Tibet: The New Palestine?
"The US House (April 9) criticized China for its
...response to protests in Tibet."
Associated Press, April 10, 2008
If a people have lived under military occupation for decades, and the occupying power is moving more and more of its own people into the occupied territory, the oppressed people are likely to seek the intervention of the "international community" on their behalf.
If the occupied people are called Palestinian Arabs, the response will be robust, including numerous UN resolutions, international conferences, and massive diplomatic pressure on the occupying power.
But if the victims of occupation are Tibetans, the world won't care much. The occupying power, the People's Republic of China (formerly Red China) will not feel much pressure to ease up on the repression, until maybe now.
After a millennium of independence, Tibet was annexed by China in the early 1700's (1). The mountain land regained its autonomy during the 1911 Chinese Revolution, but in 1950 Communist Chinese armed forces retook Tibet. Although nominally autonomous within China, all real power over the area is held firmly by Beijing. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese people have settled in Tibet during the period of Chinese occupation.
The worldwide focus on the Olympic Games in Beijing this summer has given advocates of Tibet an opportunity to publicize human rights violations by China. There have been big street demonstrations, some violent, in the cities through which the Olympic Torch as been run.
The Olympic Games are always a showcase for the regime hosting them, including some repressive regimes, such as Nazi Germany in 1936. In 1980 President Carter withdrew American participation from the Olympics in Moscow to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Despite the ostensibly non-political nature of the Games, politics often intrudes. The most horrific example was the murder of eleven Israeli athletes by Black September Palestinian terrorists during the 1972 Games in Munich.
When China began to allow private enterprise to bloom about twenty years ago, pundits predicted that economic liberty would inevitably lead to political liberty. So far, this has not come true. Today's China is a far cry from Mao Zedong's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966), but the only legal political party is still the Communist Party. All media are under tight state control, even the internet is censored. China has millionaires, a big middle class, plenty of Wal-Marts, and no political freedom. The regime is striving to show the world a placid ambience for the Olympic Games, but it resists making real concessions to freedom, either in Tibet or at home.
Unlike tiny Israel, China cannot be pressured successfully. It is the world's most populous nation, and one of the greatest economies. China today finances the American national debt, a development Mao would never have believed would occur. (Back in his time, I would not have believed it either!) When the Olympic Torch is finally extinguished at the end of the Summer 2008 Games, neither Tibet nor the Chinese people will be any closer to real freedom.
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(1) World Book Encyclopedia, 1977, Volume 10, page 215.
...response to protests in Tibet."
Associated Press, April 10, 2008
If a people have lived under military occupation for decades, and the occupying power is moving more and more of its own people into the occupied territory, the oppressed people are likely to seek the intervention of the "international community" on their behalf.
If the occupied people are called Palestinian Arabs, the response will be robust, including numerous UN resolutions, international conferences, and massive diplomatic pressure on the occupying power.
But if the victims of occupation are Tibetans, the world won't care much. The occupying power, the People's Republic of China (formerly Red China) will not feel much pressure to ease up on the repression, until maybe now.
After a millennium of independence, Tibet was annexed by China in the early 1700's (1). The mountain land regained its autonomy during the 1911 Chinese Revolution, but in 1950 Communist Chinese armed forces retook Tibet. Although nominally autonomous within China, all real power over the area is held firmly by Beijing. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese people have settled in Tibet during the period of Chinese occupation.
The worldwide focus on the Olympic Games in Beijing this summer has given advocates of Tibet an opportunity to publicize human rights violations by China. There have been big street demonstrations, some violent, in the cities through which the Olympic Torch as been run.
The Olympic Games are always a showcase for the regime hosting them, including some repressive regimes, such as Nazi Germany in 1936. In 1980 President Carter withdrew American participation from the Olympics in Moscow to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Despite the ostensibly non-political nature of the Games, politics often intrudes. The most horrific example was the murder of eleven Israeli athletes by Black September Palestinian terrorists during the 1972 Games in Munich.
When China began to allow private enterprise to bloom about twenty years ago, pundits predicted that economic liberty would inevitably lead to political liberty. So far, this has not come true. Today's China is a far cry from Mao Zedong's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966), but the only legal political party is still the Communist Party. All media are under tight state control, even the internet is censored. China has millionaires, a big middle class, plenty of Wal-Marts, and no political freedom. The regime is striving to show the world a placid ambience for the Olympic Games, but it resists making real concessions to freedom, either in Tibet or at home.
Unlike tiny Israel, China cannot be pressured successfully. It is the world's most populous nation, and one of the greatest economies. China today finances the American national debt, a development Mao would never have believed would occur. (Back in his time, I would not have believed it either!) When the Olympic Torch is finally extinguished at the end of the Summer 2008 Games, neither Tibet nor the Chinese people will be any closer to real freedom.
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(1) World Book Encyclopedia, 1977, Volume 10, page 215.
Labels: Olympics, Tibet. China
posted by Gerald S Glazer at 10:36 AM
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