Chinese pigs attack Tibetan protesters

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-24442218


Tibet: Chinese police 'fired into protesters'

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/70341000/jpg/_70341695_tibetmap.jpg
Continue reading the main story (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-24442218#story_continues_1)
At least 60 Tibetans were injured after Chinese police fired into a crowd of protesters, rights group Free Tibet and US-based Radio Free Asia report.
The shooting occurred on Sunday in Biru county, as villagers demanded police free a man who led separate protests in September, the reports said.
There had been clashes in September after Tibetans refused to fly China's flag outside their homes, reports said.
Tibet is governed as an autonomous region in China.
However, rights groups have accused China of religious and political repression - something denied by the Chinese authorities.
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said that she was unaware of the reports, and declined to comment further, Reuters news agency said.
A policeman at the public security bureau in Tibet's Biru county also told AFP news agency that there was "no protest, no one injured".
Foreign media are only allowed to enter Tibet at the invitation of the Chinese government. These visits are rare and tightly controlled, making it almost impossible to independently verify reports.
The Tibet Divide



China says Tibet has always been part of its territory
Tibet had long periods of autonomy
China launched a military assault in 1950
Opposition to Chinese rule led to a bloody uprising in 1959
Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, fled to India
Dalai Lama now advocates a "middle way" with Beijing, seeking autonomy but not independence


On 6 October, a crowd of protesters gathered outside the local government office appealing for the release of local Dorjee Dagtsel, Radio Free Asia, and UK-based Free Tibet, said.
Security forces opened fire into the crowd, injuring at least 60 and leaving two in a critical condition, they said.
Free Tibet added in the statement that the forces "deployed tear gas" and beat the protesters.
However, the International Campaign for Tibet said it was not clear if the troops fired live rounds or tear gas.
Free Tibet named the two critically injured Tibetans as Tagyal, who had a broken femur, and Tsewang, who was shot in the jaw. It said they had been taken to a hospital in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa.
All the phone lines in the region have been disconnected, exile Tibetan web portal Phayul reported.
The incident appears to be latest sign of the continuing unrest on China's Tibetan plateau, the BBC's Martin Patience in Beijing reports.
Since serious ethnic rioting broke out in 2008, more than 100 Tibetans have set themselves on fire in protest against what they say is Beijing's repressive rule, our correspondent adds.
Beijing claims a centuries-old sovereignty over the Himalayan region, and says Tibet has developed considerably under its rule.
So the clash between Tibetans and the Chinese state continues, with protesters continuing to get cracked down on. Unfortunately, thanks to tight media controls, we can't really get an objective picture of why they were protesting, or how big it was, or to verify whether the Tibetan's or PRC's version of events are true. It certainly shouldn't be a surprise though that national antagonisms continue to exist in an authoritarian, pro-market country which alienates most of its people (Han and Tibetans alike, as well as all the lesser known groups in China like Mongolians and Turks) from both the political levers of power and the economic levers of power. I guess it might still be some time before the Han and Tibetan workers and peasants realize that they have common cause in driving out their creepy bureaucratic-business class.

[Os Cangaceiros]

It seems to me that the opposition to the PRC in Tibet is a legitimate national liberation struggle. Now I don't particularly think that nat-lib struggles are progressive in the present era, but if you do support such struggles I don't know why you wouldn't support this one. People commonly allude to the state of affairs before the PRC taking over Tibet, usually citing Parenti, but these excuses are exactly the same type of excuses used by Western powers for interventions against "barbarous regimes".

Then we get into whether there is a fundamental difference between the composition of Western powers and the PRC, but I think it's pretty clear at this point that the PRC merely retains socialism as a legitimizing ideology for the rule of the Chinese Communist Party, in conjunction with the PLA and a vast array of corrupt officials and business interests spread throughout the PRC.

