Tibit - And China's role in it.

[Comrade Daniel]

(Edit: the topic name should be Tibet!!!)

China invaded Tibet years ago and killed lot's of people living there At least according to a program a saw yesterday. My question is does somebody know when they occupied Tibet for how long? And what do you think about this occupation?

(Edited by Comrade Daniel at 10:25 am on May 1, 2003)

[Donut Master]

Free Tibet!

This site (http://www.freetibet.org/) should have all the information you need.

[Rastafari]

This is an interesting story...I met the Dalai Lama 6-7 years ago while he was "on the run" so to speak from China. I didn't realize how big of a thing it was being blessed by him until I saw him shaking hands with Harrison Ford a few days later in the paper.
So I thought :"Wow! I have been within 18 inches of someone who touched Han Solo!"
To quote Homer Simpson, "ahh, Kids say (or think, rather) the stupidist things."

[Comrade Daniel]

Chinese are communist comrades but I don't think invading Tibet was a good thing to do.

[Saint-Just]

The Seventeen Point Agreement between China and Tibet, of 1951, authorised the entry into Tibet of Chinese forces and empowered the Chinese Government to handle Tibet's external affairs. It guaranteed that China would not alter the existing political system in Tibet and not interfere with the established status, function, and powers of the Dalai Lama or the Panchen Lama. The Tibetan people were to have regional autonomy, and their religious beliefs and customs were to be respected. Internal reforms in Tibet would be effected after consultation with leading Tibetans and without compulsion.

The process took from 1949-51, and Tibet is still currently in the hands of the Chinese. Tibet is deservedly a region of Chinese people and it was necessary for national interests of Chinese that it was handed to China. Unfortunately the PLA did not liberate the Chinese people of Taiwan, and most gravely they did not liberate the oppressed Chinese in Hong-Kong and most anguishingly in Macao.

[thursday night]

I cannot really say I support the 'freeing' of Tibet. Freeing from what? As revisionist as the policies of the People's Republic of China may be it is still a socialist state, and we must defend it as such, while being (highly) critical of the revisionism. Besides, the neo-imperialism currently being shown by the United States may help to stop the tide of the revisionism.

[Severian]

There's a couple different aspects to this. One is that there is national oppression in Tibet - domination by Han Chinese over Tibetans, insufficient access to the best jobs and education for Tibetans. The other aspect is that in 1959 an extremely backward and oppressive feudal, theocratic system was overthrown in Tibet, by the Chinese army with the support of some Tibetans. I seriously doubt that most Tibetans in Tibet - as opposed to their former rulers and owners, now in exile - would want to go back to the old system, and be serfs again.

Most of the "free tibet" stuff - like the site linked previously - ignores the second half of this. Some even accuse China of genocide in Tibet - a bizarre accusation that ignores the fact that the number of Tibetans has actually greatly increased since 1959, due to the introduction of modern medical care and social advances associated with the Chinese Revolution.

The "free Tibet" campaign glorifies overthrown serf-owning theocrats like the Dalai Lama. Tibetans certainly weren't free when he ruled them. More seriously, it incites U.S. imperialism to take a more hostile stance towards China, and will become one of the tools of U.S. imperialism if it ever decides to seriously drive towards war against China.

And, BTW, the U.S. didn't favor Tibetan independence when Chiang Kai-Shek was in charge of China. (He also claimed that Tibet was rightfully part of China.) Rather, this was a way for Uncle Sam to go after the Chinese Revolution, including arming and training Tibetan "contras." (Most of whom were monks, so much for Tibetan Buddhist pacifism.)

Here's an article I once wrote about the subject. (http://www.seeingred.com/Copy/3.1_freetibet.html)

An article from the Human Rights Watch webpage (http://www.hrw.org/pubweb/sperlingcont.html) - has some useful info on the current situation in Tibet, contradicts some of the exaggerations of the "free Tibet" people.

[synthesis]

I'm 100% pro-Tibetan independance.

[Robot Rebellion]

When the Dalai Lamas Ruled: Hell on Earth (http://rwor.org/a/firstvol/tibet/TIBET1.HTM) < there is a description from the marxist view of Tibet. Quite lengthy, but well worth the read. Sure Tibet had its problems, but China's cure is worse then the disease. China is meddling in things they can't understand. They are raping Tibet's natural resources, creating pollution, they are forcing a level of materialism the Tibetans don't need, creating human rights violations right and left, destroying Tibetan shrines, forcing Tibetans to endure Chinese 'education', not letting them learn their native tongue, and creating a radioactive wasteland with their nuclear foolishness. Neither China, nor the Tibetan feudal lords had the best interest of their people in mind.

(Edited by Robot Rebellion at 5:15 am on May 7, 2003)

[Aleksander Nordby]

your totally rigth robot rebellion

[Sensitive]

I just don't want theocracy to return to Tibet.

