide-spread destruction of monasteries and the killing of monks during the cultural revolution. So it's not like Tibetan Buddhists are as "free" as it is made out, even if they are allowed to practice their faith publicly. Even if the Chinese State is really out to protect them and their interests, they have good evidence to be suspicious of the motives of the PRC, and instead of recognizing that the PRC just ignores them and accuses them of all being reactionaries.
Well, I would personally disagree with that because I prefer Lenin's principle and Cuba's policy of allowing those who practice religion the opportunity to join the vanguard. Do you have any specific evidence on the claim that practicing Buddhists (not just monks, by the way) being barred from the party?

The Cultural Revolution brought about that same sort of behavior everywhere. Tibetan Buddhists aren't unique in this regard. Plus, it all ended about 40 years ago...using that as evidence of anti-Tibetan policy holds no water.


As for "violent protests", that's the same kind of cheap shot used by rightwing propaganda in Europe and America. When a number of protesters are killed by police with no police deaths in an area famous for ethnic unrest it behooves us to be skeptical of the State. In the least, we should try to learn why they are protesting before they are dismissed as "violent thugs." You would not be so skeptical I am sure if this was Fox News calling an Occupy protest a bunch of "violent thugs"
Ah, but the same media that tried to tell you Occupy was "violent thugs" is trying to tell you that all manner of anti-Han violence is "peaceful protest".


I don't think the central government of China wants to "repress" the language in any kind of conspiratorial way, but Han migrants and the State and Private enterprises that move into these areas all give preference to Mandarin speakers. In places like Urumqi, Tibet and Inner Mongolia the Han form a sort of economic elite and have better access to jobs because of their language skills and shared culture, in not only the private but the state enterprises. In such circumstances I can understand why local people feel discontent. Especially when the so-called State enterprises are not equal in that respect, it is only natural that local people will feel alienated from their government. They feel shut out because the members of the ethnic majority of the State that they live in has more power than the members of the ethnic minorities. Now, in any situation like this, it should not be any surprise at all that the locals seek independence or increased autonomy. These are the material conditions which create national liberation movements. Tibetan independence probably won't help build socialism or whatever, but insofar as they do not feel like the Chinese state really represents them or their interests it is only logical that many will agitate for independence or increased autonomy. Instead of vilifying them all, sending them to prison or driving them into exile, the Chinese state should try to negotiate a middle ground to ensure that these contradictions are at least minimized, even if Tibet remains a part of China.
It's only natural that Han Chinese would have a leg-up in some instances due to the privatization (and because Han areas were usually the first to be industrialized and receive with it all the trappings of a modern education system and the like), but the state's policies counteract this in a variety of ways. Minority nationalities are granted unique privileges, such as the exemption from the so-called one child policy. Their cultures and languages are recognized and supported to an extent that is presently unheard-of in most countries. The Hui, just as one example, have a long and distinguished history in the Chinese military and other areas of Chinese society.

I don't think the non-Han nationalities feel as "shut out" as you may think. The "middle ground", as you call it, is really an isolated group of extremists. They have no currency in China today, only in western-backed circles abroad. That should tell us everything we need to know about them and their ideas on Balkanization.

So yes, more work is definitely to be done to increase equity between the peoples of China, but separatism would be a huge step back for everyone, and the PRC is right in opposing it.

[Igor]

itt leftists using the argument "but it's the law"

this shit is golden

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Then how would you go about classifying countries and respective nationalities, then? Can the Republic of Cuba not call itself "Cuba" because it isn't the same government that was around when Cuba was defined as a nationality?


Because the Cubans want to be Cuban



IIRC Mongolia was only once part of China, during the Yuan Dynasty when it was run by Mongols. The rest of the time it was referred to as a frontier area.
What about the Qing dynasty?



We're not going by history for cues on how different nationalities should be treated...thankfully.
Thats convenient, history defines borders of a state but not the autonomy of various subgroups. Why .... exactly?



If you think the Yuan Dynasty is "imperialist" then I'm very sorry but you're off the mark by some centuries.
Not in the Capitalist-era sense of the term, but Imperialism was a term used to refer to pre-Capitalist empires too. The term comes from Latin and the Imperium was a Roman concept, actually.



The reasons you give are essentially the same reason that Berlin is the capital of Germany. Are you going to lecture us on the grave injustices done to Bavarian nationhood and how Bavaria should be independent?
There aren't large numbers of Bavarians protesting and there isn't a massive German propaganda war against any Bavarian push for independence. Were I the leader of Germany though I would not send any Bavarian active in an independence movement to "re-education camps" were I the German government or mistreat any Germans who participate in such a movement.



A few million people living in a sparse and infertile environment...kind of like Scotland, I suppose. But anyway, there's no reason to think Tibet wouldn't have been happy with Japan-style modernization so long as roughly the same elites (so long as they accepted it) got to run the show. Then Bhutan better watch out because Tibet is coming and they mean business.
Tibet lacked the ability to ever challenge the Chinese or Indians from the dominance of their part of Asia. Japan was a country with many, many more people, fertile agricultural land and a long-standing martial tradition which had to be appropriated by the Emperor after the Shogunate was destroyed. The Japanese were also on an island, which more or less allowed for them to invade anywhere in the pacific. There's simply no way that the feudal order in Tibet could have replicated that.



He said lots of things, I still believe him as far as I can throw him. Plus, 25 is plenty old for a monarch...Peter the Great was 10 when he got on the throne and look what he did.
Peter the Great did a lot of that "great" stuff when he was older, but at the age of 15 the Dalai Lama was dealing with the Chinese occupation of the city.



Well, I hold him responsible for the position he held and his chosen course of action after he was deposed. If he retired to private life I'd be the first one to appreciate it. As it turned out, he's only been out for more publicity ever since he was thrown out, and so it's hard to think of him as much more than an opportunist. He's not evil, but he's definitely not progressive and seems to only have his own image and fame in mind.
The publicity he raises is used to raise awareness about how the Tibetans are treated in China. I don't see why he would be obliged to retire to private life if he feels that the Chinese state does not sufficiently respect Tibetans. However, he was correct to renounce political, temporal power for the position of the Dalai Lama, and shows that even if he is still a "public figure" he is not a de jure political leader.



And what do Tibetans think? Why do you keep alluding to this principle without demonstrating any weight given to your side?
There are obviously many Tibetans who want increased autonomy and many who want independence, and maybe many who would want both, but it's hard to see because the Chinese state prevents the Tibetans from politically organizing themselves.



Furthermore, the countries you mention do not consider themselves in the terms the PRC does. GB is England and Scotland, Turkey is the country of the Turks and I don't even need to tell you what Israel thinks. China, on the other hand, has defined itself from its first inception in modern form as a country of many nations, of many ethnicities and many languages.
The UK is the union of England, Scotland and Ireland, at least it was in 1900 ("great Britain" isn't a political entity so lets use the UK-but for that matter, I would not use the centuries-old union between England and Scotland as an argument which in of itself discredits Scottish independence either). Turks consider the Kurds to be Turks with funny dialects. But if you don't like those examples, what about Kashmir? We have Urdu speakers in multi-ethnic states who are denied rights by both Pakistanis and Indians and who feel that they are not really represented, despite the supposedly multi-ethnic character of the State. If you don't like that example, well then Puerto Rico and Cuba were a part of Spain for some 400 years, but when they were "liberated" they stayed that way and nobody ever argued that they continued to be a part of Spain.



In addition to the obvious illegitimacy of a group of theocratic lords declaring themselves independent from a young republic, it was a violation of what China was building at the time. Look at the early Republican flag...Tibet is one of the five ethnicities of the country. If Tibet had been allowed to separate, the partnership that was modern China would have fallen.
Oh no, the partnership would have fallen! Except it did fall, and why on earth would the Tibetans have cared anyhow? They were not responsible for what ultimately happened in the rest of China, which was the collapse of the Republic. By the time of Chiang they had dropped that early idealistic Republican flag anyways.

There was no Republican revolution in Tibet, the Republican revolution was elsewhere. Tibet remained too isolated from ideologies like republicanism (the first British embassy in the area was around a decade earlier with the British invasion of Tibet), and China soon descended into a bloody civil war dominated by psychotic warlords and the authoritarian KMT anyways, so they were probably right to ditch the Republic.



