It has more to do with a thread that started up about a shrine visit months ago. It appears that many Chinese posters here are very sensitive about that stuff and I rubbed them the wrong way when I tried to point out their hyprocrisy of crying about the shrine visit when they say nothing about Tibet. So it's an on-going thing where I am accusing them of not seeing the truth and they accuse me of hating Chinese people because I am taking a tough position on them.
Based on the video, can you really tell if they fell down or were shot? Maybe either way. The point is, a clip of that kind of low quality can't be qualified as evidence in a court for an assault case, let alone murder, or what you claimed "racial genocide". Also, even if those men were killed, it's still blatant exaggeration on your part to spin it into a genocide. Maybe you should reflect on your own stance and reduce your tendency to hate as much as possible given a disproportionate cause. Seems like you have no problem with the Chinese culture, glad to have one front solved. I think both sides need to chill out and reflect on their own stance to see if they are objective. If you are not getting what exactly I mean, there is one recent example is in this thread. When the American soldiers rape Iraqis, it's treated as an isolated incident. I didn't see anyone accuse the Americans or the USA commiting racial genocide, or saying the Americans are mistreating the Iraqis. Now, when a Chinese soldier allegedly killed two alleged refugees, it's the Chinese treating the Tibetans mercilessly and cruelly. Applying the same standard should I have a problem with the way the Americans are treating the Iraqis? Shouldn't we acknowledge that the Americans are commiting a crime against the Iraqis? Why limit the scope of the same thing when it comes to America, and grossly over generalize when it comes to China? You may deny hating China, but what you are doing here is advocating hate towards China and the Chinese by over generalization. Is bashing China and the Chinese associated with your fear that the emergence of China cuts into your lovely America hegemony? If you ask others not to make excuses, I hope you not to do the same.
Oh, come on, do we have to go through the same old route again? Do you blame the Iraqis or the Saddam Regime for the treatment on the Kurds? If you blame the Saddam Regime, you should hold the Mao regime accountable for the cultural revolution, not PRC nor the Chinese. The cultural revolution was a deliberate political attempt by Mao, supported by his supporters, the average Chinese had no choice but to play it along.
Ok but I believe his criticism extends beyond Mao and is a critique of more modern leaders of the Communist leadership. Yes I blame Saddam for the attacks on the Kurds and I will blame the Chinese government for its policy on Tibet. Obviously Sishir isn't criticizing the average Chinese citizen.
This thread isn't about America. It is about China's actions against Tibet. To say "But America does this!! What about that?!?" is beside the point. Wrong is wrong. Many actions in Iraq are wrong and there is a strong argument that even our presence there is wrong. That has absolutely nothing to do with the Chinese government and their actions. Which are wrong. How can you defend this? http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/10/09/china14364.htm I think it is important to note that this discussion would probably get this site shut down in China. http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/10/03/china14299.htm Just to be fair, here is the Chinese perspective: http://www.index-china.com/index-english/Tibet-s.html and Tibet's: http://hhdl.dharmakara.net/hhdl-tibet.html either way, there is absolutely no justification for the atrocities against both the environment and the people of Tibet by the Chinese government.
Only because if the average Chinese do not play along they will be thrown in jail and never heard from again.
to say that the Chines gov is brutal only towards tibet is less than trueful; it is brutal to all 56 ethnic groups, who pose a threat to those in power, in China Found this well-researched article, http://www.antiwar.com/chu/c121799.html , written by a Taiwanese-American architect, that might be of interest---providing a keen analysis on Tibet. Let's face it -- the European record on indigenous populations, Africans and Amerindians for example, isn't that great. America is carved out of many Native American nations. Africa was repartitioned into artificial states, now only to be troubled by ethnic strife, due to borders that Europeans set up. It seems, that the 'white men' has indeed wreaked havoc on the globe. It has become fashionable to conveniently portray the Chinese are somehow the "White Men" of the east. By comparing regions of China such as Tibet, Xinjiang, and Taiwan to the territories of Native Americans or blacks, the liberals (Richard Gere, Marlon Brando, etc.) as well as right-wingers (Rust Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Larry Elder, etc.) have attracted mass sympathy for these peoples. This works because it touches the politically-correctness sensitivieties of the Americans. After all, since the Native Americans and blacks were oppressed, and the Tibetans and Xinjiangese are in the same situation, the Han Chinese must be the perpetrators! CHINA'S WEST IS NOT THE AMERICAN WEST One especially disturbing aspect of the Tibet crusade in America is that Hollywood, academia, New Agers and the Washington establishment have drawn patently