[Severian]

Quote: from Robot Rebellion on 11:12 pm on May 6, 2003

Sure Tibet had its problems, but China's cure is worse then the disease.

China is meddling in things they can't understand. They are raping Tibet's natural resources,

Look, China is not economically exploiting Tibet. They're putting a lot more in economically than they are getting out. Their motives for wanting to control Tibet are more strategic and ideological-nationalist.

creating pollution, creating pollution, they are forcing a level of materialism the Tibetans don't need,

What is this about "materialism"? Are you under the impression that Tibet was some kind of unspoiled Shangri-La where people only worried about spiritiual things....and that this was a good thing? Or are you arguing that industrial development is bad? Without industrial development, Tibet will always be dependent on stronger countries, whether it is China or someone else.

creating human rights violations right and left,

when you talk about "human rights" in the abstract, you cannot distinguish yourself from the propaganda of the imperialists and the exiled serfowners.

destroying Tibetan shrines

Factually not the case, in present tense. Did happen during the Cultural Revolution, however. Ironically, the Maoist link you described as a "marxist view", praises this destruction of shrines.

forcing Tibetans to endure Chinese 'education', not letting them learn their native tongue,

False. Most schools in Tibet are Tibetan-language. The availability of higher-level and technical education in Tibetan is an issue. Also the need for Han Chinese in Tibet to learn Tibetan.

Far more people can read and write in Tibetan than before 1959, when most Tibetans had no access to education at all.

Ironically, the Tibetan govt-in-exile's schools in India are English-language, not Tibetan-language.

See the link I gave earlier, the Human Rights Watch page, for more on language and cultural issues in Tibet.

creating a radioactive wasteland with their nuclear foolishness.

I don't doubt there is abuse of the environment, not only in Tibet but throughout the PRC, but this sounds like an exaggeration. And it is not foolish for China to build nuclear weapons to deter U.S. imperialism. If China and the USSR had not done so, the U.S. probably would have nuked more cities than just Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Neither China, nor the Tibetan feudal lords had the best interest of their people in mind.

You're leaving out the imperialists. And all your specific points are drawn straight from the publicity put out by the exiled feudalists. You even repeat false and exaggerated accusations put out by them.

You don't have to depend on the reams of material put out by apologists and devotees of the Dalai Lama, or on Maoist propaganda for that matter. There are a number of books on Tibet put out by serious scholars and historians like A. Tom Grunfeld, Melvyn Goldstein, and Tsering Shakya (I don't agree with their politics, esp Shakya, but they have valuable factual material.)

I list a number of these books at the end of the article by me I linked earlier.

[Comrade Yang]

Quote: from Chairman Mao on 4:22 am on May 2, 2003
Unfortunately the PLA did not liberate the Chinese people of Taiwan....


why is this an unfortunate thing? i know chiang-kai shek did some pretty nasty things when he came over to this humble little island, but i shudder to think what taiwan would be like as a part of china.

[Saint-Just]

Quote: from Comrade Yang on 6:42 am on May 8, 2003

Quote: from Chairman Mao on 4:22 am on May 2, 2003
Unfortunately the PLA did not liberate the Chinese people of Taiwan....


why is this an unfortunate thing? i know chiang-kai shek did some pretty nasty things when he came over to this humble little island, but i shudder to think what taiwan would be like as a part of china.

Why? what would be wrong. Not is is 2003 I do not care what countries China liberated since they would now be under imperialist infection, since China was only Marxist-Leninist and of patriotic leadership prior to 1976.

[Severian]

Ah what the heck, I'm gonna comment on a post by Chairman Mao early in this thread.


Quote: from Chairman Mao on 8:22 pm on May 1, 2003
The Seventeen Point Agreement between China and Tibet, of 1951, authorised the entry into Tibet of Chinese forces and empowered the Chinese Government to handle Tibet's external affairs.

True, but really just a technicality. The Lhasa theocracy agreed to the People's Liberation Army entering Tibet only because it was going to happen whether they agreed or not. The Tibetan army had already been whupped. So looking at content rather than forms, it was an invasion...well that opens up the whole can of worms on whether Tibet was previously part of China or not. Let's say that in content, the PRC used force to take control of Tibet.

It guaranteed that China would not alter the existing political system in Tibet and not interfere with the established status, function, and powers of the Dalai Lama or the Panchen Lama. The Tibetan people were to have regional autonomy, and their religious beliefs and customs were to be respected. Internal reforms in Tibet would be effected after consultation with leading Tibetans and without compulsion.

Yes, these were the provisions of the 17-point agreement. And they were implemented - meaning that the serf system in Tibet continued up 'til 1959, when the theocrats rose in rebellion against the PRC.

I'm not saying that the PRC shoulda immediately charged in and carried out a social revolution in Tibet regardless of what the Tibetan peasants wanted and were ready to actively participate in. But then, that's what the PRC found itself forced to do in '59 anyway...with the support of some Tibetans, but still the political conditions for revolution hadn't really been created.

