Tibetan Uprising

[Pathless]

For what it's worth, I came across the following quote by the Dalai Lama in a book I am reading (Endgame Vol. I by Derrick Jensen):

"Violence is like a very strong pill. For a certain illness, it may be very useful, but the side effects are enormous. On a practical level it's very complicated, so it's much safer to avoid acts of violence. ...There is a pertinent point in the Vinaya literature, which explains the disciplinary codes that monks and nuns must observe to retain purity of their vows. Take the example of a monk or a nun confronting a situation where there are only two alternatives: either take the life of another person, or to take one's own life. Under such circumstances, taking one's life is justified to avoid taking the life of another human being, which would entail transgressing one of the four cardinal vows. Of course, this assumes one accepts the theory of rebirth; otherwise this is very silly."

[path_of_one]

Originally Posted by Francis king

and I can go along my road and knock on a few doors and find the same
thing... arbitary arrests, detention, torture and dissapearances... I can only pray for enforced sterilisation happenning to the natives where I live...

A lack of ASBO louts and third-generation welfare claimants spawning more teenage "hoody" peasants?

I pray for these things to happen here...

Sounds like Nazi Germany to me.

We are superior and more intelligent, and better genetics, and all 'round better people... so we are justified in forcing surgeries on you people, and taking away your reproductive rights, and torturing you. Because we're just way better and you all are scum.

Wow. Eugenics here we come.

[Francis king]

what's wrong with eugenics?

[path_of_one]

Originally Posted by Francis king

what's wrong with eugenics?

Apparently nothing, as long as you're a member of the priviledged elite who decide what inferior humans to cull.

[Netti-Netti]

Originally Posted by Francis king

I can only pray for enforced sterilisation happenning to the natives where I live...

A lack of ASBO louts and third-generation welfare claimants spawning more teenage "hoody" peasants?

I pray for these things to happen here...

What gods would you pray to?

[seattlegal]

The Dalai Lama is here in Seattle for a five day "Seeds of Compassion" Conference. Here's what he said about China and Tibet in a news conference Sunday morning. (Notice how the Chinese argument is based upon "unity?")

From The Seattle Times:

Dalai Lama: Open Tibet

[Netti-Netti]

Well, if you portray pluralism as antithetical to a collective unity, then the Chinese propaganda make reasonably good sense sense.

At this point, I'd suggest that the focus on Tibet is too narrow. To get a bigger picture, China's policies one might assess the pervasiveness of the Culture Wars China has been waging, in particular, against Falun Gong and Uighur people.

The repressive action China has taken in Tibet is truly the tip of the iceberg - only one aspect of ongoing campaigns of political and religious persecution of certain groups. The Tibetan population is about 3 million. The Falun Gong and Uighur people are much larger segments of the Chinese population.

Falun Gong are a religious discipline of meditation and exercises with teachings that emphasize "high-level cultivation practice guided by the characteristics of the universe—Truthfulness, Benevolence, and Forbearance."
Introduction to Falun Dafa Falun Gong

Falun Gong practitioners are believed to be 10 percent of the Chinese population. Their persecution therefore has the potential to eclipse the persecution of the Tibetan population in terms of scale.

Protests movement on the part of the Falun Gong have increased political tensions. These protests were met with brutal repression from the Chinese government. The Falun Gong have been persecuted in myriad ways, including labor camps and prisons. Many die in custody. There is evidence of them being killed systematically for purposes of organ harvesting.

The potential for large scale persecution is also apparent for the Uighur people. There are about 8 million Uighur, an ethnically and religiously distinct people. The Uighur are an unusually handsome Turkic people who speak a Turkic language. They are the Muslims of the former East Turkistan, a region that is now called the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, which is China's largest province. Apparently the "autonomous" part of that is a sick joke.

China's policy of separatism and genocide in relation to the Uighur has been going on for years. Over time, I fully expect there will be an intensification of grassroots terrorism and protest movements among Uighurs along the lines of what we have seen in Tibet. I also expect the Chinese government to respond with repressive action.

It seems the Uighur have been struggling as much as Tibetans have, but no one seems to be paying attention. The situation regarding the Falun Gong doesn't seem to get much attention either.

I see no end in sight for any of the internal strife involving these large groups within China. Because of fairly obvious ethnic differences among the Tibetans and the Turkique Muslims, the situation will be one of widespread discrimination.