misleading parallels with American history. These comparisons of European immigrants to Han Chinese, and American Indians to Tibetan Chinese, have led to a grotesque collective misunderstanding. This dangerously egocentric, even narcissistic way of experiencing the world may get America into deep foreign policy hot water. In fact, it has. When such historically irrelevant parallels are drawn what non-Chinese get is worse than ignorance. What non-Chinese get is the illusion of understanding. Unfortunately most of what is readily available in English on the web regarding contemporary Tibet is predictable "Political Correctness" orthodoxy. The few rebuttals which are available in English are summarily dismissed by the intellectual orthodoxy as not credible simply because they are posted by Chinese or ethnic Chinese sources and do not support the "correct" conclusions. Tibet is a region of China. It has been since the 13th century. Obviously one needs to refer to Chinese history and Chinese historians to learn about it. Most of that data is obviously going to be in Chinese. Yet it is only virulently anti-China Tibetan secessionist propaganda written in English which is automatically accorded the status of unassailable truth. The China bashers' attitude reeks of colonialist arrogance. Far better to not know anything, and retain the humility that accompanies such ignorance, than to imagine that one knows all one needs to know to pass moral judgment and demand military intervention. As the old saw goes, "the problem isn't what people don't know, it's what they know that just ain't so." TIBETAN CHINESE ARE NOT AMERICAN INDIANS For example, projection of "collective guilt" over the mistreatment of American Indians is with little doubt the psychological root of most pro- Dalai activism. Unfortunately the pro-Dalai faction has confused its own internal psychology with a foreign nation's history. Just because they feel "white guilt" about America's Indian minority does not mean that China's history actually conforms to their internal guilt and historical misunderstanding. This is why so many western sympathizers of Tibetan independence are taken aback, stunned even, when they discover that most Tienanmen pro-democracy leaders do NOT support, and in fact vehemently oppose Tibetan and Taiwan independence. The sympathizers' projection has been so extensive that they are trapped in a "virtual reality" of their own making. The relationship between majority Han-Chinese and minority Tibetan-Chinese does NOT historically parallel that of European-Americans and Native Americans. The territory of modern China includes Tibet not because "the Han-Chinese conquered Tibetan-Chinese" the way European-Americans conquered American Indians and Hawaiians. (E.g., "Dances with Wolves"). Instead both Tibetans and Hans were conquered by the Mongols under the leadership of Chenghis Khan and grandson Kublai Khan in the 13th century. When the Mongol or Yuan Dynasty collapsed a century later, it was supplanted by a Han-Chinese dominated Ming Dynasty, which inherited jurisdiction over the Mongol empire, including the Tibetan region. This is how Tibet, and of course Mongolia, became part of China. Those who insist on "victim-victimizer" dichotomies might be tempted on leap to yet another equally simplistic conclusion, that "both Tibetans and Hans were victims of Mongol aggression." This ignores the fact that both "victims" and "victimizers" subsequently intermarried extensively, not under duress, but of their own volition, rendering the issue of victimization moot and irrelevant. The bottom line is that Tibet was not "invaded" or "annexed" by China in 1959. Because by then the Tibetan region had been part of China for seven centuries, five centuries longer than these United States of America have even been in existence. REDS, NOT RED HERRINGS The false equation of Tibetan-Chinese with American Indian has predictably led to the false attribution of racist motivations to Beijing's abolition of serfdom and crushing of Tibetan secession. Beijing's Tibet policies are being falsely equated with everything from Nazi genocide of Jews to Nato's allegations of Serbian "ethnic cleansing." If one is determined to force the Chinese experience into an American mold, one could perhaps equate the militarily powerful Mongols with one of the aggressive, nomadic tribes such as the Comanche, and Tibetans and Hans with less aggressive, agrarian tribes such as the Hopi or Navahoe. The point is that all of China's major ethnic subcultures are native Chinese, including so-called Hans. Now that communism is dead, sympathizers of the Dalai Lama, many of whom were sympathizers of Mao Zedong, seem to have forgotten what communism was all about. Communism was a political ideology obsessed with economic equality. Communism adjudged who was good and who was bad on the basis of its fatally flawed economic theory. To communist true believers the relevant question was to which economic class do you belong. Are you a capitalist victimizer or a proletarian victim? Ethnicity to communism was always irrelevant. The Chinese Communists were no exception. They committed their atrocities because they were fanatical radical egalitarians, "coercive egalitarians." The Lamaist theocracy was targeted because it engaged in the economic exploitation of Tibet's serfs. When Red Guards vandalized monasteries in Tibet they were doing precisely the same thing to Zen Buddhist monasteries, Taoist monasteries, Christian churches, Jewish synagogues all over the rest of China. They