Tibetan revolt has China's empire fraying at the edge

Times Online ^ | March 23, 2008 | Michael Sheridan

[TigerLikesRooster]

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

The way things are developing, it would be tough for China to avoid the fate of losing face. So much discontent has been bottled up. It will go off the first opportunity it gets, which would be the Olympic Game.

[Rennes Templar]

“I hope more conservatives make cause with them.”

You forget Tibetans are not Christian.

[AmericanInTokyo]

FLASH!

On The Ground reports (through Japanese TV tonight).

Two of importance:

a) Troops pouring into Tibet from Communist China, are coming in from the furthermost areas with Red China, away from Tibet. i.e. reporters are noting vehicles coming in as far from as former Manchuria (Heiliungjang, etc). This confirms to the traditional Soviet and China crackdown of sending troops to rebelling areas with ethnics not connected in the remotest way to the area to be suppressed, to be more effective. It will be easy to order troops from Harbin to fire upon citizens in Lhasa in this way.

b) PLA troops are covering over their tanks that have the Chinese PLA marks ("81": 八一) for the 8th Route Army, with newspapers, to avoid coverage from foreign media or others (side and front of the tanks where these normally appear--a Japanese military specialist commented on the photos taken out of Tibet by Japanese tourists today). I saw these photos on Japanese TV just two hours ago.

(9:00 a.m. Eastern, Easter Sunday morning)

[Travis McGee]

It’s going to be interesting to watch these events unfold.

[Sawdring]

Han Chinese comprise 91.9% of the population of China.

[TigersEye]

Not really. In fact Tibet has exerted control over China more often than the other way around.

History of Tibet.

[Zhang Fei]

Thanks for the update. I expect they will use the time-tested Chinese tactic of massacring thousands to get the Tibetans in line. Bush II may have to make the kind of decision Bush I had to make during the Tiananmen Massacre - whether or not to impose sanctions on China. Bush II will also have to figure out whether he'll respond in the way Reagan did in response to Charlie Wilson's statement with respect to the Afghan people's revolt against the Soviets - "The U.S. had nothing whatsoever to do with these people's decision to fight ... But we'll be damned by history if we let them fight with stones."

The Chinese inflicted 100,000 dead on the US during the Cold War by making it possible - via billions of dollars of military aid - for the North Koreans and North Vietnamese to invade our non-communist allies. Maybe it's time we returned the favor.

[SunkenCiv]

Note: this topic is from 3/22/2008. Thanks Zhang Fei.

[rmlew]

And the ChiComs have seen this threat. For 2 generations they have been settling Han Chinese in non-Han territory.