Sure there is. Leave them alone.
No. Uninhabited land was settled, inhabited land conquered, or purchased. All legitimate ways (at least in the past) to gain territory. One reason Canada is no engaged in so many land deals with native groups is that we did not in fact legitimately annex much of the north or west. We simply claimed it and now are paying for it. But no one expects China to even honor the agreements it has made with Tibet.
China has claimed sovereignty and yes, it has decent claims. But Chinese governments never ruled Tibet directly and never occupied Tibet. Tibet was always autonomous.
The 17 Point Agreement lays out clearly the relationship that is supposed to exist between the TAR and China.
[quote]the Central People’s Government declared that all nationalities within the boundaries of the People’s Republic of China are equal…Within this big family of nationalities of the People’s Republic of China, national regional autonomy is to be exercised in areas where national minorities are concentrated, and all national minorities are to have freedom to develop their spoken and written languages and to preserve or reform their customs, habits, and religious beliefs, and the Central People’s Government will assist all national minorities to develop their political, economic, cultural, and educational construction work. …
- In accordance with the policy towards nationalities laid down in the Common Programme of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the Tibetan people have the right of exercising national regional autonomy under the unified leadership of the Central People’s Government.
- The Central Authorities will not alter the existing political system in Tibet. The Central Authorities also will not alter the established status, functions and powers of the Dalai Lama. Officials of various ranks shall hold office as usual.
- The established status, functions, and powers of the Panchen Lama shall be maintained.
- By the established status, functions and powers of the Dalai Lama and of the Panchen Lama is meant the status, functions and powers of the 13th Dalai Lama and of the 9th Panchen Lama when they were in friendly and amicable relations with each other.
- The policy of freedom of religious belief laid down in the Common Programme of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference will be protected. The Central Authorities will not effect any change in the income of the monasteries.
- The spoken and written language and school education of the Tibetan nationality will be developed step by step in accordance with the actual conditions in Tibet.
- Tibetan agriculture, livestock raising, industry and commerce will be developed step by step, and the people’s livelihood shall be improved step by step in accordance with the actual conditions in Tibet.
- In matters related to various reforms in Tibet, there will be no compulsion on the part of the Central Authorities. The Local Government of Tibet should carry out reforms of its own accord, and when the people raise demands for reform, they must be settled through consultation with the leading personnel of Tibet…
[/quote]
The Dalai Lama drafted a constitution for a democratic Tibet soon after he went into exile in 1959. The Tibetan Government-in-Exile has a parliament elected by a popular vote of Tibetans-in-exile.[/quote]
I see. So, if Tibetans were allowed to vote on something like, say, official language does ABC imagine that they would vote in favor of that lovely mandarin with it’s HanZi script I wonder or…?
The Inavut of northern Canada weren’t asked exactly I don’t imagine but the government of Cananda has nevertheless implemented an ambitious plan to revitalize native languages.
From the wiki article…
[quote] In his 2000 commissioned report (Aajiiqatigiingniq Language of Instruction Research Paper) to the Nunavut Department of Education, Ian Martin of York University states that a “long-term threat to Inuit language from English is found everywhere, and current school language policies and practices on language are contributing to that threat” if Nunavut schools follow the Northwest Territories model. He provides a 20 year language plan to create a “fully functional bilingual society, in Inuktitut and English” by 2020. The plan provides different models, including:
“Qulliq Model”, for most Nunavut communities, with Inuktitut as the main language of instruction.
“Inuinnaqtun Immersion” model, for language reclamation and immersion to revitalize Inuinnaqtun as a living language.
“Mixed Population Model”, mainly for Iqaluit (possibly for Rankin Inlet), as the 40% Qallunaat, or non-Inuit, population may have different requirements
The 2006 Canadian census showed a population of 29,474. Of the 29,025 singular responses to the census question concerning ‘mother tongue’ the most commonly reported languages were:
- Inuktitut 20,185 69.54%
- English 7,765 26.75%
- French 370 1.27%
- Inuinnaqtun 295 1.02%
There were also 260 responses of both English and a ‘non-official language’ (mainly Inuktitut); 20 of both French and a 'non-official language; 20 of both English and French; and about 140 people who either did not respond to the question, or reported multiple non-official languages, or else gave some other unenumerated response. [/quote]
Also, the novel “Beautiful Losers” was translated recently into Chinese. I’m curious whether ABC has read the translation and how he feels it compares to the original.