were not doing anything so narrowly parochial as singling out the Tibetan subculture for "cultural genocide." Rather they were motivated by disgust for what they perceived as vestiges of unjust economic systems throughout Tibet. The Dalai Lama's allegation that Chinese Communist violence against Tibet's serf-owning elite was racially motivated ethnic cleansing is a red herring. Chinese Communists were evil because they were coercive egalitarians. Chinese Communists were never racist. IF THIS BE GENOCIDE, MAKE THE MOST OF IT In fact if the Chinese Communists, CCP, had really been intent on committing genocide, they could have deliberately and cynically left Tibet's Ancient Regime in place. Traditional Tibet's theocracy imposed a policy of "er xuan yi" (from two choose one) and "san xuan ER" (from three choose two) on the Tibetan people. They dragooned enormous numbers of hapless Tibetan boys into the priesthood , where they would remain celibate for life. This draconian policy resulted in an alarming decline in Tibet's population in recent centuries. Adherence to a religious practice of strict celibacy led to the eventual extinction of the Shaker sect in America. CCP's non- intervention in China's Tibetan region would have, by default, abetted a similar process of Tibetan self-extinction. CCP intervention has instead led to a population increase. Yet Beijing is ritually and reflexively accused by self-styled do-gooders of "genocide," both "cultural" and racial. Ironies abound
Let's look at the grand picture instead of focusing on incomplete reports, much money is pumping into the Tibetan province through a large influx of tourists over these years, from home or abroad. The reason of them visiting Tibet is not to eat Kung Pao chicken, but to experience the Tibetan culture. Its religion and religious works, its food and clothes... The Tibetan culture is the local government's money tree. This is a fact, which speak volumes about the need of government policy on protecting Tibetan culture. Why the Chinese government want to destroy the Tibetan culture when the culture is good for tourism. I myself never went to the Tibetan province due to its thin air, but I visited heavily populated Tibetan areas scattered in nearby provinces of Yunnan and Sichuan. Each time I watched the Tibetan's shows of dances, display of traditional clothes and listened to their songs. I drank their wine and ate their local snacks. The shows charged me stiff bucks which is common partly because the guides are supposed to make commission off the shows, and one of the guide was a Tibetan. I myself paid money to the Tibetans to enjoy their culture, and the monks and average people in the Tibetan province are making good money by accomodating Chinese, providing fortune telling services, selling overpriced incense to Chinese tourists and living a good life. And now we are said to be doing cultural genocide to the Tibetan culture? This is just ridiculous. Is the Tibetans banned from their religion? from their clothing? from their living style? deprived of education in their culture? If so I would like to know.
Wrong is wrong, and two wrongs don't make one right, no problem. The problem is how wrong it is. Is it an isolated incident wrongdoing, a government wrongdoing, or racial genocide wrongdoing? The judgement on the American's deed in Iraq is an example for deduction to decide the extent of wrongness of this incident, you certainly knows that in judicial process previous cases are used as guidelines.
I see that but the parallels to Native American reservations seem pretty evident. Go to a reservation and if you get past a casino, you'll see that their "culture" has been commodified into a profit-making enterprise in which culture has been reduced to catering to tourists rather than embracing a way of life. Having priests show off their rituals isn't culture. It's reducing culture to money. Having shows and guides aren't cultural. They are ways of profiting off of a culture. That's why people critique modern native american reservations. They are hollow shells of what once was an actual civilization and has now been reduced to shows and dances that exist to make profit. What you say above is exactly that. The "tibetan culture" has been reduced to a financial enterprise designed to cater to the whims of tourists like yourself rather than rituals and culture for the sake of a way of life. Their culture is a museum artifact at this point that Chinese people marvel at. THAT is cultural genocide. It's the obliteration of a culture and the reduction and manipulation of that culture for profit. It's why native american reservations are but a shell of past culture and why true Tibetan culture is slowly being wiped off the map because people are forced to sell out to the lure of money. Also look beyond the simple tourism. The Chinese government actively encourages and subsidizes immigration to Tibet by the mainland Han Chinese. A tactic they've borrowed from others like the Russians who strategically moved Russians into the Caucausus to gain greater influence and dilute the native population. Also a tactic used by our buddy Saddam to slowly dilute the Shi'ite and Kurdish populations of Iraq. That's another example of the type of cultural genocide that people speak of. It serves to dilute the population and infuse ethnic Chinese culture into Tibet because many of these new immigrants are heavily subsidized so they automatically come in with more purchasing power and wealth than the local population which was already pretty poor.
