Tibetan PM-in-exile seeks India's support

W.G.Ewald

Defence Professionals/ DFI member of 2
Professional
Joined
Sep 28, 2011
Messages
14,139
Likes
8,594

W.G.Ewald

Defence Professionals/ DFI member of 2
Professional
Joined
Sep 28, 2011
Messages
14,139
Likes
8,594
The usual pattern of Fifty Cent Army swarming in this thread with distractions and disruption of any legitimate discussion.

How about a look at history and China's invasion?

China and Tibet, 1950-1991



China and Tibet, 1950-1991

Some people believe that ruthlessness and expansionism are temporary features of totalitarianism. Past Soviet foreign policies, they say, sprang from legitimate security needs, especially the Soviets' determination to prevent, once and for all, future invasions of their homeland. Although this view cannot be readily dismissed (because it deals with motives, not with observable actions), I believe that expansionism and ruthlessness are not incidental features of totalitarianism. Theoretical considerations which lead me to this belief will be reviewed later. Here I should like to lend this belief empirical support by briefly considering two other case histories of totalitarian foreign policies. I shall take up contemporary China first, then move on to ancient Sparta.

In 1950, a year after the communists had assumed power in China, they invaded Tibet, their smaller and weaker neighbor. Since then, Tibet has ceased to exist as an independent nation. This was a flagrant violation of Tibet's rights for self-determination. However, with an international order governed by anarchy and brute force and with a backward theocracy ruling Tibet, it may be unfair to blame China for trying to build an empire of her own, improve her national security, or modernize and improve the lot of the Tibetan people. So I shall confine my remarks to Chinese occupation policies after organized and armed resistance to the invasion ceased.

Once they took charge, the communists ironfistedly imposed a Maoist brand of totalitarian hell on the deeply religious Tibetans. A few dry statistics speak for themselves.

"In Tibet, 100,000 political prisoners toil in Chinese labor camps . . . more than 50 anti-Chinese uprisings have flared in 25 years. A half-million Chinese occupation troops-one soldier for every 12 Tibetans-keep order. . . . [By November 1983], at least 35 leading dissidents were executed in public, 3500 more were arrested."44 In 1959, nine years after the Chinese takeover, a nationwide uprising was followed by an escape to India of some 100,000 refugees, including Tibet's political and spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. The Chinese occupation led to "an estimated one million Tibetans dead from imprisonment and starvation. Tibet's 6254 monasteries . . . [are] gutted and in ruins; the Tibetan people themselves vehemently anti-Chinese." "A flood of Chinese immigrants has moved into Tibet, taken the best land for destructive, collectivized agriculture, decimated the already scarce forests, and wantonly slaughtered Tibet's once abundant wildlife."45 As usual, the mass killings can be gleaned from population statistics, which "reveal a disproportionate dearth of males in Tibet."46 The Dalai Lama summed up the situation: "The Chinese claimed that they came to Tibet to 'liberate' us from the past and modernize the country. In fact they have brought the greatest suffering to our nation in its 2100 years of history."44

Source: Nissani, M. 1992. Lives in the Balance.
 

Impluseblade

Regular Member
Joined
Jul 13, 2012
Messages
306
Likes
36
"The Chinese occupation led to "an estimated one million Tibetans dead from imprisonment and starvation. "
The Myth of Tibet Genocide | The New Voice

The Myth of Tibet Genocide

by Terminator

Dalai Lama and the Tibet Government in Exile, as well as the western media have never presented any solid evidence or disclosed any reliable source to support their repeated accusation that the Chinese government killed 1.2 million Tibetans between 1949 – 1979. On the contrary, almost all academic scholars and many pro-Tibet advocaters have found that the accusation does not stand on any basis and is even laughable.

