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62 Comments
- couragewolf, on 09/22/2009, -4/+22I agree and the west is just letting these psycho *****'s take over
- Hetman, on 09/22/2009, -7/+24Well Tibet does belong to China. there really is not much you can do about it. Unless there is some country out there with an extra billion people in it who would like to take a chance at liberating Tibet. I however just do not see that happening.
- borez, on 09/22/2009, -1/+17All for the sake of cheap manufacturing and profit.
Oh the irony of: "Buy now... pay later" - Jakeman21co, on 09/22/2009, -1/+15Well, there goes my plans for climbing Mt Everest.
*cough
I was totally going to do it. - borez, on 09/22/2009, -2/+13"to ensure nothing mars the celebrations."
Or so nobody takes pictures of the Tibetans kicking off. - askantik, on 09/22/2009, -5/+15China is being a piece of ***** about Tibet and Taiwan. The things they do to suppress both countries is crazy.
- yocouchdigga, on 09/22/2009, -13/+22Rearry, China... Why do you have to go on being jerks? Pray nice with Tibet, all they want is peace. What did Tibet ever do to you, I mean seriousry, enough is enough.
- Garofoli, on 09/22/2009, -0/+8I am so lucky I was able to see Tibet (and China) a couple years ago before ***** like this went down.
- etoiles, on 09/22/2009, -3/+11Things are not as black and white as most people in the West think... did you know that for centuries, Tibet relied on China for military protection? That before the Chinese 'liberation', 10% of the population owned pretty much everything and the rest of the people were living in servitude? That the Chinese were actually welcomed... until they started their campaign against religion, arresting/killing monks and destroying temples? That the West (British) massacred Tibetan troops?
Not saying the Chinese didn't commit any crimes, but it is worth trying to understand the complexity before simply shouting "free Tibet!". - askantik, on 09/22/2009, -3/+9Want to know why China thinks so?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Liberation ... - Elranzer, on 09/22/2009, -1/+6Isn't India right next door?
- Hetman, on 09/22/2009, -4/+9Yea that is how you gain land. You conquer the people and then integrate them into your society. You can still say Texas belongs to mexico if you like. There are plenty of mexicans living there still. However that is really not the case. You would only be lying to yourself.
- mdelling, on 09/22/2009, -7/+12It is constantly amusing to me that suddenly about a hundred years ago the idea that conquering a country gave you the right to rule is is suddenly a terrible, evil thing. It was like everyone in the western world picked a point in time and said "this is the way things should be, and if anyone conquers anyone else, its evil." Never mind the fact that every nation on earth only exists because at some point it conquered someone.
- morningmatters, on 09/22/2009, -2/+7The situation is not that simple. While I don't think Tibetans themselves would do anything to China, if Tibet does become independent you would certainly see foreign military forces building up around the region, with weapons aiming at central China. Currently the US already have a very strong navy force patrolling around the region. If you were Chinese would you want even more foreign military forces surrounding the nation?
The only way for Tibetans to be free is to have a good relationship with China. Unfortunately I don't think there is trust on either side and probably will never be. - Hetman, on 09/22/2009, -2/+7When you control most of the vital land masses and have the most power. It is time to stop the whole conquering thing.
- MacBookForMe, on 09/22/2009, -6/+10Never trust to Communist party!
- jonmlm, on 09/22/2009, -0/+4you can always go to nepal
- jonmlm, on 09/22/2009, -3/+7china should leave tibet. who cares if they actually had slavery, serfs, torture, etc up until liberation?
- inactive, on 09/22/2009, -3/+6I like their excuse how "Hey, we briefly controlled this land about 600 years ago. That makes it our forever to do with what we please." Yeah...that's a good one.
/s - etoiles, on 09/22/2009, -0/+3...or the 'liberation' of Iraq. China went into Tibet with idealistic principles, and then messed it up by applying the same totalitarian/anti-religious rules they already had in place in the rest of country... which is a bit of a problem when you are dealing with a deeply religious society.
The US went into Iraq on questionable principles, and are now trying to clean things up (going into Iraq without a clear plan on how to run the country afterwards, could be considered criminal).
Just as a disclaimer, I am a 'white devil' myself. I don't think all Chinese believe west-bad/china-good, but most are probably tired of the moral double standard. - Khiva, on 09/22/2009, -1/+4Citation needed, buddy. While it is true that Chinese influence over Tibet has waxed and waned by remarkable degrees over the centuries, you won't find a credible historian on the planet who will argue that Tibet was not independent in every relevant way between the fall of the Qing in 1912 to the arrival of PLA forces in 1949. No question that China had an tremendous amount of control at points prior to 1912, but your statement about "before the Communist takeover" is just baldly untrue.
.......愤青!! - hfactor, on 09/22/2009, -0/+3Yeah, it's really amusing that humanity advances morally. It's not like we could change our past, how does that justify future crimes?
- xster, on 09/22/2009, -0/+3I don't know how to interpret this...