Comparing the native Tibetans to the westernized Indians in America cannot be further from the truth. The Tibetans speak their language in daily life, eat their traditional food, and practice their religion. Do the workers in your Indian reservation camp live the same living style from two hundred years ago? Do you think that the extinction of such camp would help the resurgence of the Indian culture? Profitting from a culture does not go against the rise of the culture, rather, it encourages it. The Indian culture was not in genocide because the Indians tried to make money off it, but because they abandoned it. The Tibetans make money off their culture is nothing wrong, it is no different from a French people making money by showing the works of French culture in museums, selling French delicacies to tourists, and the French culture is strengthened, not weakened because of it. Questions: How are the Han Chinese heavily subsidized? What is the ratio between the Han Chinese and Tibetan Chinese before and now? The Tibetans are born to have privileges over the Han Chinese. They can raise two children and the Han Chinese only one. It's a well known fact between the Chinese. The population policy of the Chinese government is diluting the Han Chinese' percentage among other Chinese.
unless, of course, those cases are to be tried in a Chinese court. How can you deny what the Chinese government has done in Tibet? Let's take a look at a few shall we? * Death of Tibetan prisoners in detention * Torture of Tibetans * Arbitrary arrest without public trial * Extended detention for Tibetans peacefully expressing religious or polital views * Controlling religion and freedom of speech and press in the region * Permitting traditional religious practices to promote tourism unless seen as a vehicle for political dissent - those are forcibly suppressed * Limit power of religious leaders who openly sympathize with the Dali Lama * Ordered the closing of all politically active monasteries * Repression, imprisonment, abuse and torture of monks and nuns accused of political activism * Bombed Lhasa and blamed separist groups * Ordered the detention of members of the Ganden,Sera, Drepung, Jokhang, and Tashilhunpo monasteries after they staged a small-scale protest * Banned photographs of the Dalai Lama in monasteries and private homes * Prohibited the sale of the Dalai Lama's photograph in shops * Conducted house to house searches to enforce the ban * 90 monks were detained at Lhasa's Ganden monastery after protesting the ban * Shot three monks at a protest - one died. * Those detained or imprisoned are denied adequate legal safeguards * Prison guards beat a 19 year old monk to death - several other monks have died in detention from abuse * A 27 year old artist was detained and tortured over a 58 day period for painting pictures of the Dalai Lama * Ngawang Sandrol, in jail since she was 15 years old, has her sentence doubled for protesting a political reeducation capmaign aimed at monks and nuns * Detained foreigners and searched them for politically sensitive material - including Ngawang Choephel. He was detained in 1995 while making a film documentary about Tibetan performing arts and was sentenced to 18 years in prison. * Created a campaign to "register" and "reeducate" dissident monks at Tibet's three main monasteries. Failure to comply meant beeing stricken from the roles of the monastery. * Strictly enforces limits on the number of monks in major monasteries. * Restrict leadership of management committees of temples to "patriotic and devoted monks and nuns". * The Chinese government oversees the daily operations of monasteries * Kidnapped two boys and one of the boys families who were selected to be next in line to the Dalai Lama * Destroyed many Buddhist sites during the Cultural Revolution * Promote economic incentives to Chinese to move to Tibet in an effort to culturally replace the local population * Destroy large amounts of forest without replanting while trying to save face by declaring a natural reserve for part of Tibet * Have almost wiped out many of the local species of animals Glad you enjoyed the dancing... Regards, Brock
Chinese birth control policies: 1. Chinese Birth Control in Tibet Discriminates Against Tibetan Women In 1994 a draft law on birth control was submitted to the central legislator in Beijing under the title Mother and Child Health Care Law. This law came into effect in June 1995. Its underlying purpose was to "upgrade the general qualities of the new population" by limiting the number of "inferior births". Evidence collected by T.I.N in 1994 confirmed exile testimonies that considerable force is applied to women, particularly in villages through the mechanism of impossibly high fines and administrative sanctions, to have abortions even though Chinese law does not specifically demand abortions or the use of surgical controls, confining its formal coercion to fines and other punishments. The implementation of the Chinese birth control policy in Tibet differs greatly from region to region. TIN establishes that in Ganze, Kham, there are reports of fines reaching 7,000 yuan (approx. US$830) in some cases: this amounts to five years income for an urban employee and about eight years income for an average peasant. Areas such as the TAR with more aggressive laws have lower fines. Since the majority of Tibetans are far poorer than Chinese the only conclusion can be that the implementation of birth control in Tibet is discriminatory. http://www.subliminal.org/tibet/exile/striving95/survival-H.html To read more about the historical efforts of the Chinese government to reduce the local Tibetan population - regardless of the minorities may have two children policy - see here: http://www.tibet.org/Activism/Rights/birthcontrol.html