[Snoopy]

“A senior Chinese official has welcomed the UK's decision to recognise Beijing's direct rule over Tibet.

But Mr Zhu would not say whether it might be linked with Prime Minister Gordon Brown's efforts to bring China into a new world economic order."

BBC NEWS | World | Asia-Pacific | China welcomes UK Tibet decision


I'll do it for him then.


"BBC World Affairs editor John Simpson says Mr Zhu diplomatically sidestepped the question whether the British decision might be linked with Mr Brown's efforts to bring China into a new world economic order; though that is certainly what many observers think.

They also think the Dalai Lama's position has been weakened by the UK's decision, our correspondent says.”







s.

[Saltmeister]

Originally Posted by Snoopy

“A senior Chinese official has welcomed the UK's decision to recognise Beijing's direct rule over Tibet.

But Mr Zhu would not say whether it might be linked with Prime Minister Gordon Brown's efforts to bring China into a new world economic order."

BBC NEWS | World | Asia-Pacific | China welcomes UK Tibet decision


I'll do it for him then.


"BBC World Affairs editor John Simpson says Mr Zhu diplomatically sidestepped the question whether the British decision might be linked with Mr Brown's efforts to bring China into a new world economic order; though that is certainly what many observers think.

They also think the Dalai Lama's position has been weakened by the UK's decision, our correspondent says.”







s.

I have to say I've found this thread really interesting. A lot of good points have been raised by Pathless, Path of One (PoO, poo! ) and Francis King (FK). Most of the time, I've agreed with all of you. Even though your opinions are contradictory, I think they're all equally valid. I have yet to find the time to comment fully (or to my heart's content if I can't) on what's been discussed (it's a fairly long thread with a lot of meaningful opinions expressed; it may take a lifetime).

From the article:

Many Tibetans disagree, pointing out that the Himalayan region was an independent kingdom for many centuries, and that Chinese rule over Tibet has not been constant.

I think the important thing here with Tibet is how China and Tibet can move forward. The question is what China and Tibet can pursue as a resolution to the problem. China is a poverty-stricken country with a lot of serious political problems. Western countries have largely avoided serious political problems by having a strong middle class, though I have to say that America has been badly hurt by the subprime mortgage crisis with a lot of people now finding themselves homeless.

Although China isn't a democracy, I am not so naive as to think the Chinese government isn't trying to find a solution. I believe they are trying to find ways to give people more freedom and autonomy, but suppression by military force often turns out to be the best solution at the time in the short term. The Chinese government is acting out of desperation. It isn't stupid (well, maybe it is), it knows what it could do, but for the sake of political stability they have to do what they have been doing for the past few decades, otherwise China will just implode from civil unrest. They know what they are doing, they know the world is watching and they're doing their best to play the game right:

"Innocent civilians were hacked or burnt to death last March. In one shop, five girls, one of them an ethnic Tibetan, were set on fire and killed. Criminal acts like these have been dealt with according to law. Do you call this repression?"

There are two ways of looking at this. One is to accept that what Zhu says is true, that the suppression of the riots was a civilian act, not a military act, and that it was police maintaining order in society. The other is to say that because the military were involved, it was repression. I give credit to the Chinese government for at least knowing how the world might see its actions. If I was an optimist, I'd might accept that it wasn't repression. If I was cynical, I'd say the Chinese government is trying to distort reality. But what is reality anyway? What we're talking about here is the politics of having the military in a civilian area. All because the military are involved, all of a sudden our reaction to the situation changes.

Continuing . . .

Part of it is political cowardice. It's a question of political will. The other part is political reality. If they don't do what they do, the country will, possibly, implode from civil unrest. The nationalists will launch a revolution.

It's a country of vast inequality. Some people receive little pay. Others get loads of money for their work. But it's not just an injustice maintained and created by the Chinese government. People living in Western countries live on that injustice. Westerners buy Chinese products so that the Chinese living on the coast get paid while the rest of them further inland continue living in poverty. Those further inland migrate to the coast and find that there are people there living like kings.

But that's not the only thing . . . The kings they abhor and despise are not just the Chinese on the coast who live in high-rise buildings, run factories and give them jobs. There are more kings overseas living relatively easier lives, living on their cheap labour.

Now that the subprime mortgage crisis has done its job of ruining not just the U.S. economy, but also that of many developed countries, exports from China have dropped and Chinese workers have been sacked and fired from their low-paid jobs.