Attacking Han Chinese for the "crime" of being Han Chinese strikes me as ultra-reactionary, personally.
South Koreans were killed during the LA riots, simply for being Koreans, however it would be a mistake to use that fact to write off all people from the LA riots as ignorant reactionaries who were not protesting over something legitimate. I'm sure there are reactionary people within the protests, but to assume all were a part of violence to Han citizens simply for their race is not reasonable. It's also true that when you have unrest without politically conscious leadership to inform people of what to do, you will have acts of injustice. This does not negate the legitimacy of broader complains. Sunni workers were killed by Shiite protesters in Bahrain, but this does not mean that all of the Shiite protesters there were reactionaries.



How do you know Tibetans living in Tibet feel that way?
It's impossible to know for sure because as I mentioned earlier the Chinese do not allow the Tibetans to politically organize. If the Chinese would give the Tibetans more freedom and there in reality is only a tiny minority of people who feel this way, then that fact would quickly become self-evident. However, the strict controls put on the Tibetans indicate that the discontent with the status of Chinese rule is widespread.



Tibet is already autonomous...asking for more autonomy is in effect working for secession.
How? And why does that matter? Why should Chinese Politburo members in Beijing get a veto over what Lhasa needs? Doesn't that also undermine your whole argument that Tibet was a "part" of China, as it did have more autonomy under the Emperors?



Oh, please, spare me the "widely-revered religious leader" line. Having a good image in liberal western circles does not make you a widely-revered religious leader. His religion is Tibetan Buddhism, and he isn't even recognized as the leader of that religion in Tibet. Widely revered my left hand (props to whomever gets the reference re: Indian religious practices).

I will not believe without evidence that the PRC is spending its time forcing monks to yell at pictures of an exiled leader.
Not all Tibetan Buddhists follow the Dalai Lama, but very many do, even in Tibet.

The denunciation sessions are well documented, here they are mentioned in a Guardian article

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/24/chinese-fire-teargas-tibetan-protesters?INTCMP=SRCH


Tibetan killed as Chinese forces fire teargas at protesters in Sichuan

Police accused of shooting dead at least one protester and wounding five, as reports emerge of fatalities from earlier unrest




Tania Branigan (http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/taniabranigan) in Beijing
guardian.co.uk (http://www.guardian.co.uk/), Tuesday 24 January 2012 10.37 EST

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/1/24/1327390988057/Chinese-police-in-Aba-007.jpg Chinese police in Aba late last year. Tibetan groups said roads between Aba and the surrounding counties were closed. Photograph: Philippe Lopez/AFP/Getty Images

At least one Tibetan has been shot dead in Sichuan, a day after another fatal shooting in the south-western Chinese province, a campaign group and a Beijing-based Tibetan writer have alleged.
Woeser, the writer, tweeted that at least five Tibetans had been shot and one killed when police opened fire during a peaceful protest (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/protest) in Seda, known to Tibetans as Serthar, on Tuesday. Free Tibet (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/tibet) said it believed two had died but had no further details. Police in the county did not answer calls. Asked if there had been a shooting or unrest, a government official said: "It's not convenient to reveal. We have rules."
China (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/china)'s official news agency has confirmed the death of a Tibetan man during unrest on Monday, but Beijing accused overseas campaign groups of inventing rumours and distorting the truth to undermine the government. A foreign ministry spokesman said order had been restored in Luhuo, also in Ganzi prefecture, Sichuan, after a clash between police and Tibetans left one Tibetan dead and four others wounded, and injured five officers. Free Tibet alleged that Chinese security forces fired teargas at Tibetan protestors elsewhere in Sichuan on Monday, in the latest indication of growing unrest. It said authorities had deployed extra officers and closed roads to Meruma, in Aba county, after Tibetans demonstrated, saying they would not celebrate the lunar New Year to protest against repressive Chinese policies. Reuters said police in Aba did not answer calls, and a court official said not to believe rumours.
Aba is about 93 miles east of Monday's fatal clash in Luhuo, which appears to be the most serious incident since unrest rippled across Tibetan areas in the wake of riots in Lhasa in March 2008.
"Overseas forces of 'Tibet independence' have always fabricated rumours and distorted the truth to discredit the Chinese government with issues involving Tibet," said the foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei, according to the state news agency Xinhua.
It reported that a mob of dozens, some wielding knives and hurling stones, had attacked a police station. They destroyed two police vehicles and two fire engines, and stormed into nearby shops and a bank. Xinhua, citing local authorities, said the unrest was sparked by rumours that three monks planned to self-immolate.
Tibetan groups earlier said that between one and six people had died when police opened fire (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/23/chinese-open-fire-tibetan-protesters) on several hundreds or thousands of demonstrators in Luhuo, known as Draggo or Drango to Tibetans.
Yeshe Sangpo, a Tibetan monk living in India but citing sources in the region, told Radio Free Asia that police opened fire as the protesters arrived in front of the local station, chanting demands for freedom for Tibet and the return of the Dalai Lama, their exiled spiritual leader.
Speaking on Monday afternoon, he added: "The protesters have done serious damage and have destroyed Chinese shops and other Chinese facilities in the area." It was not clear whether he was describing events before or after the shooting.
Other witnesses had described the initial protest as peaceful. One participant told the radio station that police had fired automatic weapons and teargas, and another said hundreds of Tibetans had been detained.
A Tibetan monk from Shouling monastery in Luhuo told Associated Press on Tuesday that police were patrolling but the situation appeared peaceful. Reports on Monday evening suggested Tibetans from surrounding areas were converging on the town.
The monk said 33 wounded people were being cared for within the compound. At least 50 military vehicles were parked outside the monastery, he said.
"They want to take the injured people away but we won't let them because we don't trust them, we don't know what will happen to them," said the monk. "We are all in the monastery. Without the local residents around, the monks don't dare to go out."
The International Campaign for Tibet said it had been told that about 30 people were being treated at a monastery surrounded by troops, but believed the compound in question was Draggu. The New York Times reported (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/25/world/asia/china-says-tibetan-monks-rioted-provoking-deadly-confrontation.html) that internet access to the area had been cut off.
Ganzi, known to Tibetans as Kardze, saw serious unrest in 2008. Two monks and a nun have self-immolated there in the last year.
"Protests are spreading and growing, and the Chinese state response is becoming increasingly disproportionate. By failing to address legitimate Tibetan grievances and responding to protests with brutal force, the Chinese state is exacerbating the situation," said Free Tibet's director, Stephanie Brigden.
Tibetan areas have seen 16 self-immolations, mostly fatal, in less than a year. Most of those took place in Sichuan; a reincarnate lama also burned himself to death in Qinghai (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/09/china-tibetan-monks-body-paraded) in January.
"It does look like there's a spread of protests … going up the social scale as well as spreading geographically and across different Tibetan schools [of Buddhism]," said Prof Robert Barnett, a Tibetan expert at Columbia University. He suggested there were also signs of a generational shift, saying it was very unusual for a high-status member of a monastery to be involved in protests, as in Qinghai.
Barnett said tightening religious controls in eastern Tibetan areas over the last decade – such as making the clergy denounce the Dalai Lama – had alienated Tibetans. Beijing accuses the Dalai Lama of seeking to split Tibet from China and fomenting violence. He insists he seeks only meaningful autonomy by peaceful means. Different approaches to security were also important, Barnett said, with Sichuan taking a hardline approach on policing while areas that had been more cautious had so far seen fewer protests.



Here they mention forced re-education for Tibetans after meeting with the Dalai Lama in India

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/17/china-detains-tibetans-re-education

Simply put the Chinese state does not trust the people of Tibet to think for themselves.




Well, I would personally disagree with that because I prefer Lenin's principle and Cuba's policy of allowing those who practice religion the opportunity to join the vanguard. Do you have any specific evidence on the claim that practicing Buddhists (not just monks, by the way) being barred from the party?http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90785/7681240.html

In that article, one of the critical issues they mention is that it would lead to more separatist influence within the party itself if religious people were let in, which is interesting in of itself.


The Cultural Revolution brought about that same sort of behavior everywhere. Tibetan Buddhists aren't unique in this regard. Plus, it all ended about 40 years ago...using that as evidence of anti-Tibetan policy holds no water.But considering that they are a small and somewhat vulnerable minority, and also considering the critical role religion plays in Tibetan culture, the assaults on religion there clearly reduced the trust the Tibetans had in the Chinese state.