Nonsense. Tibet was ruled by two non-Chinese dynasties (the Yuan and the Qing) who in addition to conquering China, also conquered Tibet. In both cases, the Yuan and the Qing had important religious ties to Tibet and allowed the Tibetans a very high degree of autonomy.
History does not at all support the proposition that Tibet belongs to China. And history is irrelevant to the right of self-determination.
[quote]
China was simply reclaiming what’s theirs all along. so. [/quote]
They took Tibet by invading it in 1950 and suppressing a 1959 uprising.
[quote=“ABC”]
No, but neither are the vast majority of Han people. Keep things relative here. It would be unfair to the Han and rest of the country if Tibetans get rights that are not afforded to non-Tibetans now isn’t it?[/quote]
You know the majority of China’s 55 ethnic minorities are doing alright and integrating just fine in society. Somehow they don’t feel the kind of discrimination Tibetans do. If the Tibetans(along with the Uigurs) want to keep themselves backward and isolated, there’s nothing the Chinese government can do about it.[/quote]
There is plenty they can do. Increase the percentage of Tibetans employed in the civil service and make Tibetan a language of the bureacracy. Make Tibetan the language of banks, newspapers, media, entertainments and so on. Do this and the language and culture will modernize. Keep it the language of ancient ritual and superstition and the people will remain backward.
Is that why they have all the Tara statues, etc, in the ‘tourist trail’ temples in Beijing (ever notice how they are restored in exactly the same colours of paint/ornamental designs?)? To establish a cultural shared heritage with Tibet in the minds of furrin visitors? 
THE PARTY WAS OVER THEN TOO
When I was about fifteen
I followed a beautiful girl
into the Communist Party of Canada.
There were secret meetings
and you got yelled at
if you were a minute late.
We studied the McCarran Act
passed by the stooges in Washington,
and the Padlock Law
passed by their lackeys in Quebec,
and they said nasty shit
about my family
and how we got our money.
They wanted to overthrow
the country that I loved
(and served, as a Sea Scout).
And even the good people
who wanted to change things,
they hated them too
and called them social fascists.
They had plans for criminals
like my uncles and aunties
and they even had plans
for my poor little mother
who had slipped out of Lithuania
with two frozen apples
and a bandanna full of monopoly money.
They never let me get near the girl
and the girl never let me get near the girl.
She became more and more beautiful
until she married a lawyer
and became a social fascist herself
and very likely a criminal too.
But I admired the Communists
for their pig-headed devotion
to something absolutely wrong.
It was years before I found something comparable for myself:
I joined a tiny band of steel-jawed zealots
who considered themselves
the Marines of the spiritual world. It’s just a matter of time:
we’ll be landing this raft
on the Other Shore,
we’ll be taking that beach
on the Other Shore.
Leonard Cohen - May 1997.
[quote=“Feiren”][quote=“ABC”]
There’s solid historical evidence that Tibet has been part of China for many years, but for variety of reasons(remote location, weakness of central government, etc), Tibet had not been under China’s direct and effective jurisdiction most of the time.
[/quote]
Nonsense. Tibet was ruled by two non-Chinese dynasties (the Yuan and the Qing) who in addition to conquering China, also conquered Tibet. In both cases, the Yuan and the Qing had important religious ties to Tibet and allowed the Tibetans a very high degree of autonomy.
History does not at all support the proposition that Tibet belongs to China. And history is irrelevant to the right of self-determination. [/quote]
Actually it isnt that simple and the DL has made a major blunder over the years in demanding that a political Tibet encompass not just the TAR but all the ethnic Tibetan regions of China. This is absurb as many of these regions have been under direct Chinese control for hundreds of years and furthermore are quite ethnically mixed places. Qinghai, for example, was a province of China even under the Qing and has regions where Salar Muslims, Mongolians Tui and others have lived for centuries.
Most countries in Europe exist happily with large ethnic minorities that share a language and culture with people just across the border. There is no reason to argue for lands in Qinghai, Gansu and even parts of Sichuan just because they have Tibetans in them.
Tibet was only an empire for a few hundred years. The DL has no legitimate claim to all territory that was under Lhasa’s control 1000 years ago. In fact such arguments are matched for historical fatuousness only by the Chinese claim over Taiwan.
[quote=“Mucha Man”]
Let’s hear you make one.[/quote]
I think you just made it for me. But then Tibetans can already use their own language freely. They can use it in government, have their own newspaper, tv programs, schools, etc. like the other minorities.
