Except that like the PRC government, the Free Tibet web is full of its own political propaganda that is no less ridiculous. As a current scholar on Tibetan history I need to correct you on a few facts.

First off, the PRC never claimed Tibet to be part of the Tang empire, it merely said that the two ethnic groups were like one family, which is indeed propaganda. Also Srongtsen Gampo was actually defeated by the Tang army under Hou Jun Ji, and lost 1,000 soldiers before withdrawing back to Tibet and apologized to the Tang for his action. Srongtsen’s Nepalese wife is now widely believed to be a fiction of the 11th century to model Gampo on the boddhisatva manjusri. Not that this is should actually matter however.

The Qing rulers were patrons of the lama only for political purposes, they were multi religious, not just Buddhist, and above all they were Confucians more than Buddhists. If you read Qing memorials, you’ll find that the emperor critisized the superstitious elements of buddhism more than once. The Qing control of Tibet is much more than just a religious matter, it was hierarchical, with the emperor above the Dalai Lama and the latter had to kneel and kowtow to the former. The emperor had the power to depose the dalai lama at will and even interfered in the selection of the Dalai lama in 1793 through the golden urn.

Thanks for the information. Any other posts or blogs you can recommend on mortgage elimination?…

Revisionism, or Socialist theory of the evolution of society. China infamously pigeonholes ancient Chinese kingdoms into societal structures that the actual historical record will not support (such as saying the Xia was a society composed almost entirely of slaves) merely because Marxist Socialist theory holds that society must pass through Phase X before advancing to Phase Y.

I have seen Chinese also justify their rule by showing Tibetan objects (such as neckalces) made from human bones. Clearly, only a slave-owning society would do such a thing! Of course, if you look at Tibetan thought, you learn about sky funerals and the concept that the body is just a vessel and has no purpose or value after death. This is an anathema to Chinese thought which long held that the body must be buried intact or else the soul could not get into heaven (hence eunuchs carrying around their severed parts their whole life so they could be buried “intact” – or at least with all the parts in one grave).

There are two ways of doing things in China: the Chinese way, and the wrong way. In the real world, those two are one and the same.

I have been hearing so much lately and posted on so many forums lately this claim that “Tibet has always been part of China”. Its nice to hear some counter- arguments, although I still dont know who to believe. It seems to be quite a complicated matter.

Asuka, I can’t believe you fell for that YouTube video “Tibet Was Is and Always will be a part of China.” Maybe you are Chinese? I can’t believe a Japanese person would fall for something like that so easily. There are several other videos showing “Tibet was never, is not and never will be a part of China” on YouTube- did you watch them also?

But this is all rather a distraction from what the real debate should be- what is the nature of Chinese rule in Tibet- and should they be condemned for it? Of course, most Chinese people insist that the Tibetans are happy and that the Chinese have done so much for them- infrastructure, development, etc. What is the truth? How do we know? In my opinion there needs to be some kind of international inquiry to get to the bottom of this. Chinese people dont seem to be open to any opinion other than what is written on the front page of Xinhua…

“Old Tibet was a backwards, feudal society and the Dalai Lama was an evil slaveholder”

Beijing (as well as sympathetic Western scholars such as Michael Parenti, Tom Grunfeld and Anna Louise Strong) asserts that “pre-liberation” Tibet was a medieval, oppressive society consisting of “landowners, serfs and slaves.” Tashi Rabgay, a Tibetan scholar at Harvard, points out that these three alleged social classes are arbitrary and revisionist classifications that have no basis in reality. There were indeed indentured farmers in old Tibet. There were also merchants, nomads, traders, non-indentured farmers, hunters, bandits, monks, nuns, musicians, aristocrats and artists. Tibetan society was a vast, multifaceted affair, as real societies tend to be. To try to reduce it to three base experiences (and non-representative experiences at that) is to engage in the worst kind of revisionism.

No country is perfect and many Tibetans (including the Dalai Lama) admit that old Tibet had its flaws and inequities (setting aside whether things are better under Chinese occupation). But taking every real or imagined shortcoming that happened in a country over a 600-year period and labeling it the “way it was” is hardly legitimate history. Any society seen through this blurry lens would come up short. And in many ways, such as the elimination of the death penalty, Tibet was perhaps ahead of its time. The young 14th Dalai Lama had begun to promote land reform laws and other improvements, but China’s take-over halted these advances. It is instructive to note that today the Tibetan government-in-exile is a democracy while China and Tibet are under communist dictatorship.