So really my point is more about how the PRC spent those eight years wooing the old ruling elite - and ultimately failed - when they shoulda been politically preparing the peasants to do away with 'em.

The process took from 1949-51, and Tibet is still currently in the hands of the Chinese.

I'm not sure what process you mean. As I said, feudalism remained in Tibet up 'til 1959.

Tibet is deservedly a region of Chinese people and it was necessary for national interests of Chinese that it was handed to China.

If by "Chinese people", you mean Han, that's a chauvinist statement. If you mean that Tibetans and other nationalities in the PRC are all "Chinese" - a common idea in China I know - that's a more complex subject, but I don't agree.

There were real reasons to move in - including the possibility that Lhasa's central Tibetan realm coulda been used as a base for spreading counterrevolution into eastern Tibet and elsewhere in the PRC. And most Tibetans probably benefited in terms of their conditions of life.

But Chinese nationalist mythology inherited from the Kuomintang was also involved. Seems to me that for communists, "national interests of Chinese" should not be the most decisive criterion - rather the international interests of all working people.

[Saint-Just]

'True, but really just a technicality. The Lhasa theocracy agreed to the People's Liberation Army entering Tibet only because it was going to happen whether they agreed or not. The Tibetan army had already been whupped. So looking at content rather than forms, it was an invasion...well that opens up the whole can of worms on whether Tibet was previously part of China or not. Let's say that in content, the PRC used force to take control of Tibet.'

True...

'Yes, these were the provisions of the 17-point agreement. And they were implemented - meaning that the serf system in Tibet continued up 'til 1959, when the theocrats rose in rebellion against the PRC.

I'm not saying that the PRC shoulda immediately charged in and carried out a social revolution in Tibet regardless of what the Tibetan peasants wanted and were ready to actively participate in. But then, that's what the PRC found itself forced to do in '59 anyway...with the support of some Tibetans, but still the political conditions for revolution hadn't really been created.

So really my point is more about how the PRC spent those eight years wooing the old ruling elite - and ultimately failed - when they shoulda been politically preparing the peasants to do away with 'em.'

I did not know this... in interesting...

'I'm not sure what process you mean. As I said, feudalism remained in Tibet up 'til 1959.'

I am referring to the process by which Tibet came under Chinese control. It was a question asked at the beginning of the thread.

'If by "Chinese people", you mean Han, that's a chauvinist statement. If you mean that Tibetans and other nationalities in the PRC are all "Chinese" - a common idea in China I know - that's a more complex subject, but I don't agree.

There were real reasons to move in - including the possibility that Lhasa's central Tibetan realm coulda been used as a base for spreading counterrevolution into eastern Tibet and elsewhere in the PRC. And most Tibetans probably benefited in terms of their conditions of life.

But Chinese nationalist mythology inherited from the Kuomintang was also involved. Seems to me that for communists, "national interests of Chinese" should not be the most decisive criterion - rather the international interests of all working people.

I am not a racist, I consider those that share responsibilites form a nation. I know they are not all Han Chinese. I don't consider it at all necessary top be Han to be Chinese. I do have the view that all "nationalities" inside the PRC are Chinese.

Socialism is both patriotic and internationalist. Wanting the best for the people at home and to unite them and build a strong nation, whilst not compromising the sovereignty of others.

[Kapitan Andrey]

Independent Tibet!? Joking!? They are wery poor!!!

[Severian]

I am not a racist, I consider those that share responsibilites form a nation. I know they are not all Han Chinese. I don't consider it at all necessary top be Han to be Chinese. I do have the view that all "nationalities" inside the PRC are Chinese.


OK, thanks for clarifying that. Like I said, that's a more complex subject...but IMO this view owes more to Sun Yat-sen's "Five Races of China" (Han, Manchu, Mongol, Tibetan, and....Uigur?) than to Marxism's understanding of the national question....

Bottom line, perhaps, is that a number of these peoples don't seem to consider THEMSELVES to be Chinese, and using force to keep people in a state is usually an obstacle to real unity of working people of different nationalities.


Socialism is both patriotic and internationalist. Wanting the best for the people at home and to unite them and build a strong nation, whilst not compromising the sovereignty of others.


Yes, and even Sun Yat-sen-ism had a strong anti-imperialist component to its nationalism...the desire to reunify China, divided by the machinations of the imperialists, including Britain's 1904 invasion of Tibet and other efforts to tear it away from China and make it a British protectorate...

On the other hand, communists' ultimate goal is not just a sovereign nation, but a world without borders, and when interests are in conflict, the interests of the world revolution have to come first...

[Saint-Just]

'On the other hand, communists' ultimate goal is not just a sovereign nation, but a world without borders, and when interests are in conflict, the interests of the world revolution have to come first...'

I do not know what you mean by this, specifically the world revolution coming first when interests are in conflict.