Saturday, March 22, 2008

China urged to crush revolt in Tibet

...by it's state-run newspaper. What a surprise.

From CNN.com:
The flagship newspaper of China's ruling Communist Party called Saturday for efforts to "resolutely crush" anti-government demonstrations by Tibetans, while Beijing urged people to turn in those on a "Most Wanted" list of 21 protesters.
It’s been about twenty years since the last big freedom rebellion in China, which ended with the infamous Tiananmen Square Massacre.

And exactly like that last rebellion, the U.S. is going to completely ignore this one, too.

President Bush, that ever-shining beacon of Freedom and Democracy (but only for nations with vast oil reserves and shaky dictatorships) will sit listlessly on his hands while thousands of Tibetan protesters are jailed or slaughtered. And China will continue it’s cultural genocide of Tibet with impunity; what’s more, with the implied consent of the United States.

Bush won’t make a memorable speech about freedom for Tibet.

There won’t be the equivalent of Ronald Reagan’s memorable “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall!”

Because America has lost her moral standing in the world. We torture. We hold people indefinitely without trials. We have secret prisons, where people are whisked off to in the night. We are like a ship without a rudder, careening waywardly through the waters of international policy. We lurch from one diplomatic disaster to another, and there’s huge icebergs in the darkness up ahead, while our Captain orders full speed ahead.

China will stop at nothing to quash the rebellion in Tibet. They want to use the 2008 Olympic Games as a propaganda machine to show the world that they’re a wonderful worker’s paradise. China has already muzzled the Olympic athletes of their rights to speech. They’ve politicized the event to a degree we haven’t seen since 1980, when the U.S boycotted the Moscow Olympics to protest Russia’s occupation of Afghanistan.

Isn’t it funny how history is a cache of endless irony?

Let’s take a look at the history of this situation. Tibet was a very isolated place up to the mid-20th century. Peaceful, spiritual, unchanging. The people were left alone to live in peace.

It was a spiritual culture, too. For hundreds of years, Tibetans practiced a type of Buddhism that was central to their culture. One in four male children became a Buddist monk. There were thousands of monasteries dotting the landscape in this holy nation.

Then in 1949, Chairman Mao and the fledgling Chinese Communist government decided to invade and occupy Tibet. They sent thousands of soldiers flooding into the towns and villages, killing and jailing those that resisted. The Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of the nation, was forced to flee to India to avoid capture and imprisonment or execution.

The Chinese Air Force bombed the monasteries. Before the invasion there were over 6,000 of them. By 1970, there were nine left. Their interiors were ransacked of gold and jewels left by the faithful, and the buildings were either destroyed or converted to government structures. There used to be over 120,000 monks or "lamas"; less than a thousand remain, and they are forbidden to practice their religion. China has succeeded in erasing nearly every bit of Tibetan culture, save for what lives on in the hearts and minds of the ethnic Tibetans.

China has built railroads and roads into Tibet, always with little or no regard to the environment, and transplanted hundreds of thousands of ethnic Chinese to live and work there. China also uses Tibet as a dumping ground for hazardous toxins and nuclear waste.

The situation today is no different from any other crisis in history, where an oppressed people stands up against impossible odds. Many will suffer and die. The U.S. won’t do a single thing to try to effect change, because we depend on China for trade and loans.

And the Olympics will go on as scheduled, and it will be a propaganda windfall for China.

(Two books I recommend about Tibet and the oppressive Chinese system: "In Exile From the Land of Snows" by John F. Avadon, and "Across China" by Peter Jenkins)

12 comments:

Unknown said...

I strongly disagree with some of your guests’ opinion about Tibet independent movement.

Here are some factors about Chinese history with Tibet.

1. From Yuan Dynasty ( 1271AD – 1368 AD ) Tibet is part of China.
2. From Ming Dynasty ( 1368AD-1644AD ) Tibet is part of China.
3. From Qing Dynasty ( 1644AD-1911AD) Tibet is part of China.
4. Republic of China period( 1911AD ) Tibet is part of China.


Due the weak of Qing Dynasty, British gained control over Tibet as a colonial region. They treated Tibetan as slavery.

Prior to 1950, Tibet was till in slavery society, under the Dalai Lama’s regime, 80% Tibetan were slave and their children would be slaves for ever. It was the darkest, horrible society.

Dalai Lama met Mao ZheDong who was president of China at that time in 1954,he agreed to accept central government. Here is picture

(It seems I cannot paste the photo here, You all can find it if you did a little search on Chinese histroy about Tibet part.)

Right one was Dalai Lama. Center was MaoZheDong.


All the western people know Dalai Lama is exiled government and promote peace movement to get independent of Tibet, but most people don’t know the factor, in later 1950s, Dalai Lama was supported by CIA and British against Chinese government and forced India government to accept Dalai Lama as exiled Tibet government. Ever since Dalai Lama was funding by CIA for his independent campaign.

After 1950, all the Tibetan are not slave any more, and Chinese government spends 200 millions (about 40 million us dollar) each year on Tibet for building schools, hospitals, infrastructure.