One of the main argument of the Exile group to support their genocide allegation is that there were around 6.3 million Tibetans in 1959, and the Tibetan population hardly increased after 30 years. In their 1996 whitepaper "Tibet: Proving Truth from Facts", the Exile group claimed that based on a 1959 Chinese government newspaper report, there were 6,330,567 Tibetans in China. The number is broken down into 1,273,969, 3,381,064, and 1,675,534 in three different areas (TAR, Kham, Amdo) of the so-called Great Tibet. [1] However, a scrutiny of the data shows that these three numbers are the exact same numbers published in 1954 by the Chinese government over the above areas. And these numbers referred to the total population of the three areas (including Tibetan, Han, Muslin, etc), but not the Tibetan populations. [2]

In fact, the total Tibetan population back 1950s was about 2.5 – 2.7 millions according to numerous academic studies, the Chinese national census, and even Tibet government itself. For example, on November 11th, 1950, in an appeal to the United Nations to stop China's takeover of Tibet, the Tibet government stated "a weak and peace loving people, hardly exceeding 3 million". [3] It is impossible that by the end of 1959, the Tibetan population increased to 6.3 million.

A glance at the documents released by the Tibet Government in Exile, one can clearly see a trend that it favors vague data from the newspapers over serious scientific records from academic studies, population census, and historical records.

Therefore, Professor Sautman, a reseacher specialized in studying Tibetan populations, concluded, "What I think these articles show is that there is no evidence of significant population losses over the whole period from the 1950s to the present. There are some losses during the Great Leap Forward but these were less in Tibetan areas than in other parts of China. Where these were serious were in Sichuan and Qinghai, but even there not as serious in the Han areas of China. There are no bases at all for the figures used regularly by the exile groups. They use the figure of 1.2 million Tibetans dying from the 1950s to the 1970s, but no source for this is given. As a lawyer I give no credence to statistics for which there is no data, no visible basis." [4]

Professor Goldstein also rejected the allegation: ""¦ the exile leadership "¦ continued to attack Chinese policies and human rights violations in Tibet, often going beyond what the actual situation warranted; for example, with charges of Chinese genocide." [5]

Professor Sautman did an extensive and in-depth study on the literature of Tibetan population. In his 2001 paper, he used indisputable data to reject the allegation made by Dalai Lama and the Tibet Government in Exile. For example, "Figures (detailed breakdown of the 1.2 million number) at this level of specificity are meant to impress, but the emigre approach to numbers is quite elastic. In a 1990 book widely circulated by the Tibet Government in Exile, the number of famine victims is given as 343,000, not 413,000. In 1991, the Dalai Lama stated that 200,000 Tibetans had died from starvation, less than half of what had originally been claimed. These discrepancies are not surprising; some of the statistics are based on citation to documents that do not contain the figure at all, or have not been made public by the emigres"¦ Other figures employed in the claim of 'demographic annihilation' derive from interviews with Tibetan refugees in India. Such informants are not likely to be reliable. Lois Lang-Sims, a leader of the pro-TGIE Tibet Society of the UK, wrote that statements of refugees examined in the years after the Dalai Lama arrived in India have 'an extreme and inevitable unreliability'" [6]

Professor Sautman's study is independently confirmed by Professor Goldstein, Co-Director of The Center for Research on Tibet, "One likely factor is that the accounts offered by Tibetan refugees (and apparently also a few individuals in the TAR) are exaggerations or fabrications told to foreigners to garner sympathy and support for the 'Tibetan cause'"¦ In other words, they were inclined to represent the current situation negatively"¦. many Lhasa Tibetans harbor deep-seated anger and hostility toward the Chinese, which colors their perception of the current situation and sometimes leads to distortions, exaggerations, and fabrications." [7]

Michael Parenti wrote this in his book "Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth": "The official 1953 census–six years before the Chinese crackdown– recorded the entire population residing in Tibet at 1,274,000. Other census counts put the population within Tibet at about two million. If the Chinese killed 1.2 million in the early 1960s then almost all of Tibet would have been depopulated, transformed into a killing field dotted with death camps and mass graves–of which we have no evidence. The thinly distributed Chinese force in Tibet could not have rounded up, hunted down, and exterminated that many people even if it had spent all its time doing nothing else." [8]

Even Free Tibet Compaign director Patrick French said the allegation has no basis: "the Free Tibet Campaign in London (of which I am a former director) and other groups have long claimed that 1.2 million Tibetans have been killed by the Chinese since they invaded in 1950. However, after scouring the archives in Dharamsala while researching my book on Tibet, I found that there was no evidence to support that figure." [9]