[Per Levy]

Now I don't particularly think that nat-lib struggles are progressive in the present era, but if you do support such struggles I don't know why you wouldn't support this one.

ah you know the usual excuses, china is a "deformed/degenrated worker state", "china is genuine socialism with a chinese touch", "only resistence to western imperialism is good and eastern imperialism(russian and chinese) doesnt exist" and many more i dont want to think about.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Incidentally, many of the Tibetan "splittists" that the PRC complains about (including the Dalai Lama) long ago abandoned the goal of an independent theocracy, and now only talk about a more democratic and autonomous province within China, with expanded rights. Really, the whole Chinese argument against the Tibetans is a straw man of what actual Tibetan activists argue for. The idea that Tibetans want to return to some kind of pre-modern theocracy is simply inaccurate, not to mention it ignores the actual material realities on the ground. You can't just take a society back 50 years - Tibet has been drawn into the world of modern Capitalism and trade, and the people of Tibet aren't so naive as to think that they can just turn back the clock (despite what the Chinese government says). Not to mention, the fact that the PRC is basically an authoritarian state capitalist economy means that it's not like Tibetans would be losing out on some kind of glorious socialist utopia by gaining independence or greater autonomy.

But then again, to some, arguing that just means you're a naive liberal feudalist who hates Mao and the modernity which he (personally, of course) brought to Tibet.

[Sea]

It seems to me that the opposition to the PRC in Tibet is a legitimate national liberation struggle. Now I don't particularly think that nat-lib struggles are progressive in the present era, but if you do support such struggles I don't know why you wouldn't support this one.No, we are to exploit any and ever conflict in interests that exists between different sections of the bourgeoisie, including bourgeois and petty-bourgeois nationalists so as long as we retain our independence and proletarian line, and so as long as it is strategically useful. This was as true in 1847 as it was in 1917, and it was as true in 1917 as it is in 2013.

[DasFapital]

People should stop letting the Dalai Lama represent the entirety of the Tibetan resistance.

[Os Cangaceiros]

No, we are to exploit any and ever conflict in interests that exists between different sections of the bourgeoisie, including bourgeois and petty-bourgeois nationalists so as long as we retain our independence and proletarian line, and so as long as it is strategically useful. This was as true in 1847 as it was in 1917, and it was as true in 1917 as it is in 2013.

Huh? Proponents of national liberation struggles have historically made the claim that the divisions underlying such conflicts need to be resolved before an effective explicitely class-oriented struggle could take place (the allure of anti-colonial/nationalist/sectarian conflict being too great). I don't think that is the case in today's world. That's what I mean by "it isn't progressive".

[synthesis]

People commonly allude to the state of affairs before the PRC taking over Tibet, usually citing Parenti, but these excuses are exactly the same type of excuses used by Western powers for interventions against "barbarous regimes".

I don't know if this is necessarily always the case. There are people who supported it based on the notion that Tibet at that time was still completely rooted in the feudal mode of production - which would then be the source of Tibet's repressive "state of affairs" at that time - and that the Chinese occupation would modernize and industrialize the country, thereby bringing it into the capitalist mode of production, which could theoretically be considered a form of progress in Marxist analysis.

Although I'd say that analysis is basically correct with regards to the feudal mode, the conclusions are wrong; it's obviously not a good reason to support the Chinese occupation, and I still think it's just another thinly-veiled excuse for imperialism, but I would say that it's substantively different from the rationale behind so-called "humanitarian interventions."

[Os Cangaceiros]

^that makes sense, but a lot of the condemnations of Tibet pre-PRC I've seen are filled with a lot of stuff about Tibet at that time being some sort of brutal theocratic slave-state, basically focusing on the despotism of the political system rather than that rather mechanistic economic analysis (which, based on revleft threads in the past I've read, is rather controversial too, because then you get into whether indigenous pre-capitalist peoples being wiped out, displaced or forcibly absorbed in favor of capitalist development was progressive or not, etc)

[synthesis]

^that makes sense, but a lot of the condemnations of Tibet pre-PRC I've seen are filled with a lot of stuff about Tibet at that time being some sort of brutal theocratic slave-state, basically focusing on the despotism of the political system rather than that rather mechanistic economic analysis (which, based on revleft threads in the past I've read, is rather controversial too, because then you get into whether indigenous pre-capitalist peoples being wiped out, displaced or forcibly absorbed in favor of capitalist development was progressive or not, etc)

Yeah, I mean, I think we're more or less in agreement in that I'd say that's just a way to justify Chinese imperialism to left-liberal types. It could be argued, again, however, that it is useful in the sense that "Free Tibet" is a cause with which left-liberals commonly engage thinking that antebellum Tibet was some sort of Buddhist utopia. It's obviously a bullshit conclusion for a Marxist to draw outside of that context, but as a way to get proto-Marxists to think about concepts like modes of production and so on, it has its place - albeit one that is only slightly less simplistic than the left-liberal analysis.

