Protests in Tibet

Aishah

Today's news - Nancy Palosi, the Speaker for US Congress was in Dharamsala meeting with the Dalai Lama and publicly speaking, condemning China's actions, and asking countries to speak out against them. Also rioting by Tibetans outside the Chinese Embassy in Delhi today, petitioning for boycotting of Olympic Games.

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Sama

Nancy Pelosi is a bunch of hot air, it's all for show...and I believe her meeting with the DL was scheduled before the protests in Tibet happened. when Ice Queen Nancy became Speaker of the House she was gung-ho for impeaching Bush (ooops, here I go, bringng Bush into this thread), then backed down like a scalded dog.

pardon my cynicism about american politicans, but I don't believe anything that woman says. Pres. Shrub has already said that he sees no reason to boycott the Olympics. she says in a story in the International Herald Tribune..."It is our karma, we know, to help the people of Tibet."

right...only about 50 years too late.

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Aishah

Interesting, YogaGal - I wondered about this. Seemed very 'staged' to me.

batistuta

Tony Blair is supporting the Chinese Govt on this issue.

“Like everyone else, I want this issue to be resolved peacefully with Tibet. In the broader term, I think it's important that we, in the West, have some understanding on the challenges that China faces and an absolutely central pre-occupation is how do we industrialise a population of hundreds and millions of people that are going to move from agrarian economy to an industrial economy?” he said.

Here is the link to this excerpt.

Nick-H

Tony Blair is yesterday's news.

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Sama

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/21/world/asia/21cnd-pelosi.html?ex=1363838400&en=5 0e102eff3bed675&ei=5089&partne r=rssyahoo&emc=rss

The New York Times link about Pelosi's visit (also has a video)...when she spoke about Tibet she said she was "speaking for myself...." so her words can not be construed as any type of "official" stand by the US government.

Sama

This is an email from my teacher, Gelek Rimpoche, from a talk he gave on March 16. Rimpoche was recognized as an incarnate lama at a very early age, however he disrobed many years ago (he refers to himself as "just an old fat Tibetan" .) he is from the family of the 13th Dalai Lama. any time he talks about his old life, he refers to Tibet as "good old Tibet." he also escaped in 1959, hiding in swamps with his group, being shot at by Chinese planes as they crossed the Himalayas. his teachers also taught the current Dalai Lama. when Rimpoche left he never saw his family again but he told us once how he heard stories about his father being paraded through the streets of Lhasa.

"Let's try to understand the current situation in Tibet. This has been going on for fifty years. The Communist Chinese have always been suspicious of monasteries and Buddhism. For example, in Drepung, the monastery where I was educated in Tibet, the Communists openly set up government-sanctioned committees, organizing people to spy on each other. You couldn't trust anybody - your teachers, friends, students, not even your parents. Kids were spying on their parents, students on their teachers, and disciplinary monk officials on their abbots. That is how it has been functioning for fifty years.

Close to two years ago, Communist officials had the idea to ensure that the monks there didn't respect His Holiness the Dalai Lama. They made up a document that basically said: "The Dalai Lama is evil" and wanted everybody to agree by signing it. The monks refused to sign. They said their refusal had nothing to do with politics, but was purely for spiritual reasons.

The authorities arrested the monks who refused to sign and put them in jail and never released them. A few days ago, some Drepung monastery monks went into the market place to demonstrate their request for these monks to be released. They were beaten, tear gassed and jailed. Turn by turn, each day following, monks from Sera, then Ganden monasteries also demonstrated, were beaten and jailed as well as nuns from various monasteries. The sound of their cries and screams were heard all over Lhasa. Everybody was crying. Eventually, some people got angry and started to throw molotov cocktails into Chinese owned shops, so there was a huge amount of destruction. The central government of China declared martial law at three am on March 14. The whole city of Lhasa is now completely filled with soldiers and para-military that were trucked in and the Chinese government said they would violently suppress any demonstrations. The Chinese claim 10 people were killed. Tibetan sources say that more than 200 were killed -- quite a different picture.

It is very clear that the Chinese authorities have had complete control over Tibet for 50 years but failed to win the heart of the people. That is because their policies are not helping the people much. In particular the local government of Tibet is run by lesser educated officials, many of whom are relics of the Cultural Revolution. They are confused and don't understand the true situation. Their reports to the Central government in Beijing are confused and incorrect and that is why the Chinese authorities were taken by surprise by the events of the last weeks.