Hopefully a lame attempt to humour. - hfactor, on 09/22/2009, -1/+4You may not have noticed, but most people feel different about such things nowadays. Conquering anything is not really acceptable behaviour anymore, although it may well happen in the future. This is not the middle ages.
- amasiancrasian, on 09/22/2009, -0/+2Most westerners are so enchanted with eastern cultures that have a cultish streak to it. Heck, most of the time they don't even know what it's it about. Ask an American to point out Tibet on a blank map.
What sucks about the Tibetan situation is that there's no true way to get the truth about the situation. Western media is enchanted with the idea of Tibet rather than the reality. Tibetans make up 40% of the population in Lhasa. We take the Dalai Lhama's word as gospel, even though he definitely has his own incentive to distort the truth. And we obviously can't get the straight talk from the Chinese government.
My parents fled to Taiwan, Republic of China, at the end of the civil war. At first I believed the communists were evil, but it's become clear to me that for the first time in Chinese history that every person in China has a bowl of rice to eat. Whether you like them or not, you can't deny that they destroyed a two-thousand year class system. - thegr8jim, on 09/22/2009, -0/+2“This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.”
Plato - morningmatters, on 09/22/2009, -0/+2I guess foreign journalists must masquerade as tourists a lot. If there is anything which China should learn from the recent riots it should be that opening up to the Western media could only help to dispel the biased coverage against China. If Western reporters are forbidden they will tell the story of the other side, which could only worsen relationships on all sides.
Currently any good news about China is dismissed as propaganda even if it has merits. If you look at China's general statistics beyond the obvious GDP you would see that metrics such as life expectancy, literacy, infant mortality rates, etc have all risen incredibly in the last two decades. Given the good and the bad that the Chinese government has done, it would be good to open up the media entirely and let people decide for themselves whether they want change or keep the current course. - etoiles, on 09/22/2009, -0/+2I wasn't justifying anything. Just trying to hint at why the Chinese might feel entitled to be there in the first place.
The reason to ban foreign tourism (again, no judgement of value here) is obviously a pragmatic one: control. - KyotoWolf, on 09/22/2009, -0/+2I'm not in any position to form an opinion on Tibet as I don't know enough about the country and its history to do so (apart from my own countries media which I don't trust when it comes to reporting on countries like Russia and China) but didn't the 'Coalition of the WIlling?' use the same pretext of "We are going to improve country X by conquering them" when invading Iraq (apart from WMD's of course)?
- Khiva, on 09/22/2009, -0/+2Well, perhaps - to the extent that you are willing to acknowledge conquest as a legitimate basis for sovereignty. In modern times, just about every country in the world has renounced conquest and it's accompanying implications of empire. Nowadays having a coherent nation (that is, a unified ethnic/language group) is seen as the most legitimate grounds for statehood.
I agree that the Tibet situation is tricky, but by any reasonable measure China is an empire - indeed the last empire standing in the world today. - Khiva, on 09/22/2009, -0/+2Very few things, if any, are black and white on the international stage. But bear in mind that the argument that "We are going to improve country X by conquering them" was the intellectual basis for colonialism. In fact, this same justification could provide a legitimate pretext for re-invading the whole of Africa.
Are you really willing to argue that it was bad when the West did it but okay when China does it? I'm aware that basically every Chinese person believes this (Bad if Western, okay if Chinese), but is anyone else really willing to take this position? - xAndromeda, on 09/23/2009, -0/+2China is being a piece of ***** about Tibet and Taiwan. The things they do to suppress both countries is crazy.
its called politics
read American history with a open mind and it just might blow your mind - DarkInsight, on 09/23/2009, -0/+1What most westerners don't understand is the mindset of Chinese, how they come to think of pretty much every region around them belongs to them.
The Chinese interprets "Chinese" as a "Greater Chinese" race which include the ethnic Chinese(Hans) and other minorities. They then go on the slippery slope claiming any lands occupied by these minorities also belong to China.
The truth is, claiming the Mongols Yuan "dynasty" and Manchurian Qing "dynasty" as part of the Chinese history is like claiming the barbarians overthrowing Roman Empire belong to a "Greater Italian" race. Just because the Mongols and Manchurians conquered the Han Empire and then went on to conquer other lands, does this mean all those lands belong to the Chinese?
Following this logic, why bother defending China during WWII, simply let Japanese took over China mainland, maybe centuries later, the Chinese can claim Japanese as part of "Greater Chinese Race" and Japan as part of China's inalienable sovereign.
Pretty crazy eh? But that's what they are doing. - violetness, on 09/23/2009, -0/+1Interesting - I wonder what would happen in the US if we would effectively close OUR borders for a couple weeks and stop giving money we don't have to people who don't live here....
- APselfStorage, on 09/25/2009, -0/+1Only country stood up against this kind of china’s behavior is India Rest or the world just ignored
- xster, on 09/22/2009, -0/+1gg
- amenhotep, on 09/22/2009, -2/+3Which group of people are constantly telling everyone that Tibet was an independent country before "the Communist Takeover"?
- Politicians, actors/actresses, singers and people who can't point out where Tibet is on map when asked during pro-independent parades(literally).