[Japan]

I wish China could let Tibet go, but that'd give other independence movements a lot more strength within China which China probably doesn't want to deal with, and it'd also give China less access to the extensive mineral reserves present in Tibet.

Also, the Dalai Lama is probably more Marxist than the millionaires and billionaires who dominate the National People's Congress.

[RedHal]

People should stop letting the Dalai Lama represent the entirety of the Tibetan resistance.

ok, but are there any that are not funded by the CIA?

[Igor]

the fact that any 'leftists' still bother to defend chinese imperialism in tibet is revolting, i'm glad and actually kind of surprised we've got none of that in this thread yet because it tends to be inevitable when RL covers these issues. maybe it's to do with the sudden disappearance of our maoists or something idk

tibetan struggles are not invalidated by being adopted by liberals or the atrocities of the pre-prc atrocities of the lamas. while often spouted by certain type of commies, it's a basically racist idea that tibetans need chinese rule in order to not become a literal slave society. i'm all for internationalism, but the kind of internationalism we should struggle for doesn't take place in form of rule from beijing and han cultural imperialism

[GerrardWinstanley]

Often behind the ravings of China-bashers are some genuinely ugly prejudices. To that end, the borderline racist thread title is... revealing.

Anyway, the fact you take as gospel the report of a UK-based separatist group and that of a US Congress-funded right-wing NGO as gospel is not my problem.

[Zukunftsmusik]

Often behind the ravings of China-bashers are some genuinely ugly prejudices. To that end, the borderline racist thread title is... revealing.

"Pigs" is a normal word for police around here.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

the fact that any 'leftists' still bother to defend chinese imperialism in tibet is revolting, i'm glad and actually kind of surprised we've got none of that in this thread yet because it tends to be inevitable when RL covers these issues. maybe it's to do with the sudden disappearance of our maoists or something idk

Maoists do not defend modern day China; present China is an Imperialist power and subject to criticism as such. The only "Maoists" I know of which defend "China's Right" in Tibet are the "Market-Socialists" (enough said). Other than that I would say further any opposition would lie rooted in fear of Western Imperialism's attempts to destabilize the region (this, of course, becomes redundant if one recognizes that present China is an imperial power and as such boils down to a inter-imperialist clash. I see this with the aforementioned Market-Socialists).

[TheGodlessUtopian]

No one is saying that certain gains from the revolutionary era haven't persisted but these continue to exist primarily because the Chinese ruling class knows that the destruction of these constructions would consist a major destabilizing element while simultaneously reducing their capacity to exist as a major economic power. That being said this reality does not take away from the fact that China is a capitalist power led and ruled by capitalists. The counterrevolution already occurred, what is today is simply the remnant and wouldn't be a defeat for the global proletariat anymore than the nationalist Russian Communist Party coming to power in Russia would constitute a "victory".

If I were forced to take a position in this muddle I would say I do not support the theists nor the Chinese government while taking a cautious view towards the so-called liberation struggle unless it was led by Leftist revolutionaries.

This is all I have to say on the subject.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Often behind the ravings of China-bashers are some genuinely ugly prejudices. To that end, the borderline racist thread title is... revealing.


You're an idiot. When people call American, English or German cops "pigs" does that make them racist? When people call Israeli cops "pigs" does that make them antisemites?


Anyway, the fact you take as gospel the report of a UK-based separatist group and that of a US Congress-funded right-wing NGO as gospel is not my problem.You're taking the word of a state capitalist government as gospel.



Yes, at bottom one's entire perspective hinges on how China is viewed. If you see it simply as a capitalist, imperialist power, then the positions professed by most of the comrades here make sense. However, if you recognize that some of the key gains of the Chinese Revolution still exist, and that counterrevolution in China would be as big a setback to the world proletariat as the counterrevolution in the USSR in 1992, as I do, then those same positions are counterrevolutionary.


What "gains" would "go away" with a "counter-revolution"? The "Gain" of having a government which tortures people in its jail, arbitrarily takes land from peasants without compensation, and sends people to do hard labor for punishment? The "Gain" of being ruled by an unaccountable sect run by the richest people in the country, and based in some historical, mythical ideological leader whose ideas have been largely forgotten anyways? Wow it does almost sound like the Chinese Communist Party is trying to emulate the worst of the Lamas, on second thought.

