There is even a big difference between pacifism and passive resistance.
And armed resistance might be futile, if you are an unarmed minority fighting a larger power. In that case, the use of passive resistance is not unreasonable. But passive resistance has to be planned like a military operation, because it is still conflict. It also retains honor and dignity, unlike the cringing cowardice of pacifism.
In the case of Tibet, the Chinese are trying to consume Tibet by taking it over and repopulating the country with Han Chinese. This means that an effective campaign of passive resistance would start by trying to convince the Chinese that they are not wanted there. That they do not belong there. That it is not, and never will be their home or part of China.
Passive resistance would be a campaign of thousands of non-violent attacks. The Chinese language would be refused in favor of Tibetan. The Tibetans refuse to learn it or use it, and both corrupt it and say it poorly and filled with curses.
Even poor and shabbily dressed Tibetans can make fun of, and look down on the Chinese. Their children can be taught prejudice, that the Chinese are “dirty” and “corrupt” and deserve to be despised as inferior. That the Chinese military are invaders who are outsiders that will go “home” someday.
Any opportunity to put a Chinese run business out of business should be taken. Tibetans who work for Chinese should be encouraged to sabotage and do bad work that costs the business customers. Tibetan businesses should refuse Chinese customers or treat them poorly.
And every time the opportunity presents itself, the Tibetans should say to the Chinese, “You are not welcome in our country. You should go home to your own country.”
It takes years to make an invader feel unwelcome. But it is possible to convince them that what they are doing is not worth it, and that they don’t really want to be there. That it is not a pleasant place, and the people are unfriendly.
What you described can be summed up in one term: “monkey-wrenching.”
It is quite foreign to the traditional Tibetan mindset to be divisive or devious even with an enemy. They are so direct in the way they deal with others that the CIA had difficulty dissuading the Khampa warriors they were training from assaulting fortified PLA positions head on on foot and on horseback. (see article linked above)
I think that 58 years of PLA enforced occupation has worn down that POV, which is born of being raised to be open and respectful in the Buddhist tradition, and the younger generation has begun to absorb the rude and devious manner of their oppressors. They have been forcefully discouraged from pursuing the inner path to peace and spiritual wealth and are left with the outer example that the means to power and autonomy are deception and violence.
The ChiComs couldn't have chosen a worse way to conquer Tibet if they had planned to do everything possible to make it fail.
Boy thats rich, its good to know that flights of delusional fancy are popular among liberals and conservatives alike. Too bad your plan is about as useful as tilting at windmills. The glaring ommission in your passive resistance plan is it completly ignores the reality on the ground and the nature of Chinese migration to Tibet.
Most Tibetans do not speak Chinese very well to begin with, but the thing is, it doesn’t really matter and the Chinese do not particularly care. Daily life between the two societies already exist in a form of mutual self-segragation. The vast majority of Tibetans live in rural areas where they have virtually no day to day contact with Han Chinese to begin with. The Chinese are concentrated in the urban areas which are predominantly Han Chinese whose economy primarily caters to other Chinese .
The problem with passive resistance is that for it to work, the occupying power must require the cooperation of the locals in order to effectly run day to day affairs. The reason why it won’t work in Tibet is because the patterns of economic development and immigration in Tibet are turning Tibetans into an irrelevant underclass.
The Chinese don’t need their cooperation to begin with. Economic sabotage? Hah, that only works if Han business owners hired Tibetans to begin with. Consumer boycotts? Too bad Tibetans are too poor and that it is Han Chinese buying from other Han Chinese. Han Chinese being mistreated at Tibetan stores, most businesses are Han run to begin with and most Chinese won’t shop at Tibetan establishments with alternatives available. Tibetans giving people the evil eye? I hope they like staring at yaks because thats the only thing watching.