The Chinese repopulation of Tibet: 1. An Overview of Chinese Population Transfer in Tibet In the past few years, the Chinese government has been concentrating on settling more and more People's Liberation Army troops (hereinafter referred to as PLA) and administrators into Tibet to gain more political control in a country where political activism against occupation is on the rise. Today new recruits joining the 300,000-strong PLA occupation force are expected to settle permanently in Tibet and in 1995 the PLA military headquarters were moved from Chengdu to Lhasa. China has created another channel to transfer Chinese into Tibet: internationally-funded development projects are now the vehicles for Chinese migration. On May 12, 1993 a top secret meeting was held in Chengdu to work out strategies to solve the problem of Tibet. According to the leaked report of the meeting, the strategy adopted was to flood Tibet with more Chinese settlers. Reports in the Hong Kong press in May 1994 suggested that leading figures in Beijing have been pushing for the rapid development of the TAR with a massive programme of preferential policies aimed at attracting more Chinese settlers. Then in 1994 the authorities in Tibet publicly outlined their population transfer policy at the Third Work Forum on Tibet held in Beijing in July 1994 where it was officially stated that former soldiers, paramilitary troops, cadres, technicians and entrepeneurs were to be encouraged to move to Tibet through incentives provided by the central government in Beijing, such as preferential employment and housing. It was also stated that permanent settlement would be encouraged. Ever since the 1949/1950 invasion, China has been illegally occupying Tibet and using this occupation to transfer its population into the areas of Tibet known as Kham (Chinese: Chinese provinces of Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan) and Amdo (Chinese: Qinghai province). What China refers to as Tibet, refers only to what has been redefined as the Tibet Autonomous Region ("TAR") and incorporates the region of U-Tsang. The regions of Amdo and Kham, are now annexed to "China". This is significant because the Chinese claim that the annexed territory is not Tibet, so according to their logic they are not transferring their population to Tibet (Refer to the map of Tibet provided). The Chinese government has always denied a policy of population transfer and justified the high numbers of Chinese settlers in Tibet by claiming that Tibetans are "backward" and need specialists from China to advance Tibet's economy. Evidence collected from our sources in Tibet confirms that population transfer only serves the economic interests of the Chinese government and its citizens. Chinese population transfer leads to direct discrimination against Tibetans. Chinese settle in Tibet because they are attracted by economic incentives which the Chinese government offers to the detriment of Tibetans. International development projects initiated by China to support their population transfer results in direct and indirect discrimination against Tibetans today. Two major international development assistance projects in Tibet have been criticised and one postponed due to complaints related to the discrimination and exclusion of Tibetans living in the area. The Panam Integrated Rural Development Project, to have been funded by the European Union and designed to create the "wheat granary " of Tibet, was postponed in 1994 and the UN World Food Programme Project "3357" in the Lhasa river valley is criticised for disadvantaging Tibetan farmers and encouraging and benefiting Chinese settlers in the area. Reports Received in the Past Two Years of Chinese Population Transfer in Tibet: The Human Rights Desk reported on June 14, 1995 that the Chinese authorities planned to settle 5,000 Chinese families in Thartso district, Tsongon, Amdo sometime in 1995. The population of Tsongon until 1995 was four million Chinese and 970,000 Tibetans. At the end of 1993 a secret decision was made by the Military Commission of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCCP) that from 1994 all new Chinese military recruits to Tibet would have to transfer their household registration to their place of posting. The aim is to facilitate demobilised soldiers to permanently settle in Tibet. The Chinese authorities announced on February 25, 1995 that 1,000 "outstanding leading officials and technicians" from China were to be sent to the Tibet Autonomous Region. On June 23, 1995 a three-day training class was convened in Beijing for cadres of central and state organs bound for Lhasa on June 26. The work of dispatching selected cadres from China to Tibet was reported to be nearly completed with some 500 cadres having already arrived in Tibet. In December 1994 it was announced that students would also be added to the list of Chinese migrants and in 1995 100 college graduates from China moved to Tibet after being guaranteed employment in Tibet. Four hundred students applied for the 100 posts in the TAR after attending China's first "nationwide job fair" held in Xian, Shaanxi province in December 1994. VOA (Voice of America) reported on July 6, 1995 that a group of about 30 Chinese administrators had arrived in Ngari region (Western Tibet) to fill administrative posts. On April 22, 1995 Xinhua News Agency reported that nearly 2,000 officials in eastern China's Xhejiang province have applied to work in the Tibet Autonomous Region. A total of 1,970 officials sent applications to Xhejiang Communist Party Committee to compete for 45 jobs