What you are saying is true of the British, American, French and German governments. They all have "social benefits" and "gains". Yet that doesn't mean we oppose revolution in those areas, or think of revolution as "counter-revolution", because those are social welfare benefits within a Capitalist economy. They are not revolutionary socialism. The same goes for China's so-called "gains". "Social democracy" of this type is still Capitalism, and can still be very exploitative and (despite its name) undemocratic. That you make some exception for the PRC in this doesn't make sense.



I would note that when imperialist countries took over most of Africa and much of the middle east, they did almost nothing to modernize these places and left them far worse off than they were. I think that this is very hard to argue in Tibet. Yeah all those railroads totally existed in India in 1750 :rolleyes:. The Imperialists left the people of these parts of the world economically poor and politically powerless, but they left huge infrastructure projects that were critically important for the post colonial nationalists to get their projects off the ground. The Imperialists would have been unable to exploit those areas without that infrastructure. In fact, that was an argument Imperialists constantly made - that the living standards went up in some kind of limited way. Those living standards usually did go up (with a few glaring exceptions like the Congo) but that didn't mean that exploitation stopped - in fact it sometimes began with a marginal increase in the standard of living. That's not a reason to support Imperialism though, as it is just a way of enriching the Imperialists, even if it seems that there are some limited benefits in the beginning.

Some douchebag American Imperialist might argue that if it wasn't for America's aggression and manifest destiny, native Hawaiians wouldn't have access to modern medicine, schools and roads. Of course, that would be a nonsensical reason to reject (1) the historical grievances of Hawaiians against the US and (2) modern grievances against the US. The fact that China invaded Tibet and built some roads and schools doesn't justify their political model any more than the American one.

Basically, the problem with your argument is that it is fundamentally paternalistic, as if the Tibetans needed the Chinese to bring them a revolution at the point of a bayonet and make them modern by force. Your desire to distance what happened in Tibet from what happened in colonized countries shows that you also have an ahistorical and caricatured view of Imperialism. Imperialism isn't bad because of its failure to "modernize", it is problematic because it entrenches patterns of exploitation on a global scale.


But if you guys are comfortable supporting an incredibly reactionary movement, led by a religious leader, with a program of taking the country back about one thousand years, in the name of national liberation, enjoy.
The only people bringing the Tibetan exile community into this are the pro-PRC voices like yourself. This was a protest of native Tibetans in Tibet. Anyhow the Chinese government is now far more reactionary than any little bubble of Tibetans living in the Indian Himalayas at this point.

Do you understand the whole purpose of a materialist analysis of society? You can't just take a country that is embedded in the modern global capitalist economy back to feudalism, against the class interests of the majority of Tibetans (who incidentally are often the ones protesting, NOT the exile monks in India). The economy is fundamentally Capitalist thanks to the Chinese invasion and Deng's reforms, and Tibet's economy is already intertwined with that of China and other surrounding countries. It is the nationalistic Capitalism of the Chinese system which is driving the Tibetan protesters, as they are denied economic and political say in the face of the Chinese corporations and government. Nor do you understand the basic reason WHY Tibet was still feudal in 1950. Was it their Buddhist religion and their Lama lords? That would be a reading of the situation wholly divorced from material reality - Tibet was surrounded by mountains, sparsely populated and remote, and had at best only a handful of very marginal trade links to the outside world. It was incredibly remote and only even began modernizing in 1900 because a British column marched right into Tibet and defeated the handful of Tibetan monks and nomads who had rifles.

The Tibetans are not protesting to bring some ideal society which didn't really exist 60 years ago back, they are protesting for basic rights and a political voice which is denied to them by an unaccountable authoritarian government. And what's your evidence that this is actually the goal of Tibetan protesters who were beat up by police? Your own fucking prejudice.

The argument that Tibetans are trying to bring back feudalism is ridiculous and is like arguing that black nationalists in America wanted to go back to the kind of tribal kingdoms that existed before the Atlantic slave trade. It fails to understand materialist analysis of history and society, the way that real demands for liberation on the ground work and why people make them.



The reason that there has been little opposition to the liberal line on Tibet might be that so many thoughtful posters have been purged of late. "Ahhh, I think we're alone now, the beating of our liberal hearts is the only sound."Or because a bunch of the weird, quasi-idealist Tankies who don't understand Marxist analysis but have a hardon for pictures of thousands of T-54s on parade were banned.