Ah, but the same media that tried to tell you Occupy was "violent thugs" is trying to tell you that all manner of anti-Han violence is "peaceful protest".
Not all Tibetan protests consists of "anti-Han violence". And not all media is so one sided either, many report that both the US and the PRC violently crack down on protesters.


It's only natural that Han Chinese would have a leg-up in some instances due to the privatization (and because Han areas were usually the first to be industrialized and receive with it all the trappings of a modern education system and the like), but the state's policies counteract this in a variety of ways. Minority nationalities are granted unique privileges, such as the exemption from the so-called one child policy. Their cultures and languages are recognized and supported to an extent that is presently unheard-of in most countries. The Hui, just as one example, have a long and distinguished history in the Chinese military and other areas of Chinese society.The fact that the Han have a "leg up" at all is evidence, at least in part, of why the Tibetans are discontented. Whenever you have inequalities which are reducible to ethnic and linguistic differences, you will get unrest, plain and simple. Instead of blaming the "splittists" as being somehow morally or ethically corrupt, the Chinese State should see them as people angry at their circumstance. In fact, only by seeing separatists as human beings with legitimate demands which must be met, and not as violent feudal reactionaries, can China ever hope to fix the problems which is causing the unrest.

About the cultural rights, as I mentioned earlier, they try to micromanage it for the Tibetans. That's why the CP thinks it has a right to decide who the next Lama will be. They let the Tibetans follow Tibetan culture as long as it is State-approved Tibetan culture.

As for the fact that the ethnic minorities don't have to follow all of China's shitty rules, that's not really relevant to the issue of economic displacement and cultural domination.


I don't think the non-Han nationalities feel as "shut out" as you may think. The "middle ground", as you call it, is really an isolated group of extremists. They have no currency in China today, only in western-backed circles abroad. That should tell us everything we need to know about them and their ideas on Balkanization.If they have "no currency", why are monks burning themselves alive to protest? Why are these people not merely irrelevant, but in need of strict monitoring by the Chinese state? This isn't just a "few isolated extremists", although the State of China wants us to think that.


So yes, more work is definitely to be done to increase equity between the peoples of China, but separatism would be a huge step back for everyone, and the PRC is right in opposing it. In that case the Chinese should stop demonizing the separatists and deal with the material conditions which lead to their opinions. And if the Separatists are really such an insignificant minority with an agenda completely disconnected from reality in Tibet, giving the separatists more freedom to protest peacefully and organize peacefully would not harm the Chinese state.

[Per Levy]

ah i just love how much of any hypocrate maniac is, on the one hand he supports the "self determination of the people" on the other he doesnt because of supra bs reasons. i mean come on how full of shit has someone to be to say that because china ruled tibet for a couple of centuries its fine if it rules it for another couple of centuries. so tibetians have no right of self determination then i guess.

see i dont support "selfdetermination of the people" but you do maniac. be at least consistent with your views.

[manic expression]

ah i just love how much of any hypocrate maniac is, on the one hand he supports the "self determination of the people" on the other he doesnt because of supra bs reasons. i mean come on how full of shit has someone to be to say that because china ruled tibet for a couple of centuries its fine if it rules it for another couple of centuries. so tibetians have no right of self determination then i guess.

see i dont support "selfdetermination of the people" but you do maniac. be at least consistent with your views.
China isn't just Han Chinese. That's why your appeal to principles you don't agree with doesn't work. That's why Tibetan self-determination is fulfilled through the internationalist framework of the PRC.

[manic expression]

Because the Cubans want to be Cuban
No, it's because Cubans are Cuban. Tibet is likewise part of China.


What about the Qing dynasty?
An exception, and even then it was seen as a frontier area IIRC.


Thats convenient, history defines borders of a state but not the autonomy of various subgroups. Why .... exactly?
Historical precedent can help contribute to the legitimacy of borders...the autonomy of nationalities is fluid and not governed by the same idea.


Not in the Capitalist-era sense of the term, but Imperialism was a term used to refer to pre-Capitalist empires too. The term comes from Latin and the Imperium was a Roman concept, actually.
The first use of the term imperialist as we use it today was in the 1910's to refer to British actions in South Africa.


There aren't large numbers of Bavarians protesting and there isn't a massive German propaganda war against any Bavarian push for independence. Were I the leader of Germany though I would not send any Bavarian active in an independence movement to "re-education camps" were I the German government or mistreat any Germans who participate in such a movement.
There aren't large numbers of Tibetans protesting and there isn't much of a propaganda war aside from countering foreign agitation.


Tibet lacked the ability to ever challenge the Chinese or Indians from the dominance of their part of Asia. Japan was a country with many, many more people, fertile agricultural land and a long-standing martial tradition which had to be appropriated by the Emperor after the Shogunate was destroyed. The Japanese were also on an island, which more or less allowed for them to invade anywhere in the pacific. There's simply no way that the feudal order in Tibet could have replicated that.
Japan had never previously challenged anyone aside from the Imjin War and population changes with industry, we all know that. One of the reasons Japan was so expansionist was because the resources of Japan were insufficient to support the growing population.


Peter the Great did a lot of that "great" stuff when he was older, but at the age of 15 the Dalai Lama was dealing with the Chinese occupation of the city.
At the age of 24 Peter was fighting the Ottomans and building a navy from scratch. Never doubt what a young monarch can do.


The publicity he raises is used to raise awareness about how the Tibetans are treated in China. I don't see why he would be obliged to retire to private life if he feels that the Chinese state does not sufficiently respect Tibetans. However, he was correct to renounce political, temporal power for the position of the Dalai Lama, and shows that even if he is still a "public figure" he is not a de jure political leader.
No, it's used to spread lies about China and promote his image.


There are obviously many Tibetans who want increased autonomy and many who want independence, and maybe many who would want both, but it's hard to see because the Chinese state prevents the Tibetans from politically organizing themselves.
Not good enough.


The UK is the union of England, Scotland and Ireland, at least it was in 1900 ("great Britain" isn't a political entity so lets use the UK-but for that matter, I would not use the centuries-old union between England and Scotland as an argument which in of itself discredits Scottish independence either). Turks consider the Kurds to be Turks with funny dialects. But if you don't like those examples, what about Kashmir? We have Urdu speakers in multi-ethnic states who are denied rights by both Pakistanis and Indians and who feel that they are not really represented, despite the supposedly multi-ethnic character of the State. If you don't like that example, well then Puerto Rico and Cuba were a part of Spain for some 400 years, but when they were "liberated" they stayed that way and nobody ever argued that they continued to be a part of Spain.
"Ireland" being members of the Protestant Ascendancy.

Turkey recognizes itself as a single-nation country, which is difficult because there are more nationalities there. That's kind of the problem, the PRC is constructed completely differently.

Urdu isn't much different from Hindi...the distinction is a legacy of the Partition, which is precisely what the PRC is working to stop.

Spanish rule over its American colonies was always under the idea that Spanish and no one else ultimately held the reigns. Some native nobles were allowed to retain positions of leadership but only in instances in which the Spanish had little other choice. The rest of the time it was a matter of putting Spanish people in all the seats of power (Spanish people from Spain being most desired) and telling everyone else to go jump. The rebellions throughout Latin America happened not just because the indigenous peoples were mad (that had already been demonstrated through Tupac Amaru's rebellion some decades earlier), but because Criollos and Mestizos had gotten fed up with being treated as second-class. This brought upon new contradictions that are today playing out, but that is another discussion.


Oh no, the partnership would have fallen! Except it did fall, and why on earth would the Tibetans have cared anyhow? They were not responsible for what ultimately happened in the rest of China, which was the collapse of the Republic. By the time of Chiang they had dropped that early idealistic Republican flag anyways.
It hasn't fallen...else you would not see the present state of affairs but one where the nationalities of China would be divided and fighting amongst each other. The flag has been replaced but the principle remains.

The ironic thing is that if you got your wish, if the PRC and the partnership of China fell apart, Tibetan language and culture would be under grave threat. Mongolian wouldn't be on any more signs. Oppose the PRC and you are effectively promoting the Balkans solution.