[1] Tibet Government in Exile, Tibet: Proving Truth from Facts, http://www.tibet.com/WhitePaper/index.html, 1996
[2] First National Census Report, National Bureau of Statistics of China, 第一次全国人口普查公报, November 1st, 1954.
[3] Melvyn C. Goldtein, A History of Modern Tibet, 1913-1951 University of California Press, 1991, pp.746-747
[4] Barry Sautman, How Repressive Is the Chinese Government in Tibet?, How Repressive Is the Chinese Government in Tibet?, UCLA International Institute, 2002
[5] Melvyn C. Goldstein, The Snow Lion and the Dragon: China, Tibet, and the Dalai Lama, University of California Press, 1999
[6] Barry Sautman, Is Tibet China's Colony?: The Claim of Demographic Catastrophe, The Journal of Asian Law, Vol 15, No. 1, Fall 2001
[7] Melvyn C. Goldstein and Cynthia M. Beall, China's Birth Control Policy in the Tibet Autonomous Region: Myths and Realities, Asian Survey, Vol. 31, No. 3, March, 1991, pp. 285-303
[8] Michael Parenti, Friendly Fuedalism: The Tibet Myth, Friendly Fuedalism - The Tibet Myth, 2007
[9] Patrick French, former director of the Free Tibet Campaign in London, New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/22/opinion/22french.html, March 22, 2008
 

desicanuk

Regular Member
Joined
Nov 7, 2011
Messages
527
Likes
686
Well , how long do you need to wait? And how many years you left?
A country is held together by the will of people and not by the jackboot of military might and suppression.That is why totalitarian entities like PRC and others like the USSR and Nazi Germany eventually self-destruct.Gloat as much as you want for now but remember that the CPC has already sown the seeds of destruction.
I am confident of living long enough to witness the unraveling of an entity that is a hybrid of Soviet Union and Nazi Germany
 

Impluseblade

Regular Member
Joined
Jul 13, 2012
Messages
306
Likes
36
Tibet has a long and complicated history. It is not wise to rely on sole source to draw your conclusion. Recently, I read a book called "The Snow Lion and the Dragon". It helped me to gain some insights.

There is another podcast available online: Should Tibet Be Free?

Should Tibet Be Free?

Perhaps an equally important question is "Should a science podcast take on a political topic?" For a long time, listeners have been sending me requests to do an episode about Tibet, and for a long time I've been putting the requests into a folder and keeping it stored away. This is Skeptoid, not Politicaloid, and my purpose is not to advocate one side or the other in political questions where you have two sides that are perfectly valid to different groups of people. But the more requests I've received, the more I've realized that there is a lot of misinformation, if not true pseudoscience, surrounding Tibet. There is, undoubtedly, a set of popular pop-culture beliefs out there, based entirely upon made-up crap that bears little resemblance to reality.

Mind you, I'm not saying "Hey, you've heard one side, let me give you the other side," because that's the job of a political commentator. What I'm saying today is "Here is the reality of Tibet, go forth and form whatever opinion you like," but base it on reality, not on made-up metaphysical nonsense. I'm encouraging you to apply skepticism to the reasons you may have heard for freeing Tibet.

Like most Americans, I grew up watching video of the Chinese army taking howitzers and destroying the massive centuries-old Tibetan monasteries in 1959, and that's an indisputable crime against history, religious freedom, and the dignity of Tibetans. And then I watched video of the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual and political leader of the Tibetan people, in his red and yellow robes, speaking words of wisdom and brotherhood and freedom and peace. And I'll freely admit: For nearly all of my life, this was the extent of my knowledge of the Tibet situation: Violence and cruelty from the Chinese; innocence and beauty from the Tibetans. I believe that many Westerners, including many who fervently wave Free Tibet placards, have little knowledge of the situation any deeper than that. But isn't it likely that there's more to it than that? Isn't it equally disrespectful of the Tibetans as it is of the Chinese to attempt to encompass who and what they are with those tiny little pictures?