in Tibet. At the Sixth People's Political Consultative Conference — Third General Body Meeting in Lhasa, the secretariat held from May 16 - 22 1995 stated that: "Moreover in Gansu and from Tso-ngon province to the districts to the west of Nagchu in central Tibet there are over 12,000 [Chinese] gold miners". Construction of the mammoth Three Gorges Dam Project on the Yangtze river in China has put pressure on the population growth in the region. Critics such as Human Rights Watch Asia warn that the 1.3 million Chinese people who will be displaced by the Three Gorges Dam Project will be moved to distant higher areas (like Tibet and Xinjiang province) and they may be transferred to new jobs in the new areas. The US$17.5 million U.N. World Food Programme's Project #3357 in the Lhasa valley was supposedly designed to increase agricultural productivity. It is estimated that this project alone has attracted more than 130,000 Chinese to migrate to central Tibet and today most of them are permanently settled. Chinese population transfer to Tibet merely serves to strengthen China's claim that Tibet is an inalienable part of China and further reduces Tibetan people to a minority in their own country. Chinese population transfer directly discriminates against Tibetans in that Tibetans are deliberately excluded by the Chinese authorities from economic development policies and internationally-funded development projects in Tibet. http://www.subliminal.org/tibet/exile/striving95/survival-A.html
The Chinese government and Tibet's environment State of Tibet's environment Introduction Tibet is the prime source of Asia's great rivers. It also has the earth's loftiest mountains as well as the world's most extensive and highest plateau, ancient forests, and many deep valleys untouched by human disturbances. Traditional Tibetan economic and religious value systems led to the evolution of successful environmental protection practices. Their belief in the Buddhist teaching of Right Livelihood stresses the importance of "contentment" and discourages over-consumption. It also frowns upon over-exploitation of the earth's natural resources as this is perceived to harm other living beings and their habitat. As early as 1642, the Fifth Dalai Lama issued a Decree for the Protection of Animals and the Environment. Since then, such decrees have been issued annually. With the colonisation of Tibet by Communist China, Tibet's traditional environment protection system has given way to an "ecocide" of appalling proportions. The effects of this are especially notable in the grassland areas, the cropland areas, the forests, the water resource and the wildlife. Grassland, cropland and Chinese agricultural policies Tibet is 70 per cent grassland. Grasslands form the backbone of the country's animal husbandry-dominated agrarian economy. The domestic animal population is as big as 70 million and supports nearly a million herdsmen. Tibet's nomads have traditionally adapted themselves well to the needs of their fragile grasslands. Annual records of pasture use, systematic migrations of their herds of dri and yak, sheep and goats, and responsibility for sustainable use at the individual and community levels are traditional habits. Over the last four decades there has been widespread degradation of these vital pastures. The conversion of marginal lands to agriculture for Chinese settlers has become the greatest threat to Tibet's grasslands. This has led to extensive desertification, rendering the land unusable for agriculture or grazing. This problem has especially devastated the vast grasslands in Amdo. The situation is made worse by the fencing of grasslands which have restricted the Tibetan nomads to ever smaller areas and disrupted their traditional migration practice. In Machu district of Amdo alone, one-third of the total area of over 10,000 square kilometre has been fenced for the horses, sheep and cattle of the Chinese army. Similarly, most of the better pasture lands in Ngapa, Golok and "Qinghai" have been reserved for the Chinese. Traditionally, the principal croplands are arable niches along the river valleys of Kham, the Tsangpo valley in U-Tsang, and the Machu valley in Amdo. The staple crop is barley, grown with other cereals and legumes. The traditional agricultural system has organic principles, crop rotation, mixed crops, and periodic failures which are sustainable and appropriate to a fragile mountain environment. Grain yields in Tibet average 2,000 kg/ha in U-Tsang and higher still in the lower valleys of Amdo and Kham. This exceeds yields in comparable climates such as in Russia (1,700 kg/ha) and Canada (1,800 kg/ha). The need to feed the ever-increasing Chinese military and civil personnel and settlers and the export of agricultural produce has led to the extension of farmland onto steep and marginal terrain, an increase in the area under wheat (which the Chinese prefer to the Tibetan staple, barley) and the introduction of hybrid seeds, pesticides and chemical fertilizer. Disease has been regularly affecting new wheat varieties, and in 1979 destroyed the entire wheat crop. Prior to the influx of millions of Chinese settlers Tibetans had no need to increase production so drastically. Forests and deforestation In 1949, Tibet's ancient forests covered 221,800 square kilometres. By 1985 they stood at 134,000 square kilometres - almost half. Most forests grow on steep, isolated slopes in the river valleys of Tibet's low-lying southeastern region. The principal types are tropical montane and subtropical montane coniferous forest, with spruce, fir, pine, larch, cypress, birch, and oak among the main species. The tree line varies from 3,800 metres in the