There was no Republican revolution in Tibet, the Republican revolution was elsewhere. Tibet remained too isolated from ideologies like republicanism (the first British embassy in the area was around a decade earlier with the British invasion of Tibet), and China soon descended into a bloody civil war dominated by psychotic warlords and the authoritarian KMT anyways, so they were probably right to ditch the Republic.
All young Republics go through such instability, China was always going to fulfill this. Tibet was not right to reject the coming of popular rule, and soon enough the PRC would remedy this rejection of modernity that was oppressing their countrymen.


South Koreans were killed during the LA riots, simply for being Koreans, however it would be a mistake to use that fact to write off all people from the LA riots as ignorant reactionaries who were not protesting over something legitimate. I'm sure there are reactionary people within the protests, but to assume all were a part of violence to Han citizens simply for their race is not reasonable. It's also true that when you have unrest without politically conscious leadership to inform people of what to do, you will have acts of injustice. This does not negate the legitimacy of broader complains. Sunni workers were killed by Shiite protesters in Bahrain, but this does not mean that all of the Shiite protesters there were reactionaries.
And I condemn those attacks...do you? The difference is that the LA Riots weren't about fighting Korean oppression and everyone with two brain cells to rub together can figure that much out. The cause of the riots, to be sure, had nothing to do with Korean businessmen...they were targeted because they were there.


It's impossible to know for sure because as I mentioned earlier the Chinese do not allow the Tibetans to politically organize. If the Chinese would give the Tibetans more freedom and there in reality is only a tiny minority of people who feel this way, then that fact would quickly become self-evident. However, the strict controls put on the Tibetans indicate that the discontent with the status of Chinese rule is widespread.
The burden is still on you to prove this. If the PRC were so deeply unpopular than it would not be so difficult to find evidence of this.


How? And why does that matter? Why should Chinese Politburo members in Beijing get a veto over what Lhasa needs? Doesn't that also undermine your whole argument that Tibet was a "part" of China, as it did have more autonomy under the Emperors?
Asking for more autonomy for an autonomous region is tantamount to asking that it no longer be autonomous. Beijing represents Tibetan needs as much as it represents Miao and Hui needs.

My whole argument is that it's only right that Tibet be an autonomous region of China to which it is a part...it's not the only one.


Not all Tibetan Buddhists follow the Dalai Lama, but very many do, even in Tibet.
Then that should be reconsidered.


The denunciation sessions are well documented, here they are mentioned in a Guardian article
The article is entirely unclear...do they denounce the Dalai Lama by throwing stuff at a picture of him? Do they have to sign something saying they don't take his orders? Not anything I can comment on, as it stands.


Simply put the Chinese state does not trust the people of Tibet to think for themselves.
They're not trying to control thoughts, just separatism.


In that article, one of the critical issues they mention is that it would lead to more separatist influence within the party itself if religious people were let in, which is interesting in of itself.
It might, I don't know the specifics.


But considering that they are a small and somewhat vulnerable minority, and also considering the critical role religion plays in Tibetan culture, the assaults on religion there clearly reduced the trust the Tibetans had in the Chinese state.
The "assaults on religion" are far less than they once were.


Not all Tibetan protests consists of "anti-Han violence". And not all media is so one sided either, many report that both the US and the PRC violently crack down on protesters.
Right, they're also reactionary monks setting themselves on fire because they want the Dalai Lama back on the throne.


The fact that the Han have a "leg up" at all is evidence, at least in part, of why the Tibetans are discontented. Whenever you have inequalities which are reducible to ethnic and linguistic differences, you will get unrest, plain and simple. Instead of blaming the "splittists" as being somehow morally or ethically corrupt, the Chinese State should see them as people angry at their circumstance. In fact, only by seeing separatists as human beings with legitimate demands which must be met, and not as violent feudal reactionaries, can China ever hope to fix the problems which is causing the unrest.
It's not just Han, I expect, it's likely anyone who speaks Mandarin as a native language and has access to the better education systems in China.

Anyone who demands secession might not be morally corrupt but they're reactionary and anti-Chinese. Their demands are only about division, hatred and regression.


About the cultural rights, as I mentioned earlier, they try to micromanage it for the Tibetans. That's why the CP thinks it has a right to decide who the next Lama will be. They let the Tibetans follow Tibetan culture as long as it is State-approved Tibetan culture.
Oh, how horrible, secular rule over religious authorities. How dare they!


As for the fact that the ethnic minorities don't have to follow all of China's shitty rules, that's not really relevant to the issue of economic displacement and cultural domination.
It's relevant to their rights and their treatment within the PRC. They get privileges Han don't get.


If they have "no currency", why are monks burning themselves alive to protest? Why are these people not merely irrelevant, but in need of strict monitoring by the Chinese state? This isn't just a "few isolated extremists", although the State of China wants us to think that.
Because it's very easy to find a few monks who look to the hazy past instead of the future.

The PRC is a bit proactive in monitoring most non-party movements, this is nothing special.

Tibetan separatists are isolated, or else foreign-based.


In that case the Chinese should stop demonizing the separatists and deal with the material conditions which lead to their opinions. And if the Separatists are really such an insignificant minority with an agenda completely disconnected from reality in Tibet, giving the separatists more freedom to protest peacefully and organize peacefully would not harm the Chinese state.
That work has to be done through the structure of the PRC or it won't be done at all.

Giving a few lunatics more room to organize is not a good idea, as Yugoslavia found out rather tragically. Political minorities can, given the opportunity, destroy the work of the majority...history shows us as much time and again.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

No, it's because Cubans are Cuban. Tibet is likewise part of China.


Where is this mythical Cuban gene? Where is this mythical Chinese gene?



An exception, and even then it was seen as a frontier area IIRC.
Ah, so "frontier regions" can declare independence but not vassals? Seems arbitrary to me.



Historical precedent can help contribute to the legitimacy of borders...the autonomy of nationalities is fluid and not governed by the same idea.
Historical precedent should not have a veto over the desires of the people in that area.



The first use of the term imperialist as we use it today was in the 1910's to refer to British actions in South Africa.
That doesn't change the definition of Imperialism, it merely updated its context to the Capitalist era



There aren't large numbers of Tibetans protesting and there isn't much of a propaganda war aside from countering foreign agitation.
According to the Chinese state, which arrests Tibetans for protesting and disallows non-State media whenever there is unrest. And they are not exactly credible.



Japan had never previously challenged anyone aside from the Imjin War and population changes with industry, we all know that. One of the reasons Japan was so expansionist was because the resources of Japan were insufficient to support the growing population.
But it actually had a large population to begin with, as well as a reasonable agricultural sector. It is crazy to say a handfull of yak herders and Tibetan monks could industrialize and militarize as well as the Japanese did ...



At the age of 24 Peter was fighting the Ottomans and building a navy from scratch. Never doubt what a young monarch can do.
Yet by the time he was 24 the Dalai Lama lacked real political power, which was effectively in the hands of the Chinese state. And one must always take such claims of genius monarchs with a grain of salt-these monarchs were surrounded by brilliant men who were often well-suited to advise them on what to do. Many of the claims of their "genius" could just be propaganda.



No, it's used to spread lies about China and promote his image.
Spread lies? Whatever. Some of the Tibetan exile community's accusations against the PRC are false but many are legitimate and the Chinese state is not transparent at all. In fact its abuses are widely documented, against not only Tibetans but Han Chinese.



Not good enough.
How so? The PRC prevents objective information gathering on the ground, plain and simple. All we DO know is that protests are actually quite common.



"Ireland" being members of the Protestant Ascendancy.
In the case of Tibet, only Atheists are allowed to join the party, so that cuts both ways



Urdu isn't much different from Hindi...the distinction is a legacy of the Partition, which is precisely what the PRC is working to stop.
I know Indian history, I was not making any remarks about the relationship between Hindi and Urdu, what I was remarking on was the fact that both India and Pakistan ignore the fact that many Kashmiris want both nations to leave them alone, despite the fact that India and Pakistan share the language with them. The borders of the Mughal Empire or the British Raj certainly are not good reasons to ignore their view



Spanish rule over its American colonies was always under the idea that Spanish and no one else ultimately held the reigns. Some native nobles were allowed to retain positions of leadership but only in instances in which the Spanish had little other choice. The rest of the time it was a matter of putting Spanish people in all the seats of power (Spanish people from Spain being most desired) and telling everyone else to go jump. The rebellions throughout Latin America happened not just because the indigenous peoples were mad (that had already been demonstrated through Tupac Amaru's rebellion some decades earlier), but because Criollos and Mestizos had gotten fed up with being treated as second-class. This brought upon new contradictions that are today playing out, but that is another discussion.
.except Cuba and Puerto Rico were largely inhabited by "spanish" people and the indigenous population had long ago interbred



It hasn't fallen...else you would not see the present state of affairs but one where the nationalities of China would be divided and fighting amongst each other. The flag has been replaced but the principle remains.