A complete history lesson is impossible, but here's a quick overview of the points relevant to today's discussion. China and Tibet have a long and complicated history. In 1950, China invaded to assert its claim, and ruled by trying to win hearts and minds, building roads and public utilities, and allowing the Tibetan system of feudal serfdoms to remain largely intact. In 1959 the Tibetan ruling class revolted, prompting a Chinese crackdown that sent the Dalai Lama and most other Tibetan aristocrats into exile in India, where they remain to this day. The former serfs became ordinary Chinese citizens, and Tibet is now an "autonomous region" in China, a status that many describe as actually less autonomous than an ordinary Chinese province. From his palace in India, the Dalai Lama now travels the world in a private jet, hobnobbing with the wealthy and powerful, fundraising, and writing highly successful books on metaphysics.

Recently there were some anti-China, pro-Tibet protests in Nepal, a neighboring independent nation. This is illegal in Nepal, and the authorities have been cracking down on it. Why does Nepal side with China on this issue? Because they depend heavily on Chinese aid to survive, and this is a requirement that China imposes, though they call it a "request". At first glance you might be shocked that an independent nation would give up its freedom of speech to make a deal with the devil, but that's an easy opinion to form when you're not hungry. It makes sense for Nepal to agree to these terms, because their back is against the wall: They need China's aid. As for China imposing this condition? Well, that's one for you to chalk up in your column of "Things China Needs to Reconsider".

So, why doesn't China simply give Tibet the same treatment they give Nepal — let them be an independent nation, give them aid, and just require them to say only nice things about them? Well, Nepal has long been an independent nation; Tibet hasn't. The history of China's rule over Tibet is exceptionally complicated and goes back many centuries. Anyone who tells you that either Tibet is historically part of China, or that Tibet is historically free, is making a disingenuous oversimplification. Personally, I choose to discount this subject completely, and not because it's too intricate to make a clear decision. I discount it because practically every square inch of land on the planet has been taken over militarily or annexed or stolen in one way or another from one people by another people. We don't give California back to the Spanish, and we don't give Italy back to Norway [So many people have asked me about this that I'll clarify. Italy, like the rest of Europe, was repeatedly sacked by Vikings. - BD]. Ancient history is not the way to settle current border disputes. To find a meaningful settlement that makes sense for people today, you have to consider Tibet to be a current border dispute. So while we're chalking up China's claim of ancient possession in the column of "Things China Needs to Reconsider", let's also chalk up Tibet's claim of ancient autonomy in the column of "Things Tibet Needs to Shut Up About".

And once we open up that column, we find it's a Pandora's Box. Advocates of a free Tibet make a long list of charges against Chinese oppression, largely centered upon a loss of rights and freedom. This claim makes anyone familiar with Tibetan history cough up their coffee. The only people who lost any rights under Chinese rule are Tibet's former ruling class, themselves guilty of cruelty and oppression of a magnitude that not even China can conceive. The vast majority of Tibetans, some 90% of whom were serfs, have enjoyed a relative level of freedom unheard of in their culture. Until 1950 when the Chinese put a stop to it, 90% of Tibetans had no rights at all. They were freely traded and sold. They were subject to the worst type of punishments from their lords, including gouging out of eyes; cutting off hands, feet, tongues, noses, or lips; and a dozen horrible forms of execution. There was no such concept as legal recourse; the landowning monk class was the law. There was no such thing as education, medical care, sanitation, or public utilities. Young boys were frequently and freely taken from families to endure lifelong servitude, including rape, in the monasteries. Amid all the pop-culture cries about Chinese oppression, why is there never any mention of the institutionalized daily oppression levied by the Dalai Lama's class prior to 1959?

Free Tibet advocates also point to the destruction of Tibetan culture. This charge is particularly bizarre. The only art produced in Tibet prior to 1950 was limited to the output of a few monks in each monastery, principally drawings of monasteries. New literature had not been produced in Tibet for centuries. Since the 1959 uprising, art and literature in Tibet have both flourished, now that the entire population is at liberty to produce. Tibet even has its share of well known poets, authors, and internationally known artists now.