If you want Tibet to be independent, ask them to read some history book about Dalai Lama’s slavery society before 1950 and how horrible it was.

Only Chinese government freed Tibet, not Dalai Lama free Tibetan.


If people really think about free Tibet which maybe independent nine hundred years ago,
How about

Britain: Scotland, Northern Ireland independent

United States:
Free Texas republic or all the American pack up and go back to Europe.

Canada:
Quebec independent, All Canadian leave the land back to Native people

Japan:
Hokkaido Independence, Okinawa Independence.

Since nine hundred years, Tibet has been part of China. Do some research on Tibet’s history before talking about Tibet’s independency.

Anonymous said...

GREAT ANALYSIS .

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Let us unleash THE FULL POWER OF THE ECHELON SATELLITE NETWORKS.

Check these out :

intelligenceinputs.blogspot.com
futureweapons.blogdrive.com

Believe me, this uprising is going to spread from Tibet (Xizang Province) to even Sinkiang (Xinjiang Uygur) and others !!!

The Ever-Present Smile of His Holiness DALAI LAMA is MORE POWERFUL than the 1 million strong Chinese Army -)

CT Bob said...

Holy shit! Both the Chinese and Tibetan partisans are Googling the crap out of the Internets to find and respond to stories about this issue. This post was only up for about an hour when these two people replied.

There's no doubt that this is an important issue, but it also kind of amazes me about the rapid response the pro-Chinese commenters have had all over the internet.

About me said...

well, Bob, you know why? There are 1.3 billion Chinese in China and around the world and we are fed up with the lies and ill intents hurled around by Western media against China. When Europeans came over to China in the late nineteenth century and committed atrocious culture genocide (forcing us to dress like Europeans and believe in their religions), we had no choice but to follow along and bite the bullet. No those same guys are talking about cultural genocide in Tibet? Give me a break! Take South Korea for example. They used to believe in Confusionism. Now 1/3 of the Koreans are Christians! Talking about cultural genocide.

CT Bob said...

Andrew, I don't doubt that you feel strongly about China and the terrible publicity it's getting over this incident. But the worst argument for justifying oppression is by saying "other people have done it!"

Let me ask you something; do you think that you would be able to indulge in the free expression of dissenting opinion if you were in China right now?

Don't misunderstand me. I don't dislike the Chinese people. But I do detest their system of government. Hey, I'm not crazy about how our government is behaving these days, either, but at least I have the opportunity to work within the system and hopefully bring about change.

CT Bob said...

CNN.com is linking to this blog post in the "Commentary From the Blogs" section at the bottom of the story I linked to.

I find it strange how this Internets thing works sometimes.

Anonymous said...

Just a Chinese in canada, I don't really care about this Tibet stuff untill the CNN usin the Nepal Police beating up the protester /s footage as Chinese police did it, well that is too much freedoma media allow to alter the fact.

CT Bob, I just sick of the media link this to Olympic as the rioters intention. What would you suggest the Chinese Gov to do as freedom Country like US and France for their LA and south of Paris riots, and all the G7 summit meetings?

I don't like some of the Chinese 's policies that is why I chose to leave there. But I think the Olympics should be remain as a pure sporting event so hard trainnig althlets can prove themselve amount the world's best and viewer like me around the world no matter races political and religious believing can all enjoy. Just leave the politics to the UN.
I , for one , not so interest in the FRIENDLY, FREEDOM LOVING COUNTRIES OLYMPICS

Bob Symmes said...

I for one have no set feelings on this one way or another...but I do feel that we should pay closer attention to the "Red Guards" in our midst before we go looking overseas to solve problems.

I for one have vivid, personal memories of the activities of the NYPD during the 2004 Republican convention (even though I was not even protesting)

Bob Symmes said...

"The ignorance of Americans regarding other cultures' histories is only outdone by their ignorance about American history" -- Adlai Stevenson

I might have gotten that quote wrong, but it's the thought that counts.

CT Bob said...

That one, and "Those who do not make a study of history are doomed to repeat it," - Winston Churchill, I think, are among my favorite quotes.

Hey, we can't blame anyone else for our lack of knowledge about these things; we're doing it to ourselves.

Look at "No Child Left Behind"...the biggest non-funded piece of Federal legislation I've ever seen. We have all the money in the world to bomb Iraq/Iran/any sand-laden nation, but we can't spare a few billion dollars to bring up our academic levels.

Stupid is as we does.

fuzzyturtle said...

There won’t be the equivalent of Ronald Reagan’s memorable “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall!”

You have NO IDEA how many Russians I know ask me 'do Americans REALLY THINK that Reagan had ANYTHING to do with that?'

sad thing is.. I tell them yes, most of them

CT Bob said...

Well, if nearly bankrupting the USA with defense spending to make the Soviets actually GO bankrupt counts, then yeah he had some little part in that! LOL!

Anyway, I was just referring the impossibility of trying to imagine Bush uttering anything as memorable as that quote in a speech. Any quotes attributed to Bush by future historians will be used as examples of how stupid he was, not about his ability to lead our nation.