The ironic thing is that if you got your wish, if the PRC and the partnership of China fell apart, Tibetan language and culture would be under grave threat. Mongolian wouldn't be on any more signs. Oppose the PRC and you are effectively promoting the Balkans solution.
Thats a very simplistic game to say this would be like the Balkans all over. The Tibetans have very specific claims and have not shown a willingness to use widescale violence to attain their ends on the level of, say, the Chetniks or Ustase. Certainly, during the 30-40 years of their independence did not see that. Meanwhile, Han China saw bloody internal fighting between warlords, the KMT and the Maoists.



All young Republics go through such instability, China was always going to fulfill this. Tibet was not right to reject the coming of popular rule, and soon enough the PRC would remedy this rejection of modernity that was oppressing their countrymen.
Except the PRC has rejected popular rule in Tibet, and the Republic never brought popular rule in any real sense either. It wasn't just a little instability that they had, there was a 30 year civil war that the Tibetans quite understandably did not want to participate in. In fact, the Republic offered to continue the Dalai Lama's title, so it's not like the Republic was looking to end feudal rule in Tibet ... had they stayed in the Republic the Lamas may have well served as an autonomous theocracy within the broader Republic.



And I condemn those attacks...do you? The difference is that the LA Riots weren't about fighting Korean oppression and everyone with two brain cells to rub together can figure that much out. The cause of the riots, to be sure, had nothing to do with Korean businessmen...they were targeted because they were there.
Of course I condemn the violence itself, just like I would condemn any Tibetans hurting a Han person for their ethnicity. However I would not be so naive to ignore the social conditions which led to the violence, nor would I paint everyone there under the same brush.



The burden is still on you to prove this. If the PRC were so deeply unpopular than it would not be so difficult to find evidence of this.
Um, continued protests is good evidence.




Asking for more autonomy for an autonomous region is tantamount to asking that it no longer be autonomous. Beijing represents Tibetan needs as much as it represents Miao and Hui needs.

My whole argument is that it's only right that Tibet be an autonomous region of China to which it is a part...it's not the only one.
Aside from the fact that it is ridiculous to say that any one ethnicity is necessarily a part of a particular nation state, how does asking for "more autonomy for an autonomous region" mean that they are asking to no longer be autonomous? That does not make any sense. On the contrary, it means that they think the PRC's "autonomous regions" are autonomous in name only, or not to the degree that is necessary to protect the unique rights of its inhabitants.



Then that should be reconsidered.
You can tell them that, I'm sure that they could better define why they follow the Dalai Lama than I can. The problem is that the Chinese government won't let them, they don't want these religious people to think for themselves.



The article is entirely unclear...do they denounce the Dalai Lama by throwing stuff at a picture of him? Do they have to sign something saying they don't take his orders? Not anything I can comment on, as it stands.


http://articles.latimes.com/2008/apr/08/world/fg-reeducate8


BEIJING — In an effort to quell unrest, Communist Party officials are ordering Tibetans back to school.
Buddhist monks, civil servants and public school students have been instructed to attend special classes in the virtues of Chinese rule and the evils of their exiled leader, the Dalai Lama. In these classes, the Tibetans read and recite from texts that denounce the Dalai Lama as a "political reactionary" and a "betrayer of the motherland."
http://articles.latimes.com/images/pixel.gif


Ideological training is an enduring feature of Communist life, but has taken a back seat in a country consumed with more modern pursuits, such as making money. But in Tibetan areas, the Communist Party is pursuing "patriotic education" with new zeal.
But the campaign may be backfiring.
Clashes that erupted last week in Sichuan province's Ganzi prefecture (known as Kardze to Tibetans) were reportedly triggered when the head of the Tongkor Monastery objected to Communist Party teaching materials that criticize the Dalai Lama. Tibetan activists say eight people were killed in the April 3 incident.
Nevertheless, Communist officials insist that the program be expanded.
Touring a monastery last week, the deputy Communist Party chief for Tibet, Hao Peng, called for strengthening "patriotic education so as to guide the masses of monks to continuously display the patriotic tradition."
Besides the monks, Tibetan civil servants, party members and schoolchildren have attended special reeducation sessions, according to the Tibet Daily. At an elementary school, children viewed photographs of stores damaged in March 14 riots in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, and sang patriotic songs.
"If I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't have believed those bad guys were so abhorrent," the newspaper quoted a third-grader as saying.
In a Tibetan village, an elderly party member was reported to have shouted criticism of what officials call the "Dalai clique" during an education session: "They are going to plunge us once again into the abyss of suffering. Their methods are despicable and cruel."
Tibet experts say the rhetoric harks back to the reeducation and self-criticism campaigns of the 1960s and 1970s, but is unlikely to be successful today.
"Getting people to denounce the Dalai Lama or to recite ideological statements shows a lack of imagination on the part of the Communist Party. There is no way they can force people into what they say is the correct way of thinking," said Ronald Schwartz, a Canadian scholar.
Schwartz and more than 200 other Tibet experts have signed an online petition calling for the Chinese government to negotiate over Tibetans' grievances, but he says he is not optimistic.
"Patriotic education" is one of the Tibetans' major grievances against Chinese rule. The Communist Party intrudes into the minutiae of religious life, dictating which deities can be worshiped, what clothing can be worn, and the procedures for reincarnation -- a core belief in Tibetan Buddhism.

http://articles.latimes.com/images/pixel.gif


http://articles.latimes.com/images/pixel.gif
"Patriotic education is a euphemism for brainwashing," said Chukora Tsering Agloe, a researcher at the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy.
Most provocative to Tibetans are the denunciations of the Dalai Lama. The 72-year-old monk and Nobel peace laureate is revered by Tibetan Buddhists as a deity; statements against him are considered blasphemous.
Monks who refuse to speak out against the Dalai Lama in patriotic education sessions are usually expelled from the monastery and sometimes are arrested. Last month, two monks were reported by Tibetan activists to have committed suicide because of the pressure.
Many of the recent demonstrations have been triggered by Chinese authorities' attempts to confiscate banned photographs of the man Tibetans refer to simply as "his holiness."
Teaching materials reveal the extent to which the Communist Party feels threatened by the Dalai Lama. Although the Dalai Lama has stated repeatedly that he favors more autonomy for Tibet rather than independence, teaching materials accuse him of being a pawn of "Western capitalists" who want to break up China.
"His aim is to cause chaos and split the motherland, to struggle in competition with us to control the minds of the people," reads a pocket-sized pamphlet published in 1997.
Another text from 2002 describes the relationship between China and Tibet dating back to the 6th and 7th centuries when Tibetan kings were married to Tang dynasty princesses.
"It is clear that the Tibet region has had close relations with the motherland throughout its history," it says.
The booklet (titled "Handbook for Education in Anti-Splittism") goes on to describe how Chinese Communist rule lifted Tibetans out of feudalism and predicts a rosy future:
"The 1.3 billion children of China are striving without rest toward a renaissance of all China's nationalities and one of the most glorious epochs in our 5,000-year history beckons."


(( Of course, there is a lot of talk about patriotism from the Chinese state propagandists and in their political re-education ... nothing about the living conditions of Tibetans, their culture, or the working class and class consciousness. ))



They're not trying to control thoughts, just separatism.
... except the means to that end of "controlling separatism" is controlling thoughts, speech, and the general freedom of the Tibetan people to assemble and demonstrate.

Isn't it telling that there are Turkish, Mongolian and Tibetan "Separatists" which the Chinese state represses, and not Han separatists? Even Mao warned about Han chauvinism. People only want to separate from a state which they feel alienated from.



The "assaults on religion" are far less than they once were.
This is true, however it explains why Tibetans, including the Dalai Lama and the exiles, would question the motives of the Chinese government, and the fact that they are far less frequent or as strict doesn't change the fact that they shouldn't happen.



