Tibet is rioting at a most inopportune time for China with the Olympics coming up. There is a lot of criticism regarding how they are handling this situation. Now, I’m neither pro-Tibet nor anti-Tibet, but I do agree with the numerous Chinese bloggers in one respect.
Foreigners should not pretend to understand China. That goes for you, Richard Gere.
The way I look at it is to see how I would feel if California’s hispanic population decided that it didn’t want to be part of the US anymore and started rioting. How would the US respond? I would think that police and army squads would be deployed immediately to quell the rioters.
No, they wouldn’t. The US are the good guys!
Are we? Where are all the native Americans now?
Oh yeah. Forgot about them.
Besides, it’s easy to understand why everyone has an opinion on Tibet. Tibet acts as China’s borders and is high in the mountains. Anyone who knows anything about war knows that it’s harder to fight upwards than downwards. Just to offer a scenario, if India were ever to invade China, I’m sure that China would love to have defenses mounted high in the Tibetan mountains. Because of this, everyone who isn’t part of China wants Tibet to be independent. This would go a long way in weakening China. The US would especially love to see this happen.
So, in the end, this has nothing to do with cultural genocide or whatever the Dalai Lama is saying. This has nothing to do with religion or Chinese communism. It is simply a matter of politics and self-defense.
March 16, 2008 at 9:10 pm
“It is simply a matter of politics and self-defense.” Good point!
March 17, 2008 at 12:01 am
Thanks friday! May I add that you posted some great pictures on your blog!
March 17, 2008 at 4:04 am
Your analogies are false.
… if California’s hispanic population decided that it didn’t want to be part of the US anymore and started rioting.
The Americans are Tibetans — not La Raza. La Raza are the equivalent of the ethnic Chinese imported by the government and given affirmative aqction at the cultural and economic expense of the Tibetans.
Where are all the native Americans now?
Exactly (!) — like the Native Americans once did the Tibetans are fighting for control of their homeland. Should the Tibetans accept a future like that of the NAs?
*Self-defense against cultral genocide.*
March 17, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Actually, both analogies are true, depending on how you look at it.
All situations have more than one point of view. Since almost everyone sees it from your analogy, I wanted to offer up another viewpoint as an intellectual exercise.
Your argument actually has some holes in it. I don’t think “La Raza”, as you call them, would agree that they were sent by some government. They, like all newcomers to an area, come for their own economic growth and opportunity. America is the land of opportunity, after all.
Similarly, the ethnic Chinese arrived in Tibet in search of economic growth as well. I’m sure that there were government incentive programs to encourage this, but we have tax incentive programs for buying hybrid cars and giving to charity. It’s just good sense to do it. The word “imported” is pretty harsh. By your definition, we were all forced to buy hybrid cars by our government. Damn government for making us environmentally friendly!
I doubt that I can ever convince you since your foot is firmly planted in the Tibetan soil. And I’m not trying to.
It is easy to side with the group that wants to be free, but it is always good to ask oneself how we would respond when faced with a similar situation. In my opinion, a similar situation was my example of the hispanic population rioting (replace “hispanic” with anything, whites, blacks, asians, soccer moms). What would America do?
Although, I hope this never happens. I love Mexican food.
Soccer moms are kind of scary though.