I can imagine that the anger isn't just against the Chinese government, but possibly also against the West if they were educated enough to understand.

Meanwhile politicians in the West keep feeding us the slogan/mantra that we have to keep people shopping, keep people buying, consuming, etc. This was what fed the Chinese economy. Western consumerism. True, it helped raise Chinese living standards. But what it seems to me is that us here in the West are like some kind of "geographical upper class" (so to speak) or "geopolitical upper class" (GUP). We are a GUP in the sense that we live relatively easy lives both because of where we live and the socio-political system under which we live. It is a socio-political system which has enabled Westerners, through its educational system, culture, scientific and technical knowledge, to bring to its people, predominantly middle class to relatively high living standards when compared to the rest of the world. The West has had a head start against other cultures economically, socially, politically, scientifically and educationally.

But getting back to China and Tibet . . . . . . and to my response to this quote.

Many Tibetans disagree, pointing out that the Himalayan region was an independent kingdom for many centuries, and that Chinese rule over Tibet has not been constant.

I believe that the issue of Chinese rule, of both Chinese and Tibetan nationalism can be resolved if China becomes a federation like the United States of America (U.S.A.) and the Commonwealth of Australia (CoA). Tibetans want either autonomy or independence. The Chinese want sovereignty. They want ownership of Tibet. I think federalism would be the best (if not, one of the best) solutions for this problem with Chinese and Tibetan nationalism.

In response to the question of whether the Chinese or the Tibetans should be favoured in a solution, I think the solution should give them both something.

For the sake of argument, I think what Jesus said in Matthew 22:21 would help explain what I mean, that we should "give to Caesar what it Caesar's and give to God what is God's." For China and Tibet, the solution should give to China what belongs to China and to Tibet what belongs to Tibet. This is why I believe federalism would serve as a reasonable solution.

The States of the U.S.A. and CoA are independent states with their own governments. Why doesn't China try federalism? China can have its sovereignty. The Tibetans can have their independence. Tibet would be an Independent State in the Chinese Federation. It could solve the Taiwan issue.

[Snoopy]

Thanks for all your thoughts Salty.

I suppose a truly independent Tibet is probably an unrealistic aspiration for the Tibetans. But the brutality of the invasion and subsequent brutalities to suppress the people is very sad. I would never trust a word the Chinese authorities said but now they are a big economic power I'm sure that doesn't matter to the rest of the world that wants to trade with them. A lot of Chinese people are poor as you say, and maybe the living standards of some Tibetans has improved but cultural genocide is being perpetrated in Tibet. Tibetans are now a minority in their own capital city. China wants Tibet for economic reasons if nothing else (eg mineral wealth)....

s.

[Saltmeister]

Originally Posted by Snoopy

Thanks for all your thoughts Salty.

I suppose a truly independent Tibet is probably an unrealistic aspiration for the Tibetans. But the brutality of the invasion and subsequent brutalities to suppress the people is very sad. I would never trust a word the Chinese authorities said but now they are a big economic power I'm sure that doesn't matter to the rest of the world that wants to trade with them. A lot of Chinese people are poor as you say, and maybe the living standards of some Tibetans has improved but cultural genocide is being perpetrated in Tibet. Tibetans are now a minority in their own capital city. China wants Tibet for economic reasons if nothing else (eg mineral wealth)....

s.

That was an optimistic view, and is based on my impression that Taiwan/ROC is a microcosm of the PRC. The ROC was repressive under the KMT but recently became a democracy.

But here is a more pessimistic view:

The Epoch Times | Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party

If what that online book says is true, then it means that the CCP really has no intention of ever introducing democracy. The CCP will allow the "basic freedoms" to its people, of living like people in developed countries, but maintain tight control over politics and the media. They create the illusion of having achieved the kind of "free society" in the West, but have an iron grip on "important political concepts" like being able to criticise and make fun of one's government, and even to expose government conspiracies through the media. As long as people stay out of politics, they won't get into trouble with the government.

If I have concerns, it's the state-controlled media. By controlling the flow of information in the country, they control and regulate the probabilities and likelihoods of what people in the country think and believe.

The Chinese government has a very subtle way of justifying its control of the media. Its argument is that it must stop people from spreading information that "isn't truthful." While it's reasonable to think that people shouldn't believe in lies, my argument against that would be that to destroy an untruth, you have to be aware of it. If what some believes isn't true and you forbid them from expressing what they believe that isn't true, then people will never know about it and won't have the opportunity to denounce that untruth.