region's moist south to 4,300 metres in the semi- dry north. Tibet's forests were primarily old growth, with trees over 200 years old predominating. The average stock density is 272 cubic metres/ha, but U-Tsang's old growth areas reach 2,300 cubic metres/ha - the world's highest stock density for conifers. As new roads penetrate remote areas of Tibet the rate of deforestation increases. All roads, it should be noted, are built or aided by PLA or China's Forestry Ministry's teams of engineers and their costs are counted as expenditure to "develop" Tibet. Once pristine forests are reached, the most common method of cutting is clear felling, which has led to the denudation of vast hill sides. Timber extraction until 1985 totalled 2,442 million cubic metres, or 40% of the 1949 forest stock, worth $54 billion. Deforestation is a major employer in Tibet: in the Kongpo area of the "TAR" alone, over 20,000 Chinese soldiers and Tibetan prisoners are involved in tree felling and transportation of timber. In 1949, Ngapa, in Amdo, had 2.20 million hectares of land under forest cover. Its timber reserve then stood at 340 million cubic meters. In the 1980s, it was reduced to 1.17 million hectares, with a timber reserve of only 180 million cubic meters. [Ngapa Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Publishing House, 1985, pp. 149-154]. Similarly, during thirty years till 1985 China exploited 6.44 million cubic metres of timber from "Kanlho Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture". Cut into a size measuring 30 centimetre wide and three metre long, and lined from end to end, this would be long enough to make two full circles round the globe. (Kanlho Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu People's Publishing House, 1987, p.145) The growing degradation and desertification of the Tibetan Plateau, unique on earth and the planet's most extensive high land form, is continuing. This area influences atmospheric circulation and jet stream wind patterns over Asia and, according to scientists, may be related to the destabilisation of weather patterns over the northern hemisphere. Regeneration and afforestation have been minimal due to the extreme degree of land slope, soil and moisture, including high diurnal temperature variations and high soil surface temperatures. With such conditions the destructive effects of clear-felling are irreversible. Water resource and hydropower Tibet is Asia's principal watershed and the source of its major rivers. A substantial proportion of river flows in Tibet are stable or base flows coming from ground water and glacial sources. This is in marked contrast to river flows in most neighbouring countries, which are determined by seasonal rainfall patterns. Ninety per cent of Tibet's river run-off flows down across its borders, internal use accounting for less than 1 per cent of total river run-off. Today Tibet's rivers have developed extremely high sediment rates: The Machu (Huang Ho, or Yellow River), the Tsangpo (Brahmaputra), the Drichu (Yangtze), and the Senge Khabab (Indus) are among the five most heavily-silted rivers in the world. The total area irrigated by these rivers, from the Machu basin in the east to the Senge Khabab in the west, covers 47 per cent of the earth's human population. Tibet also has over 2,000 natural lakes - some of which are sacred or otherwise play a special role in the people's culture - with a combined area of more than 35,000 square kilometres. Steep slopes and abundant river flows give Tibet an exploitable hydropower potential of 250,000 megawatts, the highest of any country in the world. The "TAR" alone has a potential of 200,000 megawatts. Tibet possesses the world's highest solar energy potential per unit after the Sahara, an estimated annual average of 200 kilocalorie/cm, as well as significant geothermal resources. Despite such abundant potential from small, environmentally- benign sources, the Chinese have built huge dams, such as Longyang Xia, and are continuing to do so, such as the hydropower station at Yamdrok Yutso. Many of these projects are designed to tap Tibet's hydro potential to provide power and other benefits to the Chinese population and industries both in Tibet and China. But the environmental, human and cultural toll of these hydro-electricity projects will be borne by the Tibetans. While the Tibetans are displaced from their homes and lands, tens of thousands of Chinese workers are brought up from China to construct and maintain these dams. These dams have very little benefit for the local Tibetans who have no say over them. Take the case of Yamdrok Yutso hydro-power project. The Chinese claim that this project will greatly benefit the Tibetans. Tibetan people in general, particularly the late Panchen Lama and Ngapo Ngawang Jigme, opposed and effectively delayed its construction for several years. The Chinese, nevertheless, went ahead with the construction and today more than 1,500-strong PLA troops are guarding the construction area and no civilians are allowed near it. Minerals and mining According to official Chinese sources, Tibet has proven deposits of 126 minerals, with a significant share of the world's reserves in lithium, chromite, copper, borax, and iron. Amdo's oil fields produce over one million tons of crude oil per year. The network of roads and communications built by the Chinese in Tibet mirrors the locations of forests and mineral reserves indiscriminately exploited by the Chinese Government. With seven of China's 15 key minerals due to run out within this decade and major non-ferrous minerals virtually exhausted, the rate of mineral extraction from Tibet is rapidly increasing. It is believed that China plans