The crucial subtext of Beijing’s condemnation of Tibet’s “feudal” past is a classic colonialist argument that the target’s alleged backwardness serves as a justification for invasion and occupation. These are the politics of the colonist, in which the “native” is dehumanized, robbed of agency, and debased in order to make occupation more palatable or even necessary and “civilizing.” China has no more right to occupy a “backward” Tibet than Britain had to carry the “white man’s burden” in India or Hong Kong.

http://www.studentsforafreetibet.org/article.php?id=422

Thank you for showing us how wild you creatures can get in China.

I will respond to No.4 and 5. since you did the rest.

4. This is almost none issue when somebody broke into a house yesterday and started claiming it’s his today. Go figure how they call it their own. I heard that thieves are usually more possessive once they steal and own anything. It sounds universally true.

5. Yes, what happened is a mere accident in their notion. The accident happens every so many years in a similar scenario and they are always right and are accused of unreasonably. Just like any other times, they have had all opportunities to show their “ample facts and plenty of evidences of Tibetan conspiracy” to the world. Yet, where are they? Or, is Wen Jiabao too camera shy to show his hemorrhage in the axx?

Let’s see how big your unemployed population is even just for those off from universities. The number I have is over 5 million. The poverty population for those who haven’t seen any benefits from your booming economy is 800 to 900 million people out of 1.3 billion.

I know you guys are so rich that you are entitled to pay yourselves for medical and retirement cost as well as unemployment expense. We are so poor that our government will pay them for us.

By the way, thank you kindly for your concern of our recession. I think we are hitting serious recession this time thanks to our neighbor’s sub-prime mortgage problem. I am sure the unemployment rate will notch up 4-5% from the current 3.9%. Probably, I have to give up dining out every day. I have no choice but doing it every second day instead. Please do not feel sorry for me. I am sure i can make it through.

You, too, take care of yourself, Asuka. Your economy is on its way to even bigger recession along with ongoing inflation because yours are pretty much depending on the Export to US. Please rest assured that I will not call your name even if I see you begging complete naked on a street of Shanghai or Beijing.

Oh, one more thing, please do not send any Chinese foods even if you think we are starving. I don’t want to die in pesticide poisoning yet.

Incidentally, the popularity of this might be due to its Biblical authority – about casting the beam out from your own eye, or throwing the first stone. People grow up being told this stuff.

Despite the fact that parkmount seems to be losing his cool, I would still say that what he is saying does have some merit. It does look like the Chinese government does have a penchant for avoiding real arguments. Now that I think of it, it seems as if most of the Chinese responses I have heard for the past few months can be categorized below:

1. The allegations and arguments are baseless and should not be believed (sometimes, it’s followed by adjectives describing the other party as not being credible enough or worth believing)

2. All the blame cannot be dumped on us. You are at fault as well.

3. You should not criticize us because you did the same things (decades/centuries) before

4. We do not meddle in other people’s affairs, so don’t meddle in ours.

5. What happened was a mere coincidence/ accident. It was not intentional.

I think no. 1 is the favorite though. Sometimes it gets a bit entertaining when China liberally sprinkles its statements with words like “evil” and “conspiracy” (ah, wait. Hmmm. I’m not sure if they’ve used “conspiracy yet). Anyway, after making their statements, the entire issue has already been deflected and the matter of addressing it has been avoided.

But if no.1 one doesn’t work out as well as the government wants it to (usually because the Chinese government’s claims aren’t being accepted at all by foreigners), it backtracks a bit, and makes a bit of compromise. It then uses no.2, saying that the fault lies with both parties, and that all the blame should not be dumped on China only. This is sometimes followed by a plea for “assistance”, whether it be a desire for new technology or more cooperation between the parties. I think this probably is the most effective of all their tools. Plus, the real issue sometimes gets addressed as well.

