So how about those Tibetans? - PhillyBlog

Mixiboi · #1 (**permalink**) 03-18-2008, 11:29 PM

Continuing the independence theme of 2008...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.../wtibet718.xml

Quote:

Tourists arriving in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, from the closed city of Lhasa have told how they saw angry mobs of Tibetans attacking ethnic Chinese last Friday.

Claude Balsiger, 25, from Switzerland, said he saw the violence develop in Barkhor Square, near the Jokhang Temple.

"The young people were in action and the old people were supporting with screaming. Howling like wolves, that's how they supported them.

"Anything that looked Chinese was attacked. I saw at least seven to eight Chinese people attacked with stones and fists."

He saw one old Chinese man rescued from the mob by elderly Tibetan people, and believes the intervention of a Canadian tourist saved another life.

John Kenwood, a 19-year-old Canadian, believes he saw a man die. "They were knocking people off motorcycles," he said. "One man was hit several times in the head with a large piece of sidewalk." When his attackers left him he was not moving.

Mr Kenwood also saw boxes of stones being supplied to Tibetan throwers.

"To me it was like it was planned," he said. Both men said a rumour spread that a group of monks arrested on Monday had been killed by the Chinese, and that this inflamed emotions.

By the end of the day "huge fires were rising above the buildings all over Lhasa and black smoke was everywhere," said Mr Kenwood. "I never saw any monks take part in the violence."

Quote:

Tibetans have defied heavy security forces to push ahead with anti-Chinese rallies in western China, activists said, as authorities barred foreign journalists from entering the hotbed areas.

The demonstrations, which have seen attacks on government buildings and police stations, occurred in areas with large ethnic-Tibetan populations, who consider those regions part of Tibet’s ancestral heartland.

They broke out after deadly protests against China’s rule of the Himalayan region in its capital last week prompted a massive security crackdown there.

"An unprecedented wave of protests swept monasteries and towns (outside of Tibet proper)," the International Campaign for Tibet said in a statement.

London-based Free Tibet Campaign spokesman Matt Whitticase said Chinese troops had been parachuted into the areas as part of a huge military build-up across parts of western China to quell the unrest.

The most violent reported clash outside Tibet so far took place on Sunday in Ngawa town in Sichuan province, with troops opening fire on the crowd, activist groups said, citing accounts from witnesses.

At least eight people were killed, the groups said, with the International Campaign for Tibet naming three of the victims, including a 15-year-old student called Norbu.
"More than a thousand monks were joined by lay people for a major protest at Kirti monastery... which led to at least eight people being killed, according to several sources," the group said in a statement.

The Tibetan Campaign for Human Rights and Democracy, which is based in India, said at least eight dead bodies were brought into the monastery.

I bet China really thought they were going to go into host a world wide event like the Olympics without any resistance...

Now expect them to crack down even harder in the summer..

Tannhauser · #2 (**permalink**) 03-19-2008, 08:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by theLovebelow

I bet China really thought they were going to go into host a world wide event like the Olympics without any resistance...

Now expect them to crack down even harder in the summer..

Thus far, it's been an unmitigated P.R. disaster. From the culling of cats including family pets, to the rounding up of political agitators, and now Tibet.
My favorite, though, was when it came out that the U.S. Olympic team would be bringing all their own food. The Chi Coms asked if it was because of the "untrue" rumors that there were so many chemicals in Chinese food that they were afraid the U.S. athletes would test positive for performance enhancing drugs. "'Cuz you won't. That's totally a false rumor."
The Chi Coms are so inept at handling P.R. that "ham-fisted" won't even begin to cover them. It's almost like they have no concept whatsoever of what the rest of the world will think (maybe 60 years of Commie rule will do that to you).
It was great when they let slip that the executive in charge of all the lead paint infected toys killed himself when he found out. Because he was so heartbroken that he could have endangered the lives of so many saucer-eyed kids. Or maybe it's because he didn't want to dig his own grave, have his organs harvested without anesthetic, be dragged out of his cell at dawn, shot in the head, and have a bill for the bullet sent to his family.
Great country Chi Com is.

frankdialogue · #3 (**permalink**) 03-24-2008, 03:55 PM

The Communist Chinese have been very heavy handed with the Tibetans and also some other minorities in Xinjiang province...however, before we get too judgemental, the Chinese have been trying to modernize their country, make conditions better for their people, and establish a semblance of a middle-class...the Tibetans are an ancient people, who in some cases
have been resistant to change of any kind...this does not justify the use of force...but the Chinese are nervous about 'seperatist' movements, as are many countries around the world...ans as we should be in America...the Lakota Indians in the Dalotas have recently declared independence...the so-called 'Aztlan' movement, fueled by Mexican immigrants and their backers are pushing for the same goal in the Western US...we should be aware of this when we look at the Tibetan/Chinese situation.