[quote]As usual you are misinformed. Chinese do not enjoy the right to move freely about their country, and those migrants who do move do not usually get residency in their new place of abode. Without residency one cannot even rent an apartment, have one’s children schooled, which means migrants do not enjoy the same rights as residences. Shenzhen is just beginning to experiment with granting residency permits to migrants so they can enjoy the same rights as residents:
In Tibet most of the Han and Hui are migrants and so under Chinese law do not actually have any real right to be there and can be expelled without compensation.[/quote]
Your knowledge of the residency rules are seriously outdated. Now those rules have been relaxed and Chinese have much more freedom to move about and live in other parts of the country. Regardless, are you saying Hans should not be able to live in Tibet? Funny because you’re actually advocating for restriction of freedom in China.
Wasn’t there a good bit of fighting in Chamdo? Even if Chamdo was not controlled by Lhasa. Also, sure the DL is not claiming ALL of Qinghai, just the heavily Tibetan parts. Much of western Sichuan (Xikang) and parts of northwestern Yunnan (Deqin) are over 90% Tibetan. Yunnan I know a bit more about. Most of Yunnan (not just the Tibetan parts) were ruled through local kings and chiefs using the Qing’s 'frontier mode of rule (similar to their approach to ruling Taiwan. It’s a bit of an oversimplification to say that Yunnan has been ruled directly by the Chinese for centuries. Sure, Kunming has been under Chinese control since the Ming and there was a great deal of Han settlement, but that’s not direct rule in the sense that we would understand today.
I agree that claiming these areas may have been a mistake . And there’s no reason that there can’t be multiethnic areas on both sides of the Tibetan border.
[quote=“ABC”][quote=“Muzha Man”]
Let’s hear you make one.[/quote]
I think you just made it for me. But then Tibetans can already use their own language freely. They can use it in government, have their own newspaper, tv programs, schools, etc. like the other minorities.
[quote]As usual you are misinformed. Chinese do not enjoy the right to move freely about their country, and those migrants who do move do not usually get residency in their new place of abode. Without residency one cannot even rent an apartment, have one’s children schooled, which means migrants do not enjoy the same rights as residences. Shenzhen is just beginning to experiment with granting residency permits to migrants so they can enjoy the same rights as residents:
In Tibet most of the Han and Hui are migrants and so under Chinese law do not actually have any real right to be there and can be expelled without compensation.[/quote]
Your knowledge of the residency rules are seriously outdated. Now those rules have been relaxed and Chinese have much more freedom to move about and live in other parts of the country. Regardless, are you saying Hans should not be able to live in Tibet? Funny because you’re actually advocating for restriction of freedom in China.[/quote]
Not funny at all. Yes, I am advocating restrictions to immigrants flooding an autonomous region. Tibet is not a province. Under the founding ideals of the PRC, and the 17 Point Agreement, it is to be treated special, with special considerations for its ethnic and cultural distinction.
Only someone completely unfamilar with freedom and democracy would think that restrictions are always wrong. We restrict building around watersheds, we restrict loud noises at night, we restrict loitering and spitting. We restrict people knowing the sex of their fetus. We restrict people knowing the result of elections in other parts of the country until all the votes are in to avoid people not voting. All kinds of sensible restrictions that free societies choose to make.
As for my knowlegde of residency, my source was a China Daily article from a few months back:
[quote]About 5 million of the migrant workers who have been living in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, for more than a year are expected to get their residency status processed by the end of the year.
The moves have been hailed as the first of their kind in the country - after three decades of economic reform fueled by such migrant workers - and ones that will enable migrant workers to enjoy full rights as the city’s permanent residents.[/quote]
A Tibetan boy named Tenzin will have a difficult time getting registered at a good school. Many Tibetan boys are secretly named Tenzin (after the DL) but given another name that is acceptable to the Chinese authorities.
So much for using their own language freely.
In any case my point is to facilitate the modernization of the language and culture. That supposedly is the PRC’s goal, but somehow you never seem to get beyond cracking heads and suppressing religion so that the culture has no room to evolve.
You know the majority of China’s 55 ethnic minorities are doing alright and integrating just fine in society. Somehow they don’t feel the kind of discrimination Tibetans do. If the Tibetans(along with the Uyghurs) want to keep themselves backward and isolated, there’s nothing the Chinese government can do about it.[/quote]
I know you don’t mean that ABC, because that’s the kind of statement only a complete asshole would make. The Tibetans and Uyghurs are not trying to be backward, they are trying to be autonomous. Your argument is so similar to 19th century colonial arguments that it’s not even funny. It sounds like a bunch of Brits drinking Pims in Shanghai complaining about how the Chinese are so resistant to development and open trade.