Right, they're also reactionary monks setting themselves on fire because they want the Dalai Lama back on the throne.
Are those their words or yours? I'm thinking those are your words. It seems here like you are unfairly slandering some two dozen Tibetans who have died used this tactic. Again, feudalism is not coming back to Tibet, the material conditions have changed and the exile community has renounced it, and these monks who are now dead obviously have no self-interested motive in restoring it either.



It's not just Han, I expect, it's likely anyone who speaks Mandarin as a native language and has access to the better education systems in China.

Anyone who demands secession might not be morally corrupt but they're reactionary and anti-Chinese. Their demands are only about division, hatred and regression.
Tibetan exiles I met in India held no hatred to the Chinese people nor were they doing it as a reaction to the modernization, merely that they had a deep-seated mistrust of the State of the PRC. This fits with everything else I hear on the Tibetan issue-the violence against Han seem to be the exception and not the rule, and as much if not more of a problem in Xinjiang.

Anyone who demands secession is doing so from their material conditions. If they are really being reactionary, let them debate it openly, you won't have a hard time disproving it if they are little more than a reactionary minority. However, we can only find out if their concerns are legitimate if there is transparent and popular government in Tibet and the Tibetans themselves have the right to speak freely on these issues, which the Chinese disallow.



Oh, how horrible, secular rule over religious authorities. How dare they!
Religious people should need to follow the law just like any other citizen, but religious leaders should not be State appointees!



It's relevant to their rights and their treatment within the PRC. They get privileges Han don't get.
Those privileges have nothing to do with why they are demanding more autonomy however.



That work has to be done through the structure of the PRC or it won't be done at all.
It would be lovely if the PRC did do all of this stuff internally, and I would not oppose that, however (1) its ridiculous to pretend that the PRC is somehow necessary for this to happen ... if another revolutionary movement gets the grips of China, I see no reason to assume beforehand that they won't be better at handling this issue, (2) this will need to be met by finding a middle ground between the two groups, and not the PRC imposing it on the Tibetan community.



Giving a few lunatics more room to organize is not a good idea, as Yugoslavia found out rather tragically. Political minorities can, given the opportunity, destroy the work of the majority...history shows us as much time and againequating the Tibetan exile community with the Ustase and Chetniks is nuts. The conditions in Yugoslavia were quite unique and particularly explosive, as you had a conflict between the Serb and Croat nationalists over a government which was highly undemocratic but which tried to avoid nationalism itself, and then over land which was populated by both groups. Without the mutual conflict between Serb and Croat fascists, the disaster which was the civil war in Yugoslavia would have never happened. Other countries without that unique history did not have those problems. Canada gained more autonomy and then eventually independence from England, and you did not see widespread bloodshed.

As already established, Tibetans with complains are not "lunatics"-they might be wrong about whether nor not an independent Tibet is a good thing, I myself am not necessarily convinced by that. But they are not protesting against China because they are fascists who want to murder all Chinese but because they disapprove of PRC policies and they mistrust the State.

It's a completely ridiculous premise anyways ... how would an ethnicity with a few million people go on a civil war or genocide against an ethnic group with 1 billion people? On the contrary, looking to persecute Chinese people would be just about the quickest way to end any hopes of Tibetan independence for good, and the Tibetans are not stupid.

[manic expression]

Where is this mythical Cuban gene? Where is this mythical Chinese gene?
With respect, don't misrepresent my points, it has nothing to do with genes and you know it. And China is not one nationality, for the fiftieth time.


Ah, so "frontier regions" can declare independence but not vassals? Seems arbitrary to me.Mongolia not being considered part of China isn't arbitrary in the slightest.


Historical precedent should not have a veto over the desires of the people in that area.There's no veto, just an understanding of what China is. Most Tibetans seem to comprehend that.


That doesn't change the definition of Imperialism, it merely updated its context to the Capitalist eraOf course it does. Imperialism cannot be but what it is, you can't apply it to whatever expansionist policy you disapprove of.


According to the Chinese state, which arrests Tibetans for protesting and disallows non-State media whenever there is unrest. And they are not exactly credible.No one proved it was more than what the PRC reported. It wouldn't be the first time the west lied about what was happening in China because they wanted to fan the flames of anti-Chinese sentiment.


But it actually had a large population to begin with, as well as a reasonable agricultural sector. It is crazy to say a handfull of yak herders and Tibetan monks could industrialize and militarize as well as the Japanese did ...Define "large". China had a population that dwarfed Japan's long after the Meiji modernization, but of course that doesn't determine who's expansionist and who isn't. The only reason you're bringing this up is to try to distract us from the fact that you thought that the Japanese opened up to the outside world willingly and with open arms, which is the opposite of what actually happened.

Tibetan theocracy could industrialize and militarize just as well as any other government could given the right circumstances. You're not going to tell me Buddhist monks are pacifists, are you?


Yet by the time he was 24 the Dalai Lama lacked real political power, which was effectively in the hands of the Chinese state. And one must always take such claims of genius monarchs with a grain of salt-these monarchs were surrounded by brilliant men who were often well-suited to advise them on what to do. Many of the claims of their "genius" could just be propaganda.The question is whether he should have had power...which is obviously "no" to anyone with a brain to the left of the Sun King. Having said that, young monarchs are no less dangerous just because they happen to be young. Trying to give a king brownie points because he hasn't been old enough to buy beer for more than a few years is irrelevant and patently absurd.

If you don't think Peter I was an exceptional person then you honestly know jack sh*t about his reign.


Spread lies? Whatever. Some of the Tibetan exile community's accusations against the PRC are false but many are legitimate and the Chinese state is not transparent at all. In fact its abuses are widely documented, against not only Tibetans but Han Chinese.If their accusations are false then yes, they're spreading lies, and furthermore they're able to do so and get away with it because the west is so enamored with their "we love the west and wear interesting robes" act.


How so? The PRC prevents objective information gathering on the ground, plain and simple. All we DO know is that protests are actually quite common.If that's all you do know, then I suggest not making any assumptions beyond that.


In the case of Tibet, only Atheists are allowed to join the party, so that cuts both waysNo, it doesn't, because the Protestant Ascendancy wasn't just about religion. It was about redefining the "Ireland" part of "The United Kingdom of England, Scotland and Ireland" as something other than the vast majority of the people who lived there.


I know Indian history, I was not making any remarks about the relationship between Hindi and Urdu, what I was remarking on was the fact that both India and Pakistan ignore the fact that many Kashmiris want both nations to leave them alone, despite the fact that India and Pakistan share the language with them. The borders of the Mughal Empire or the British Raj certainly are not good reasons to ignore their viewI don't count the Partition as any legitimate policy, but anyway the Partition itself nullifies the validity of the comparison. India-Pakistan has very little to do with Tibet. If anything, you should be looking at Nagaland or even Goa and holding back the same crocodile tears you're crying for Tibet, about how a unique culture is being cruelly kept as part of a larger dictatorial "empire". :rolleyes:


except Cuba and Puerto Rico were largely inhabited by "spanish" people and the indigenous population had long ago interbredDoesn't mean Cuba and PR didn't develop a nationality unique onto themselves. Try telling Boricuas that they're the same as Spaniards and you'll get laughed out of the room.


Thats a very simplistic game to say this would be like the Balkans all over. The Tibetans have very specific claims and have not shown a willingness to use widescale violence to attain their ends on the level of, say, the Chetniks or Ustase. Certainly, during the 30-40 years of their independence did not see that. Meanwhile, Han China saw bloody internal fighting between warlords, the KMT and the Maoists.Students of that classic tragedy in Yugoslavia (I dabble, myself) will recall that it was the secession of Slovenia, actually, that triggered the war proper. Slovenia had very specific claims as well.

As for not using violence, I'm not sure what you call attacking people who you don't happen to like. Regardless, a few decades in the early 1900's counts for nothing, today is what matters, and today would see China go up like a keg of gunpowder.


Except the PRC has rejected popular rule in Tibet, and the Republic never brought popular rule in any real sense either. It wasn't just a little instability that they had, there was a 30 year civil war that the Tibetans quite understandably did not want to participate in. In fact, the Republic offered to continue the Dalai Lama's title, so it's not like the Republic was looking to end feudal rule in Tibet ... had they stayed in the Republic the Lamas may have well served as an autonomous theocracy within the broader Republic.Your definition of "popular rule" runs contrary to Marxism and so it can hardly be expected to apply.