Make no mistake about China's history of human rights failings: China's "Great Leap Forward" and "Cultural Revolution" programs from 1958 through 1976 were as disastrous for Tibet as they were for the rest of China. There can never be any excuse for the deliberate widescale destruction of life, liberty, and property during those years. Hundreds of thousands of Tibetans, and tens of millions of Chinese, lost their lives during this misguided pretense at "reform". This was a phase that China went through, and it's arguable that Tibet would have been spared this torment if they had been independent at the time. But for your average Tibetan in the field, a serf with no rights, living and working and dying at the whim of his lord, were those decades really worse than they would have been without China? There's no way to know, but to a skeptical mind, it's not a slam-dunk that China's Cultural Revolution was harder on Tibet than Tibet's ruling class had always been in the past.
$2/mo $5/mo $10/mo One time

If we think back to our list of red flags to identify misinformation, cultural campaigns and celebrity endorsements should always trigger your skeptical radar. Few campaigns are as near and dear to the hearts of Hollywood activists as "Freeing Tibet". Notable Tibet advocates include Sharon Stone, Richard Gere, Paris Hilton, and the great political science scholar Lindsay Lohan. Journalist Christopher Hitchens notes that "when on his trips to Hollywood fundraisers, [the Dalai Lama] anoints major donors like Steven Segal and Richard Gere as holy." Being anointed as holy probably does great things for your social standing within Hollywood, but it should not be considered evidence of expertise. I'll bet that if you asked either Steven Segal or Paris Hilton to lecture on the events of the Lhasa Uprising of 1959, you'd find that neither knows even the most basic information about the cause they so passionately advocate. Just because Hollywood celebrities promote a viewpoint doesn't mean they're qualified to do so, something that (unbelievably) still seems to escape most people.

Furthermore, the people shouting loudest about freeing Tibet don't seem to be aware that that's not even what the Dalai Lama wants from China. He's not seeking full independence, Nepal style; rather he would like to achieve the same status as Hong Kong, which is a "special administrative region". This would give them full economic benefits without having to become a regular province, something along the lines of a US territory. So here's a note to all the Hollywood celebrities: If you really want to support the Dalai Lama, ditch your "Free Tibet" signs and paint some up that say "Change Tibet from an Autonomous Region to a Special Administrative Region". It's not as good of a sound bite, and it's a change that would have little practical impact on Tibetans; but it would allow the Dalai Lama to return to his aristocratic lifestyle and his 1000 room palace at Potala.

So to all those who so heatedly call for the freeing of Tibet, first consider whether you have the expertise to know whether Tibet is best served as an autonomous region or as a special administrative region. Understand exactly what implications such a change may have upon the economics and the daily lives of its citizens, or maybe even entertain the possibility that it's a decision best left to Tibetans.

The usual pattern of Fifty Cent Army swarming in this thread with distractions and disruption of any legitimate discussion.

How about a look at history and China's invasion?

China and Tibet, 1950-1991



China and Tibet, 1950-1991
 

Impluseblade

Regular Member
Joined
Jul 13, 2012
Messages
306
Likes
36
I assume you are currently in Canada. Just out of curiosity, will you move back to Tibet if the event you are wishing for eventually happens or will you just mail a check?
A country is held together by the will of people and not by the jackboot of military might and suppression.That is why totalitarian entities like PRC and others like the USSR and Nazi Germany eventually self-destruct.Gloat as much as you want for now but remember that the CPC has already sown the seeds of destruction.
I am confident of living long enough to witness the unraveling of an entity that is a hybrid of Soviet Union and Nazi Germany
 

W.G.Ewald

Defence Professionals/ DFI member of 2
Professional
Joined
Sep 28, 2011
Messages
14,139
Likes
8,594
In 1950, China invaded to assert its claim, and ruled by trying to win hearts and minds, building roads and public utilities, and allowing the Tibetan system of feudal serfdoms to remain largely intact. In 1959 the Tibetan ruling class revolted...
Communist class warfare again.:yawn:
 

sesha_maruthi27

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 15, 2010
Messages
3,963
Likes
1,803
Country flag
It is high time that India and the Tibetans joined together and achieve Independent Tibet and teach china a lesson. India is no way weak now.

Only draw back is the political will and the weakness shown is just to mislead chinese......
 

Latest Replies

Global Defence

New threads

Articles

Top