Mixiboi · #4 (**permalink**) 03-24-2008, 08:42 PM

Quote:

We should be aware of this when we look at the Tibetan/Chinese situation.

Yeah, that making laws and rules against people only makes them want to be more away from being apart of the whole.

Ezra · #5 (**permalink**) 03-27-2008, 05:12 AM

Red Hot China

In the mid-1980s, when the Red Hot Chili Peppers were an unknown opening act, they were booed for their unconventional music. The lead singer once turned his back to the angry crowd, dropped his pants, and made a lewd remark about body parts. "Who are the real assholes?" he then asked. "We already have your money."

And so it is with Red China. We can boo, hiss or holler about Tibet, child labor or lead paint, but the Chinese already have our money. And our technology. And our souls, as addicted consumers. Not that protesting is completely useless. At least it makes us feel better. But, as Václav Klaus suggested, what lesson can a country with one-130th the population teach China? The time for the West to protest was 30-40 years ago, before events reached the point of no return. Now we can only lament that no one is willing to be as frank as the Chili Peppers about our predicament.

http://www.fsfinalword.com/

CityMan · #6 (**permalink**) 03-27-2008, 12:53 PM

Tibet is part of China and that's that!

no, not really.

gray67 · #7 (**permalink**) 03-27-2008, 01:49 PM

I don't see why China doesn't just let Tibet go. What's Tibet going to do? They have no economy outside of tourism, there is no infrastructure to speak of, it's landlocked, and 90% of its local government funding comes from China. The only thing that could save its economy is the discovery of roughly $130B of minerals on Tibetan land, but how much will Tibet have to spend to develop the capability to extract and deliver this ore?

It's all nice and well for these former independent countries to talk about freedom and secession but the hard reality of it is that being independent is expensive and difficult. The Dalai Lama may be a great religious figure but he has zero experience running a country so putting him in charge of anything other than the spiritual well being of his people would be a disaster.

And once you seceede, it's awfully hard for you to stop the splintering of sub-groups within your own newly independent country. You have no moral authority to stop an ethnic population from deciding they want a part of your new country for their own.

Mixiboi · #8 (**permalink**) 03-28-2008, 12:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gray67

The Dalai Lama may be a great religious figure but he has zero experience running a country so putting him in charge of anything other than the spiritual well being of his people would be a disaster.

Ummm..He was running the country since he was 4:

Quote:

It's easy to forget that the Dalai Lama is by now the most seasoned ruler on the planet, having led his people for 68 years—longer than Queen Elizabeth II, King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand or even Fidel Castro.

He came to the throne in Lhasa, after all, when he was only 4 years old, and he was receiving envoys from F.D.R. with intricate questions about the transportation of military supplies across Tibet during World War II when he was just 7. He was 11 when violent fighting broke out around him in Lhasa, and by the time he was 15—an age when most of us are stumbling through high school—he was the full-time political leader of his people, having to negotiate against Mao Zedong. After he fled Tibet at age 23, when Chinese pressure on Lhasa seemed certain to provoke widespread violence, he had to remake an entire ancient culture in exile.

The result of all this is that he is as rigorous and detailed a realist as you could hope to meet. His life has never allowed him the luxury of talking abstractly or wishfully from a mountaintop. He follows the news more closely than many journalists do and cheerfully confessed to me more than a decade ago that he is "addicted" to the bbc World Service broadcast every morning. When he speaks around the world, one of his favorite lines is "Dream—nothing!" or some other expression to stress that instead of looking outside ourselves for help or inspiration, we should act right now because "responsibility for our future lies on our own shoulders."

I'mSoRad2.0 · #9 (**permalink**) 03-28-2008, 01:19 AM

Never trust a Communist.
EVER.....

Cuba had a higher standard of living than Belgium and Italy.....then Fidel seized power.
Look what happened afterwards.

Additionally, there's really no religious freedom under communist oppression.

Phillybud · #10 (**permalink**) 04-01-2008, 02:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ezra

Red Hot China

In the mid-1980s, when the Red Hot Chili Peppers were an unknown opening act, they were booed for their unconventional music. The lead singer once turned his back to the angry crowd, dropped his pants, and made a lewd remark about body parts. "Who are the real assholes?" he then asked. "We already have your money."

And so it is with Red China. We can boo, hiss or holler about Tibet, child labor or lead paint, but the Chinese already have our money. And our technology. And our souls, as addicted consumers. Not that protesting is completely useless. At least it makes us feel better. But, as Václav Klaus suggested, what lesson can a country with one-130th the population teach China? The time for the West to protest was 30-40 years ago, before events reached the point of no return. Now we can only lament that no one is willing to be as frank as the Chili Peppers about our predicament.

http://www.fsfinalword.com/

So unfortunate, but so true! Very astute point!

And yet, as we learned from the fall of the Soviet Union and the entire block of Warsaw Pact nations, even a great and mighty nation can implode in a relatively short amount of time.