Posted on 04/08/2008 10:55:15 AM PDT by indcons
Tibetans have a strong case against Beijing. But mixing it in with the Olympics and Darfur is a red rag to a wounded young bull.
Nationalism is more often aroused by setbacks than success, so the Tibet problems and the possible threats to a triumphal Olympics are stirring it in China.
On the horizon is the possibility that these will combine with high inflation, stagnating exports and trade tensions with the United States to create a perfect nationalistic storm.
The Chinese leadership faces a difficult balancing act.
As its legitimacy is now based on national achievement, not communist ideology, it must appear in step with popular feeling. Yet stability at home and good relations abroad require keeping nationalist emotions in check. The paranoia about evil foreign designs that thrived under Mao and was discarded by Deng Xiaoping is still close to the surface.
Almost all of China is offended that foreigners are so keen to lecture them and to encourage the petty boycotts that could spoil the Olympic party. It genuinely infuriates the Chinese that they are blamed for Darfur while their Western critics occupy Iraq. Beijing is happy to let such nationalist resentments vent in the sometimes violent language of Internet blogs and chat rooms.
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
Did they also agree to give up their native language and the right to practice their religion?
I ask that they click on the keyword CHINA on FR, and then see why they are the cause of their own woes. To our congressmen...Git rid of the "china has the most favored nation status" please.
“I don’t even know who Roy Jones Jr is.”
He beat the snot out of the korean boxer, but the Korean boxer’s family bought the judges and took them out for dinner to “buy” the medal.
It was revealed after investigation that the fight was fixed against the American boxer,
I said BUH BYE to the olympics after that.
This was in the early 90’s I think.
I have no desire to watch the olympukes.
Seeing female weightlifting as a sport further drives me away.
Yes, China could devolve to a number of smaller states. Unfortunately, it would be a very bloody process.
Yes. Not only are they being subjugated by an outside authoritarian regime, they are being displaced in the economy by non-Tibetans China is encouraging to immigrate.
The Tibetans beg to differ, as do the Uighurs. The Mogolians made their point early on. Present day China, more accurately known as the Han Empire, has serious rift zones which threaten the central government in ways the American government never has.
In any case, the difference between a democratic republic and a race-based dictatorship are too obvious to need elaboration. Nice try though, and thanks for playing.
The author making a moral equivalence between actual Al Qaeda terrorist attacks and Beijing's propaganda fantasy of Tibetan suicide bombers? Moral relativism too to compare the PRC and The U.S. and other western nations fighting Islamo-fundies.
Don’t worry about it. That precedent has already been set by recognizing Kosovo. No one is going to stop the Chinese from killing Tibetans.
Yeah, with a gun to their heads and thousands of dead Tibetans as a bargaining lever they signed a treaty with Mao’s thugs. Don’t let those facts get in your way, ChiCom.
Good point.
My guess is, in terms of the free will of the Tibetan people and their nation, that treaty is not worth the paper it is written on...as the Tibetan people themselves are once again explaining to the world with a message written in their own blood.
Beyond the human rights issues that can be made against China in Tibet (and numerous other places) there is a stake in this for the U.S. geopolitically. We are facing a huge growing threat from China both economically and militarily. As we would rather see Iran's authoritarian regime be dismantled internally, instead of having to fight them head on, so I think it would be far preferable for us if China was forced to reorganize through internal dissolution.
Tibet is one of the major points of weakness for the "unified China" policy. We can't help Tibet much at all, and neither will anyone else, in any direct way but whatever can be done to keep the PRC off balance and Tibetan independence an issue can only help promote the fall of the ChiCom regime. Protesting the Olympics may seem like a small thing but it's shining a lot of light on China in a very negative way for them. It opens minds to the idea that China is not reformed in spite of their economic gains and other appearances of modernity that they like to hold up as their only image.
Who says they have given up their native language? Perhaps if more if them spoke Chinese, they wouldn’t be left behind in the economic development.
The right to practice their religion is not a right at all. The Tibetans do not recognize the separation of Church and State. Few Americans this generation remember but this separation exists primarily not to protect secular political life from the manipulations of religion, but the inverse. Influence is a two way street, if religion dictates your government, then your government can also dictate your religion. Cuis regio, eius religio.
Actually no, it was signed by representatives of the present reigning Dalai Lama prior and in good faith with no coercion all before harming a single hair on their pretty little heads. Even the prominent Tibetan historian Tsering Shakya noted this in his book Dragon in the Land of Snows, though the self-proclaimed exile government now claims it is not so. It was only when the Communist Party began implementing radical communist reform, natch, that the Tibetans chose to rebel. Unfortunately for them, while the agreement like the U.S. constitution may have outlined how Tibet was part of China, it did not contain provisions for its seccession.
I was well aware of those relative merits. Propaganda is all these thugs need to manipulate 'world opinion.'
Re China, I don't see anything we would do as changing what they would do in the long run. They mean to destroy us, preferably the easy way by abetting events from within.
As we would rather see Iran's authoritarian regime be dismantled internally, instead of having to fight them head on, so I think it would be far preferable for us if China was forced to reorganize through internal dissolution.
With the combination of their forced tolerance for pain and cash on hand versus our near-total cowardice, overcommitment, and negative cash flow, I'm not too sanguine about our ability to propitiate such an event. Between illegal immigration into the US and the increasing dependence of its cities on easily disrupted technology, it looks to me like we are more easily nudged into chaos than they. Hell, we're not only energy dependent, we import more food than we export.
whatever can be done to keep the PRC off balance and Tibetan independence an issue can only help promote the fall of the ChiCom regime.
I think this wishful thinking.
It opens minds to the idea that China is not reformed in spite of their economic gains and other appearances of modernity that they like to hold up as their only image.
Europe has already got it, but it doesn't change their behavior re Iran as a Chinese client.
I thought your point was that it would be used as a propaganda point here to bring about Atzlan. Wasn't that what you said? That is what I was referring to.
Re China, I don't see anything we would do as changing what they would do in the long run.
I believe I said basically that.
They mean to destroy us, preferably the easy way by abetting events from within.
Are you suggesting we just grease up and get ready?
With the combination of their forced tolerance for pain and cash on hand versus our near-total cowardice, overcommitment, and negative cash flow, I'm not too sanguine about our ability to propitiate such an event. Between illegal immigration into the US and the increasing dependence of its cities on easily disrupted technology, it looks to me like we are more easily nudged into chaos than they. Hell, we're not only energy dependent, we import more food than we export.
I guess you are sanguine about accepting this inevitability.
Europe has already got it, but it doesn't change their behavior re Iran as a Chinese client.
Well that caps it. Your view is "We're screwed. Live with it." Knock yourself out.
They dont want your economic development they want their country back and the freedom to practice their religion the way they want. If the murdering thugs of China had anything positive to offer they wouldn't be attacking soldiers carrying AK-47s with rocks.
In other words the ChiComs reneged on the treaty. It's still a lie that they hadn't come in killing before the treaty.
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