It's most likely that they would have kept the Lama on as a spiritual leader, not a secular authority. As it happened, though, progress won and he fled.


Of course I condemn the violence itself, just like I would condemn any Tibetans hurting a Han person for their ethnicity. However I would not be so naive to ignore the social conditions which led to the violence, nor would I paint everyone there under the same brush.Good. Would you not concede that reactionary nationalism is itself a condition that can lead to violence?


Um, continued protests is good evidence.There are "continued protests" saying how dead US soldiers is a sign that god is punishing America for harboring homosexuals. Good evidence to say that this is a popular opinion, then, right?


Aside from the fact that it is ridiculous to say that any one ethnicity is necessarily a part of a particular nation state, how does asking for "more autonomy for an autonomous region" mean that they are asking to no longer be autonomous? That does not make any sense. On the contrary, it means that they think the PRC's "autonomous regions" are autonomous in name only, or not to the degree that is necessary to protect the unique rights of its inhabitants.Well then they're fools, because the PRC is protecting those unique rights better than anyone on earth today.

If a region is autonomous and you want more autonomy you're trying to inch closer to independence.


You can tell them that, I'm sure that they could better define why they follow the Dalai Lama than I can. The problem is that the Chinese government won't let them, they don't want these religious people to think for themselves.They can think for themselves just fine...they can't openly support a crowned CIA-stooge.


http://articles.latimes.com/2008/apr/08/world/fg-reeducate8So the PRC is promoting secularist education systems, combined with a promotion of anti-monarchical sentiment? Well done to them.


(( Of course, there is a lot of talk about patriotism from the Chinese state propagandists and in their political re-education ... nothing about the living conditions of Tibetans, their culture, or the working class and class consciousness. )):laugh: Of course there's talk of Tibetan culture in the PRC...the western media doesn't put that on their websites, though.


... except the means to that end of "controlling separatism" is controlling thoughts, speech, and the general freedom of the Tibetan people to assemble and demonstrate.The PRC doesn't control thoughts, don't be over-dramatic. Speech isn't controlled, simply monitored. Freedom is a concept I have little patience for.


Isn't it telling that there are Turkish, Mongolian and Tibetan "Separatists" which the Chinese state represses, and not Han separatists? Even Mao warned about Han chauvinism. People only want to separate from a state which they feel alienated from.The majority usually doesn't go for separatism, they usually go for chauvinism. The PRC has taken adequate steps to discourage this.


This is true, however it explains why Tibetans, including the Dalai Lama and the exiles, would question the motives of the Chinese government, and the fact that they are far less frequent or as strict doesn't change the fact that they shouldn't happen.The exiles will question anything that doesn't help them, so I honestly don't care what they question or don't.


Are those their words or yours? I'm thinking those are your words. It seems here like you are unfairly slandering some two dozen Tibetans who have died used this tactic. Again, feudalism is not coming back to Tibet, the material conditions have changed and the exile community has renounced it, and these monks who are now dead obviously have no self-interested motive in restoring it either.Fine, let's hear "their words".

The exile community can renounce it until the sun goes down, they've given me no reason to believe that they stand for progress.


Tibetan exiles I met in India held no hatred to the Chinese people nor were they doing it as a reaction to the modernization, merely that they had a deep-seated mistrust of the State of the PRC. This fits with everything else I hear on the Tibetan issue-the violence against Han seem to be the exception and not the rule, and as much if not more of a problem in Xinjiang.If they're not reacting to modernization then why do they care at all what the Dalai Lama says? Further, it's not stated hatred of Han people that matters, it's the willingness to see them as an obstacle that's the real problem. Tibetans and Han are friends, and anyone trying to hurt that friendship is an enemy of the peoples of China.


Anyone who demands secession is doing so from their material conditions. If they are really being reactionary, let them debate it openly, you won't have a hard time disproving it if they are little more than a reactionary minority. However, we can only find out if their concerns are legitimate if there is transparent and popular government in Tibet and the Tibetans themselves have the right to speak freely on these issues, which the Chinese disallow.As I said, Yugoslavia disproved that notion. Give them "open debate" and they'll slither their way to some bit of influence and use it to sow the seeds of hatred. We've seen this movie before.


Religious people should need to follow the law just like any other citizen, but religious leaders should not be State appointees!So long as the state is progressive then that's a good thing. I don't hear you complaining about the French Revolution's insistence that priests swear an oath to the Republic and essentially be appointed by the state.


Those privileges have nothing to do with why they are demanding more autonomy however.They have everything to do with how Tibetans are not the oppressed, trampled people they're made out to be. The minority nationalities of China are treated fairly as it is their country.


It would be lovely if the PRC did do all of this stuff internally, and I would not oppose that, however (1) its ridiculous to pretend that the PRC is somehow necessary for this to happen ... if another revolutionary movement gets the grips of China, I see no reason to assume beforehand that they won't be better at handling this issue, (2) this will need to be met by finding a middle ground between the two groups, and not the PRC imposing it on the Tibetan community.Today, the PRC is necessary. I don't like to wrangle with counterfactuals and hypotheticals, and so I state the facts as I see them.


equating the Tibetan exile community with the Ustase and Chetniks is nuts. The conditions in Yugoslavia were quite unique and particularly explosive, as you had a conflict between the Serb and Croat nationalists over a government which was highly undemocratic but which tried to avoid nationalism itself, and then over land which was populated by both groups. Without the mutual conflict between Serb and Croat fascists, the disaster which was the civil war in Yugoslavia would have never happened. Other countries without that unique history did not have those problems. Canada gained more autonomy and then eventually independence from England, and you did not see widespread bloodshed.

As already established, Tibetans with complains are not "lunatics"-they might be wrong about whether nor not an independent Tibet is a good thing, I myself am not necessarily convinced by that. But they are not protesting against China because they are fascists who want to murder all Chinese but because they disapprove of PRC policies and they mistrust the State.

It's a completely ridiculous premise anyways ... how would an ethnicity with a few million people go on a civil war or genocide against an ethnic group with 1 billion people? On the contrary, looking to persecute Chinese people would be just about the quickest way to end any hopes of Tibetan independence for good, and the Tibetans are not stupid.Tibetan separatists and Tibetans with complaints are two different groups of people. I don't attempt to conflate one with the other.

I'm not equating them to the Ustase, I'm comparing them to Tudman and/or the Slovenian nationalists.

They don't need to kill all Han people...they just need to get some influence and attack Han people within Tibet in an attempt to take control. Then any area of China that isn't majority Han will be ripe for the same sort of ethnic warfare. Basically, it's a Pandora's Box you do not want to open.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

This is getting long-I'm going to ignore some points (though I disagree with you on them) just to cut it down. These are getting too long.


With respect, don't misrepresent my points, it has nothing to do with genes and you know it. And China is not one nationality, for the fiftieth time.

You seem to be saying the Tibetans are an essential part of the "Chinese country" (almost as if the country of China is a heavenly absolute, and not a social institution built up by its constituent parts). I was being tongue in cheek about the genes, precisely to emphasize the non-essential relationship between nations, states and ethnic groups.


Mongolia not being considered part of China isn't arbitrary in the slightest.The fact that Tibet can't decide its own government as a sovereign people and Mongolia can is arbitrary. Maybe the Tibetans would chose to remain a part of China but it is arbitrary that the Mongolians are given that choice to begin with and not Tibet or Xinjiang.


Of course it does. Imperialism cannot be but what it is, you can't apply it to whatever expansionist policy you disapprove of.Obviously Imperialism can't be anything except what it is, that is a tautology and doesn't help anyone. What you are doing is rejecting the use of Imperialist to refer to pre-Industrial empires (which makes all but no sense considering the fact that Imperium etymologically is a LATIN, ie PRE INDUSTRIAL term), thus we disagree about what "Imperialism" is. Anyways, it is an issue of semantics, a Feudal-era claim of Vassalage has no place in a modern society whether we call it Imperialism or greed-driven medieval thuggery.


No one proved it was more than what the PRC reported. It wouldn't be the first time the west lied about what was happening in China because they wanted to fan the flames of anti-Chinese sentiment.The Chinese state media has a horrid record of ignoring problems in China to preserve institutional power or misrepresenting those who disagree with them. The Guardian has more credibility as a source on this topic than People's Daily.