Which group of people tells you that Tibet was a slavery-serfdom system merely 60 years ago, been having China handling its foreign, defense and even legislative affairs for centuries and the latest several Dalai Lamas, including the current/14th, were chosen and approved by Beijing/Nanjing Governments, but whose voice can rarely be heard on major media?
-Historians. - jbmcb, on 09/22/2009, -0/+1" but it is worth trying to understand the complexity before simply shouting "free Tibet!"."
I understand the complexity. I still think Tibet should, at the very least, be allowed some autonomy. China can have a sheet of paper saying they own Tibet if it makes them feel better, just leave them the hell alone. - amenhotep, on 09/24/2009, -0/+1Nope it was not a declaration of independence, it was merely a battle cry, in which, becoming independent from China wasn't even the main objective, it was rather to bring down the temporal native Gesha government of Tibet to monopoly the power and achieve absolute theocracy, which failed as well.
We hear these kind of battle cries too often today, from Quebec, Basque, Kurdistan, Scotland, Indian Assam or Native Americans etc, but no, they haven't earned their place to declare independence yet.
If Tibet really declared independence in 1913, it wouldn't make any sense for the Brits to invite China for a Himalayan border treaty in 1914 (Simla), only to be questioned on its validity because the Chinese side refused to sign, and led the Brits to realize and agree on "Deal with Lhasa only through China", would it?
Why does China believe that it gets to be different? Because no county or group of countries get to set the "standard regulations" of the world. The only entity that may have this right is UN, who endorses neither your absolute nation-state system(which is the cause of countless wars btw), nor your prejudiced and ignorant judgment of a country being "Civilized" or not. - Khiva, on 09/22/2009, -1/+2So ...you're saying that we should go back to conquest?
Seriously, who diggs this up - is it just because of the back-handed anti-western sentiment?
Are people really so cheesed off at the west that they are going to start saying that conquest is good because the west says that it's bad? - Khiva, on 09/23/2009, -0/+1(Go find me a declaration of Independence)
Proclamation Issued by His Holiness the Dalai Lama XIII (1913):
"We are a small, religious, and independent nation."
http://www.tibetjustice.org/materials/tibet/tibet1 ...
That took about five minutes.
Of course, this is all really besides the point. Every civilized nation in the world has forsaken the concept of an "empire" (that is, one large ethnic group asserting dominion over one or more large ethnic groups in their ancestral lands). Why does China believe that it gets to be different? - etoiles, on 09/22/2009, -0/+1Absolutely, I agree. The problem is that the central government is scared it might lose control and all of China fall apart like the Soviet Union...
- 4NDr01D, on 09/23/2009, -0/+1if only Hawaii had a Dali Lama then we would know how it feels to be China
- amenhotep, on 09/24/2009, -0/+1Nope it was not a declaration of independence, it was merely a battle cry, in which, becoming independent from China wasn't even the main objective, it was rather to bring down the temporal native Gesha government of Tibet to monopoly the power and achieve absolute theocracy, which failed as well.
We hear these kind of battle cries too often today, from Quebec, Basque, Kurdistan, Scotland, Indian Assam or Native Americans etc, but no, they haven't earned their place to declare independence yet.
If Tibet really declared independence in 1913, it wouldn't make any sense for the Brits to invite China for a Himalayan border treaty in 1914 (Simla), only to be questioned on its validity because the Chinese side refused to sign, and led the Brits to realize and agree on "Deal with Lhasa only through China", would it?
Why does China believe that it gets to be different? Because no county or group of countries get to set the "standard regulations" of the world. The only entity that may have this right is UN, who endorses neither your absolute nation-state system(which is the cause of countless wars btw), nor your prejudiced and ignorant judgment of a country being "Civilized" or not.
additionally, did the "civilized countries" forsaken the concept of an empire before they did the concept of theocracy, or the other way around? - JohnnySoftware, on 09/23/2009, -0/+1Abridged abstract: "China has banned foreign tourists from traveling to Tibet .... to mark 60 years of Communist rule, an official said Tuesday, amid stepped-up security across the country to ensure nothing mars the celebrations".
Wow, way to make communism sound so great.
Seems like that in and of itself mars the celebrations. - anokun7, on 10/12/2009, -0/+1Well - I think you are wrong when you say "every country". India as a country never conquered another country, never ever. But India exists. So please do not say that violence and conquering is the only way to survive. I just brought up India as an example, there are many such countries that believe in humanity and non-violence.
- spoon088, on 09/23/2009, -0/+1Good, the more wannabe spiritualist yuppies get pissed off the better. If you actually respect Tibet then don't get your tourist exploitation ass over there which encourages the local people to sell out their culture to you for a profit.
- smashTasker, on 09/22/2009, -1/+1All things considered, how does that justify a ban on foreign tourism?
- wowzedong, on 09/24/2009, -0/+0I think that 'greater chinese race' jazz might be referring to the homogenizing properties of Confucianism, braw. The Mongols came, messed up the place, decided to stay for tea, spent the night. next thing they knew: Bam, Chinese.
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