The local Chinese authorities also can never understand the relationship between the Dalai Lama and Buddhism. They can neither separate the two nor put them together. They are completely confused about the role of the Dalai Lama. Vilifying statements like "The Dalai Lama is nothing but a wolf covered by monk's robes, a demon with human face" clearly show the limit of knowledge and character of those making such statements.

This situation is indeed very, very sad. It really calls for international support. This can be done by people expressing their sympathy and feelings and also urging their representatives, senators and house representatives, as well as journalists in national and local media, to pay attention and try to find out the true situation."

machadinha

That's touching, YG. It just is.

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Minnesota

I think the reason they haven't won the hearts of the Tibetan people is because the Chi-coms simply don't care. Instead of winning over the Tibetans, they are well on the way to displacing them with Han Chinese. And given their quick and decisive response on all fronts in the recent unrest, I'm sure the Chi-com authorities were expecting that, too, though timing couldn't be predicted.

The Chinese invaded Tibet strictly for military reasons, namely to put their border up to a high mountain range, preventing any enemy from massing for invasion on the plain. (Talk of other resources, etc. is giving 1950 Chinese leadership much more economic sophistication than they had at the time.) The will of the Tibetan people simply doesn't play a part.

Real pressure from abroad is the only chance for Tibetan autonomy, pressure that threatens the back accounts of the Chi-com leaders. Not shows, not stickers, not banners on Everest. And real pressure comes from national level politicians. Hopefully President Obama will be willing to apply some.

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edwardseco

Actually, its not the "official" Indian Government line for obvious reasons but here is the growing consensus on the 62 war. Without getting into the Maxwell controversy during the border controversy Indian troops were moved forward to the position India defined as the border. China attacked these poorly deployed and shamefully equipped troops. Wherher they lied ot not is irrelevant given that deception is the first tool of strategy. Mennon took the blame. Background to this is that the CIA manipulated the Indian press encouraging a firm action along with rash nationalism. The result despite a brave effort by Indian army officers was pretty lopsided (see the recent memoirs of some officers concerned). My supervisor was asked to look at the Indian documents and come up with a credible response to Maxwell. He reported sadly to me that by and large they didn't support such an interpretation and that the project was wisely shelved. We learn from the mistakes of the past I hope..

Aishah

Thanks, YogaGal, for posting that link and Post 187 - the latter is very moving, and as you say, 50 years too late..

capt_mahajan

While most of the rest of the world goes about its confused agendas and has it's foreign policy diluted by elections every few years, the Chinese are single mindedly expanding their economy and their influence worldwide, including in Africa and South America.

They are already at a stage when it is extremely unlikely that any meaningful action will be taken against them for anything, or any meaningful pressure applied.

This will continue until either they transit smoothly into a non-authoritarian government or they implode aka the ex Soviet Union.

Ergo, Tibet, however emotive, is to all intents and purposes an issue which will not go anywhere unless China decides it should, however many platitudes are mouthed by folks worldwide.

Sad, but I believe true.

Minnesota

You make some good points.

But remember that China's economic expansion is based in large part on exports. Also, as much as China's economy is growing, many of the numbers seen describing it are exaggerated (see e.g., http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7148695.stm).

Since China needs other countries to buy their products, they are vulnerable to pressure. Of course this pressure has to come from someplace with the power to make it work. Either the EU or the US -- or better, both -- could apply meaningful pressure if they wanted to.

Madhu10

The only North American city to have the Olympic torch pass through our city in another 3 weeks or so. It was chosen because of the large Chinese population in the city.

Many are demanding the Mayor of the city to boycott the torch passing through the city. Mayor Newsom has said politics and game are separate.The path of the torch is not being published. I think the city is going to see some street protests that day.Yesterday the Chinese Embassy here was vandalised..fire bomb thrown at the garage door.

I think its sad...Olympics were allowed in Moscow in the 80's and same is happening in China. No country should be allowed to host the Olympics unless they are a democracy!

I personally think that unless the people of China rise against the policies of their own government no change will come.

The power to change also has to come from us..the consumers. We can also make a dent collectively...if we stop and take a look at the things we are buying. I know in this global market its hard but "made in china" no longer appeals to me. Cheap yes...quality no way!

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capt_mahajan

Perhaps.

I wonder though, if, given the present state of particularly the US economy, it would cut off it's nose to spite it's face.

And there is the Yuan-Dollar exchange rate to consider. Specifically, (to my limited understanding) the artificial Chinese control over it.