Define "large". China had a population that dwarfed Japan's long after the Meiji modernization, but of course that doesn't determine who's expansionist and who isn't. The only reason you're bringing this up is to try to distract us from the fact that you thought that the Japanese opened up to the outside world willingly and with open arms, which is the opposite of what actually happened.

Tibetan theocracy could industrialize and militarize just as well as any other government could given the right circumstances. You're not going to tell me Buddhist monks are pacifists, are you?Um, I was well aware of Commadore Perry was, the issue of the Black Fleet is irrelevant, what I was saying was that conquest by the PRC was not a necessary component of modernization because Japan was able to do it on its own. Commadore Perry did not occupy Japan and then topple the Emperor after 10 years.

Tibet conquering its neighbors was about as likely as Tajikistan conquering Central Asia. Even today Tibet has 1/10th as many people as Japan. Buddhism is a "peaceful religion" but as is obvious from Christianity, no amount of "peace" in a religion ensures pacifism, so no my argument has nothing to do with religion (which would be dumb anyways since most Buddhist institutions in Japan were also pro-war)


The question is whether he should have had power...which is obviously "no" to anyone with a brain to the left of the Sun King. Having said that, young monarchs are no less dangerous just because they happen to be young. Trying to give a king brownie points because he hasn't been old enough to buy beer for more than a few years is irrelevant and patently absurd.
He had as much a right to power as any other feudal autocrat, which any Marxist would consider as relative to the means of production and the material conditions of the society, not international law or whether or not China claimed that land. If we are looking at this from a Marxist perspective, we should not be viewing this in terms of moral issues like "legitimacy" as all States which are not directly run by workers/commoners are in some way "illegitimate." I'm not trying to say he should have had "brownie points" or whatever, just that he had not been in power long enough to seriously change anything, nor should he be held to account for the rest of his life for those decisions.


If their accusations are false then yes, they're spreading lies, and furthermore they're able to do so and get away with it because the west is so enamored with their "we love the west and wear interesting robes" act. You have already prejudiced the views of the people you are talking about. Not all false accusations are lies (you do know I hope that people can make mistakes) and not all their accusations are false accusations. Meanwhile they can just as easily (and with just as much evidence) say that many of the PRC's accusations are false, too.


Doesn't mean Cuba and PR didn't develop a nationality unique onto themselves. Try telling Boricuas that they're the same as Spaniards and you'll get laughed out of the room.You might get the same reaction by telling a Tibetan that they are "same as the Chinese"


Students of that classic tragedy in Yugoslavia (I dabble, myself) will recall that it was the secession of Slovenia, actually, that triggered the war proper. Slovenia had very specific claims as well.

As for not using violence, I'm not sure what you call attacking people who you don't happen to like. Regardless, a few decades in the early 1900's counts for nothing, today is what matters, and today would see China go up like a keg of gunpowder.China would not go "up like a keg of gunpowder" unless it were already a country full of contradictions. Fix those contradictions, don't go arresting people. And when did the Tibetans ever do anything on the scale of Sarajevo etc? There was already a serious history of ethnic violence in Yugoslavia, like during WWII. Nothing like that has ever happened, at worst there was some ethnic violence at the worst of the riots which I have established again and again and again does not prove what you are saying. It is a huge leap to go from a few deaths in ethnic riots to full on genocidal war. You are playing the same game the government of Bahrain plays when it says the Shiite protesters are just out to kill Sunnis.


Your definition of "popular rule" runs contrary to Marxism and so it can hardly be expected to apply.Um, what? Your conception of "Popular Rule" is an authoritarian party which includes many Capitalists and military generals in Beijing, and which is infamous precisely for denying popular participation in the government. I on the other hand am basing "popular rule" on the notion that Tibetans should be consulted and allowed to rule themselves through councils and public assemblies.


Good. Would you not concede that reactionary nationalism is itself a condition that can lead to violence?
"reactionary nationalism" is a symptom of broader social problems, not a cause in of itself.


Well then they're fools, because the PRC is protecting those unique rights better than anyone on earth today.
I think it's stunning how you think you must know this fact so much better than the Tibetans themselves.



If a region is autonomous and you want more autonomy you're trying to inch closer to independence.That makes no sense at all. Autonomy is not just a state, it is a gradient with many variants. An autonomous people have every right to question the level of autonomy that they have, and whether or not the structure needs to be changed.


They can think for themselves just fine...they can't openly support a crowned CIA-stooge.
..
The PRC doesn't control thoughts, don't be over-dramatic. Speech isn't controlled, simply monitored. Freedom is a concept I have little patience for.
If they cannot freely organize, assemble, debate amongst themselves and protest, they cannot think for themselves in a real sense. You might not like "Freedom" as a "Concept" but without the right to debate openly and freely amongst themselves about their future the Tibetans do not have real autonomy, nor can the Chinese State really claim legitimacy in their control over the area.


So the PRC is promoting secularist education systems, combined with a promotion of anti-monarchical sentiment? Well done to them.
Bullshit, it is compulsory brainwashing for monks who the government deems "dangerous", and it is brainwashing which the monks themselves find heretical. It is an imposition by a government which fears losing control of a peripheral area. If the Dalai Lama was an irrelevant nobody in Tibet and discontent was minimal, they would not make the monks do it anyways.


The exiles will question anything that doesn't help them, so I honestly don't care what they question or don't.

...

Fine, let's hear "their words".

The exile community can renounce it until the sun goes down, they've given me no reason to believe that they stand for progress.They have no obligation to prove to you that they stand for progress, however your bias against their viewpoint is painfully obvious. You won't even give them the benefit of the doubt that they mean what they say. You are impugning the character of people who feel that they were forced to flee their homes to live the lives they want to live. You have prejudiced them all as reactionaries already.


If they're not reacting to modernization then why do they care at all what the Dalai Lama says? Further, it's not stated hatred of Han people that matters, it's the willingness to see them as an obstacle that's the real problem. Tibetans and Han are friends, and anyone trying to hurt that friendship is an enemy of the peoples of China.Maybe, just maybe, because not everything the Dalai Lama says is reactionary. It is so convenient for you-everything he says, if it isn't openly reactionary, must necessarily be propaganda merely to veil his intentions.

"Tibetans and Han are friends" ... "enemy of the peoples of China" ... you're imposing this whole value system on these people without seeing what they have to say. Again, you are so prejudiced against them that you aren't able to listen to them. Many Tibetans agree that the Chinese people are their friends, but they disagree with Chinese State policies.


As I said, Yugoslavia disproved that notion. Give them "open debate" and they'll slither their way to some bit of influence and use it to sow the seeds of hatred. We've seen this movie before.Again, this is a completely different situation. All that nationalism jazz was a response to the degrading economic conditions of Yugoslavia and the power struggle over the party and Bosnian "real estate".


So long as the state is progressive then that's a good thing. I don't hear you complaining about the French Revolution's insistence that priests swear an oath to the Republic and essentially be appointed by the state.I know you are convinced that the PRC is some progressive state, but I am not. More importantly, many of the Tibetan people are not. If they do not think that the Chinese state is acting as a force of progress for them, I would rather take their word for it than yours. The Chinese state should focus on convincing Tibetans that it is a progressive force, not shooting protesters and sending monks to re-education camps.


Today, the PRC is necessary. I don't like to wrangle with counterfactuals and hypotheticals, and so I state the facts as I see them.Well, you are saying that if it wasn't for the PRC's state authoritarianism, Lhasa would become another Sarajevo ...


Tibetan separatists and Tibetans with complaints are two different groups of people. I don't attempt to conflate one with the other.It's not like there's two distinct camps of Tibetans here which don't get along with each other. Tibetans with complaints that go ignored are more likely to become Separatists as they become more radical as they inevitably will feel that Beijing does not represent them.



They don't need to kill all Han people...they just need to get some influence and attack Han people within Tibet in an attempt to take control. Then any area of China that isn't majority Han will be ripe for the same sort of ethnic warfare. Basically, it's a Pandora's Box you do not want to open. I think Mao trying to build a modern "Socialist Republic" along the same ethnic and political lines as an ancient ethnic-Han Empire was one hell of a Pandora's Box.