If we allow untruths to float around in society, sooner or later, I'd expect someone knowledgeable with good credentials and qualifications to shoot down and discredit those beliefs. When people are free to speak their minds, we're likely to see that everyone has a different perspective. There is a chance that there'd be contradictory stories. Freedom of speech allows people to process, evaluate and validate stories.

The Chinese government prevents that from happening. People receive information that the Chinese government wants them to see. If there is something that may harm the CCP's agenda, the CCP has that piece of information blotted out.

My concern is that it'll result in a generation of Chinese who are ignorant of some of the unethical activities that their government has undertaken. They live under the illusion that it's a "free society." As long as you don't hurt the CCP's agenda, you can say what you like, but as soon as you attempt to divulge details about the CCP's conspiracies and unethical activities, you'd be looking at a life in jail, maybe even torture and execution.

Unlike modern Western political systems, which are public entities which are open to public scrutiny, the Chinese one is a private one. While all public services have some sense of privacy, the moment information leaks out to Opposition MPs (or Congresspersons) or journalists about what the government is doing, the public service is liable to investigation and "probing." People can go in there to have a peek. It isn't the case with the Chinese government. It's closed to the public.

Another aspect is the separation of powers. In the West, branches of the political system, the Executive and Legislative branches, Judiciary, Armed Forces and Law Enforcement all have a high level of independence from each other. In China, the CCP controls all branches. It permeates the entire political system vertically and horizontally. It's a state of perpetual infiltration where nobody who opposes the CCP can escape.

With the media feeding mostly favourable information to the Chinese public, they'd think of their government as something noble and honourable. Furthermore, if you've grown up under that political system, it'd be difficult to imagine anything better, especially the younger, less experienced generation. You grow up under the illusion of a "free society" that has opened up to capitalism. The teachers at school preach to you about the ideals, the greatness of the country, the greatness of the CCP. You believe that everything the CCP does is noble and honourable, that what it does is best for the country. You look at the pace at which society is transforming and changing, and you see no reason to not believe that what the teacher says is right. The CCP has done a great job. Not only do you live under a "free society" but it seems that your society is doing just as well, maybe even better than the West.

Consider the political consequences of Chinese who believe that in the decades that have passed, their government has acted nobly and honourably, not just domestically, but also internationally. They hear news of what the U.S. is doing in the Middle East, the "evil hegemon." This gives them the impression that the U.S., the opposing superpower, is somewhat worse than their own country. But in the decades gone by, the CCP suppressed "the bad news" of what it did, resulting in an entire decade where its people have "gaps in political knowledge."

This is what I believe will happen as China starts to assert itself politically in the international arena in the future. You can expect to meet Chinese people who say, "Oh, at least China isn't as bad as the U.S.," which has an aggressive foreign policy involving military intervention. I, personally, will be saying to myself, "Oh darn! Another superpower whose government has an unethical history." We sucked up to the U.S. and now we have to suck up to China.

China's influence in the last decade has increased, not just in Asia, but around the world. The most worrying would be its influence on the media around the world, particularly Chinese magazines and newspapers. Just recently as I was browsing the English-language version of the Epoch Times, I came across an article about an interview with a journalist who was complaining about China influencing Chinese Language news in Western countries.

Epoch Times - Foreign Control of Western Chinese Language News

But . . . even if you're not Chinese, I think I've spent enough time being optimistic about China and democracy. I think even some of the news I hear is not pessimistic enough! I think they not only exert influence on Chinese foreign media, but even Western media. If what the Nine Commentaries says is true, then I'm afraid we've all been played for fools by the CCP, not just the Chinese, on the mainland and in foreign countries, but even those who aren't Chinese. The West, which seeks to do business with China and compromises its values to do business, has been duped!

What I expect to see in the decades to come is a government that acts unrestrained by public opposition. Whatever opposition there'd be won't be strong enough to restrain the CCP. Western businesses already yield to China. What next?

It's like the CCP is some kind of "false prophet." Perhaps I could refer the Dragon, Beast and False Prophet in the Book of Revelation in the Christian Bible. So China is an Eastern Dragon which is a wolf in sheep's clothing, noble and honourable on the outside, but inside lives a Western Dragon with an evil heart! The Beast is the economy. The CCP is the False Prophet. Not that it's a serious reference . . . I just felt like playing with the characters in Revelation.

But anyway . . . that's the pessimistic view.