Tibetan revolt has China's empire fraying at the edge

Times Online ^ | March 23, 2008 | Michael Sheridan

[Zhang Fei]

It's pretty impressive that five decades of Chinese totalitarianism hasn't extinguished Tibet's sense of itself as being separate from China, notwithstanding the scores of Tibetan quislings who have made common cause with the Han Chinese in the extinction of the Tibetan nation.

[TCats]

I’ve travelled and worked fairly extensively in the PRC and as best I can tell, there is the real possibility that regionalism, ethnic and socio/economic differences will ultimately do to China what was done to the USSR. You have got North/South, Urban/Rural, numerous ethnic groups and tribalism that has been bottled up but is just waiting to bubble to the surface.

China is simply not some monolith populated with homogeneous peoples.

[Army Air Corps]

Ping.

[Clintonfatigued]

The people of Tibet deserve better than Chinese rule. I hope more conservatives make cause with them.

[the invisib1e hand]

sour tang

oy.

[indcons]

Thank you for the ping, AAC.

[indcons]

BTTT

[LoneRangerMassachusetts]

China is simply not some monolith populated with homogeneous peoples.

No it's not. But, for about three thousand years it has had these groups under the control of one dynasty or another.

[Leisler]

Ah, the pleasures of greed coupled with illegitimate rule. Nice Tiger the Commie thugs have gotten on. And the Olympics coming up. Shut them down, nope. Run them like a armed camp, most likely. Maybe it will monsoon. Interesting times for Beijing and the top 3,000.

[TCats]

True. The Ch'in Dynasty did it but it has been a game of playing fragments off against each other ever since. The Info Age has made the balancing act that much more difficult.

[JACKRUSSELL]

(Please FReepmail me if you would like to be on or off of the list.)

[not2worry]

IMHO, China is on the verge of imploding.

Their population basis is a majority of people under the age of 35.

While “religion” is banned, most of the Chinese continue to be Buddism.

The average young Chinese looks at Taiwan and Hong Kong and can’t figure out why they and their families are working 24/7 and housed in hell-hole shelters to build the grand monuments for the Olymics in Bejing, Shainghai and Dalian while they and their fellow country men are starving.

[Zhang Fei]

Fiercely resisting a Chinese campaign to force them into new towns, the nomads burst onto television screens around the world last week as they galloped into village after village at the head of protesting Tibetans.

All of post-conquest Tibet's land belongs to the "Chinese people". Since 99.5 per cent of the Chinese population is composed of Han Chinese, this means 99.5% of Tibet's land belongs non-Tibetans. (Although in reality, 100% of the land in China belongs to Communist Party cadres, no matter what your land title might say - the title can be canceled without notice, or appeal). I think the Tibetans were quiescent for decades because the communists let them continue living on their ancestral lands, even though these lands now theoretically belong to the people (i.e. the local party cadres, for the duration of their tenures). As Moose Dung Mao Zedong used to say, a single spark can start a prairie fire.

[Zhang Fei]

In Tibet, that spark was large scale land confiscations.

[seowulf]

sour tang

oy.

Get your mind outta the gutter. There's not enough room for both of us down here!

[Zhang Fei]

I’ve travelled and worked fairly extensively in the PRC and as best I can tell, there is the real possibility that regionalism, ethnic and socio/economic differences will ultimately do to China what was done to the USSR. You have got North/South, Urban/Rural, numerous ethnic groups and tribalism that has been bottled up but is just waiting to bubble to the surface. China is simply not some monolith populated with homogeneous peoples.

I agree. China is basically a Roman empire that never fell apart. A Roman empire without nationalism - not the faux nationalism of today's China, but the same kind of nationalism that tore the European empires apart. The kind of nationalism that would see East Turkistan restored to the Turks, Tibet to the Tibetans, "Inner" Mongolia to the Mongols, Yunnan, Kwangsi and Kweilin to its natives, Canton province to speakers of Cantonese and even Shanghai, Soochow and Hangchow reverting to speakers of the Wu language.

[the invisib1e hand]

it was strictly a literary critique. ;)

[Travis McGee]

Tibetans must make the most of this olympic season. Once the big show is over, China will take the gloves off.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Yes, they will do an about-face. Actually they will declare war on all "potential enemies of state." They will watch their enemies making waves during the Olympic Game, and mark them for liquidation after the game is over.

Every dissident planning on uprising or protest during the game must know this. They must set up the plan to go underground and elude authorities or escalate unrest further.

It would be interesting to see how it would unfold.

[Travis McGee]

I think it will be tragic. A thousand Tianamen Squares, many never seen or recorded or known.

Especially if the Beijing gangsters perceive that the olympic games were “sabotaged” and they have lost face.