No. 3 is favored as well. I think the technique is called “poisoning the well”. Here, China would attack the credibility and or/ the moral ascendancy of the entity making the argument. I have no idea why a technique like this actually works in international relations. I mean, back in college, people avoided this because instead of attacking the issue or argument per se, the credibility of the person making the argument is attacked instead. The issue is then avoided entirely, even if the point raised is valid.

Both of the above are usually used in “internet comment battles” as well. Haha. So be on the look out for these. Anyway, I won’t belabor points 4 and 5 anymore. I think most people use those anyway, and I don’t think they’ve been used in the Tibet issue as of yet (or have they? I don’t know).

But even if these methods used by China in dealing with Foreign criticism are crude, it’s working for some reason. So, you have to give them credit for that at least. Anyway, hopefully there aren’t any “Chinese internet police” members in here. I hear that they post in foreign forums as well. Haha.

And lighten up guys, this is a Japan blog. Although the Tibet issue is very hot indeed, this probably isn’t the best venue to argue about it.

I don’t agree with many of the things the Chinese government is doing, and human rights is definitely something that needs to be worked on. However, I like to stay in the middle ground and look at issues from all sides, rather than adopting this extremist view that you possess. By now I’ve learned that things are never black and white as you are made to believe. You claim that I’m “brainwashed” by the Chinese, but it seems to me that you’re in an equally bad or worse state – believing you’re in moral high ground to the point of delusion. Does it make you feel better to put down other countries (and other people, for that matter, judging from your aggressive comment)?

Are you referring to the period before the early 18th century? Any time after that the Chinese Empire had it, in varying degrees of control. Their control was perhaps weakest during the warlord era of the early 20th century, which may be where the idea that Tibet was independent came from. But as soon as the Nationalists and Commies sorted themselves out the winners reasserted control over Tibet.

Besides, I am sure there are so many countries that would like to help same as they did to East Timor. I wish no countries had helped China. I remember we all wondered in 80′s how the hell we can help this dirt poor country, China. It looks like we helped their economy, not their brains.

Nobody is helping Tibet just because we hate China. We hate China just because they are stupid enough to not understand that our feeling we have when we helped China is same for Tibet now. Bang your head against wall, will you?

Chinese argument and logic are always same as those of little kids. Probably, it’s an insult to the kids for me to say that. it goes like this “Why did you do such nasty things to Nancy, Billy? I am not wrong because John was doing the same to Kate. Besides, I can do anything, but she can’t. I am the only one who can do everything. Why? Cause…..”

Asuka, we in the west don’t decide, out of too much self-righteousness, whether or not we should be able to kill someone innocent.

I think you should get your diaper changed,,,, Also new brain.

I would gather grant Taiwan’s independence more than Tibet….well If they did free Tibet, will Tibet be any better than China now really think about it….seriously think about it who will lead the country….everyone in the world is helping Tibet is because they hate China…Well look at this way if a state in the US wants to be independent will US allow it??? I’m sure they won’t?? and boycotting the Beijing Olympic wont make thinks better then it is now….pple will think I’m wrong but that’s just my opinion

THANK YOU

Anyway, that which is happening in Tibet right now is indeed very interesting. It’s nice that there are sources of information regarding it, besides the Chinese sponsored media. Hopefully China would allow reporters in, and allow them to wander around and report freely, that way, we can make better judgments as to what is really happening by comparing and contrasting different news sources. Although, I would admit, it is highly improbable that China would do so.

If the Chinese can’t make a living unless they steal your panty, they should go naked.

If China can’t live without Tibet, be a little bit nicer to the Tibetans. Nobody tells Chinese that they have to kiss Tibetans axx.

Whatever they say is always right in their mind. Even they say they have ample of facts and plenty of evidences as Wen Jiabao denounced Dalai Lama, they won’t produce them because they just lie to counter your arguments.

I observed that this is how they argue with you in China.

Whatever they say is right and whatever you say wrong or a lie 100 out of 100 times. That’s how it goes in the promising land.

Kidding! I didn’t assume you are. I was referring to American in the context that they are the only bully around we can use against the nuts.

And why do you and parkmount assume I am American?

Like now?

The Chinese built infrastructure of water, education, railways and so on.

But they are not for Tibetans, but for accommodating influx of the Chinese.

Their strategy is always same to saturate the problem with abundance of human bodies.