The point being is that you can’t just tell people what’s good for them - from your point of view - and shove it down their throat.
On the language issue. On a recent visit to a Tibetan area of western Sichuan I noticed most of the locals spoke little or no Mandarin. The schools appeared to teach in the Tibetan language. Most signs were bilingual. This is certainly a far better situation than faced by any of the indigenous languages in North America.
Tibetan culture also seemed to be thriving. True there were some Han migrants in the larger towns, but the vast majority of the population were ethnic Tibetan. Especially away from the towns, life seemed almost untouched by Chinese cultural influence.
Of course, this is all just observation based on a couple of weeks travelling, but I didn’t see any evidence that Tibetan language or culture is any danger of extinction.
Cool. Thank you.
That’s why for a long time China itself was an isolated and backward place, because it had resisted developement and open trade. But now China has opened up, and that’s not a bad idea at all. The Tibetans should learn something from this and open up too.
That’s why for a long time China itself was an isolated and backward place, because it had resisted developement and open trade. But now China has opened up, and that’s not a bad idea at all. The Tibetans should learn something from this and open up too.[/quote]
So does China see Britain as a benevolent force for liberation from their backward habits, with the benefit of hindsight? I always had the impression they were still pissed off about that. And was the communism just a blip?
That’s why for a long time China itself was an isolated and backward place, because it had resisted developement and open trade. But now China has opened up, and that’s not a bad idea at all. The Tibetans should learn something from this and open up too.[/quote]
Most Tibetans want to modernize but China forces them into being cultural reactionaries.
I wish you, ABC, and most of your Han brethren would learn to be truly modern, too. But I engage you in debate not force foreign ideals on you.
Given time and development and money almost all people modernize, and I suspect the rabble in China will too. It happened in taiwan which is why they see unification as slumming.
[quote=“Mawvellous”][quote=“bob”]
I see. So, if Tibetans were allowed to vote on something like, say, official language does ABC imagine that they would vote in favor of that lovely Mandarin with it’s HanZi script I wonder or…?
[/quote]
On the language issue. On a recent visit to a Tibetan area of western Sichuan I noticed most of the locals spoke little or no Mandarin. The schools appeared to teach in the Tibetan language. Most signs were bilingual. This is certainly a far better situation than faced by any of the indigenous languages in North America.
Tibetan culture also seemed to be thriving. True there were some Han migrants in the larger towns, but the vast majority of the population were ethnic Tibetan. Especially away from the towns, life seemed almost untouched by Chinese cultural influence.
Of course, this is all just observation based on a couple of weeks travelling, but I didn’t see any evidence that Tibetan language or culture is any danger of extinction.[/quote]
Your observations are superficial. Tibetan culture in the provinces is often stronger than in the TAR because the PRC has no need to settle remote regions in the provinces. (Look back a few decades though and you will see massive destruction.) They do have a need to settle the TAR both to make their claims that it is part of Chinese territory legitimate, and because of the need to bring economic growth to the region. The PRC knows it cannot win the hearts of the Tibetans and so is on a drive to win their pocketbooks. Unfortunately, development in the TAR needs a lot of outside skilled and semi-skilled labour. Hence the drive to keep growth up is actually further marginalizing a lot of Tibetans. Last years riots were in part the result of Tibetan anger over inflation and lack of opportunity.
You also need to travel to Lhasa to see just how awful the destruction of traditional culture had been. The city is cut in half with a gaudy Chinese section and an increasingly fragile Tibetan. Han already outnumber Tibetans and walk about as if it is their city. They treat the Potala as a museum, light it up at night and play marching songs. Really sick.
So, bob, not cool. Yes Tibetans can speak their own language and do in fact learn it in school, but their culture is beleagured in every way. I’m not sure how anyone could say a culture is not under fire when it has to accept spy cameras in its places of worship (as all monasteries in Lhasa do), or not being able to use children’s real names, or having 18 years old foreign soldiers walking around the holiest sites with pump action shot guns, or having foreign soldiers stand at the corner of every alley (and I mean every alley) in their holy city, and so on. The Chinese run Tibet like an occupied territory, not like a part of their own country. It’s shameful.
[quote=“Buttercup”]
So does China see Britain as a benevolent force for liberation from their backward habits, with the benefit of hindsight? I always had the impression they were still pissed off about that. And was the communism just a blip?[/quote]
Not really. There’s no real grudge against Britain on what they did more than 100 years ago. But since they’re still hoarding all the cultural relics and artifacts looted from China back then, there’s always a reason to be pissed.