to shift its major mining operations into Tibet by the end of this century. Environmental safeguards are virtually non-existent in Tibet's mines. Particularly in fragile terrains, this is leading to slope destabilisation, land degradation, and hazards to human health and life. Wildlife Many wild animals and birds have vanished through destruction of their habitat or have been slaughtered by indiscriminate hunting for sport and to furbish China's illicit trade in wildlife products. There have been numerous and continuing reports of Chinese soldiers using automatic weapons to wipe out herds of wild yaks and wild asses for sport. Unrestricted hunting of wildlife continues to take place. Hunting "tours" organised for wealthy foreign clients - for trophies of endangered species - appear in the official Chinese news media regularly. For instance, "hunting tours" are being organised for wealthy sportsmen from the United States of America and Western Europe. These "hunters" can bag trophies of endangered species such as the Tibetan antelope (Pantholops hodgsoni) and the Argali sheep (Ovis ammon hodgsoni), species supposedly accorded the highest level of official protection. The hunts cost up to $35,000 for a Tibetan antelope, $23,000 for an Argali, $13,000 for a white-lipped deer (Cervus albirostris), $7,900 for a blue sheep (Pseudois nayaur), and $3,500 for a red deer (Cerrus elaphus). The present scenario is likely to result in the irrevocable loss of countless Tibetan species even before they have been discovered and studied. Also, it constitutes a known threat to the very survival of species treasured in Tibetan culture and of immeasurable value to the world. The White Paper does admit that a number of animals are "on the verge of extinction". Similarly, the International Union for Conservation of Nature's 1990 Red List of Endangered Animal Species mentions 30 Tibetan animals. Chinese conservation measures for Tibet, except for areas now merged into Chinese provinces, were initiated long after similar efforts in China itself. Declared protected areas are said to cover 310,000 sq.km. or approximately 12 per cent of Tibet by 1991 end. The effectiveness of protection cannot be measured because of China's strictly limited access, plus secrecy concerning actual data. Nuclear and other toxic wastes China is reported to have stationed approximately 90 nuclear warheads in Tibet. The Ninth Academy, China's North-west Nuclear Weapons Research and Design Academy in Tibet's north-eastern area of Amdo, is reported to have dumped an unknown quantity of radioactive waste on the Tibetan plateau. According to a report released by International Campaign for Tibet, a Wastington, DC- based organisation: Waste disposal methods were reported to be casual in the extreme. Initially, waste was put in shallow, unlined landfills ... The nature and quantity of radioactive waste generated by the Ninth Academy is still unknown. ... During the 1960s and 1970s, nuclear waste from the facility was disposed of in a roughshod and haphazard manner. Nuclear waste from the Academy would have taken a variety of forms - liquid slurry, as well as solid and gaseous waste. Liquid or solid waste would have been in adjacent land or water sites. [Nuclear Tibet, Washington, DC, 1993, p.18] Official Chinese pronouncements have confirmed the existence in Tibet of the biggest uranium reserves in the world. Reports say that uranium is processed in Tibet itself and that many local Tibetans died after drinking contaminated water near a uranium mine in Ngapa, Amdo. The local Tibetans have also reported the birth of deformed humans and animals. Given the fact that underground water supplies in Amdo have been diminishing at a rapid rate, and useable underground water is very limited (a report estimated underground water reserve at 340 to 4.0 billion cubic feet, He Bochuan, pp.39), radioactive contamination of groundwater is of great concern. Since 1976 uranium has been mined and processed in Thewo and Zorge regions of Kham also. In 1991, Greenpeace exposed plans to ship toxic municipal sludge from the USA to China for use as "fertilizer" in Tibet. The use of similar toxic waste as fertilizer in the USA has been linked to outbreaks of diseases. Conclusion Tibet's complex environmental problems cannot be addressed by cosmetic changes like designating swathes of land as nature reserves or making laws for the people when the real perpetrator of environmental damage is the Government itself. There should be political will on the part of the Chinese leadership to restore rights to environment to the Tibetan people and allow them to follow their traditional conservationist practices. In keeping with the vision of the Dalai Lama, all of Tibet should be transformed into a zone of peace where humans and nature can dwell in harmonious coexistence. Such a Tibet, as the Dalai Lama said, should be completely demilitarised and must have a democratic form of government and an economic system that ensures the sustainable use of the country's natural resources to provide a decent standard of living for its people. Ultimately, this is in the long-term interest of all the neighbouring countries as environmental conditions in Tibet have major transboundary effects, notably in India, China, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Nearly half of the global population, particularly in these four countries, depend on the rivers of Tibet for their sustenance. Some of the major floods in these countries during the last decade have been attributed to deforestation-related siltation of Tibet's rivers. The destructive potential of these rivers increases each year as China continues the deforestation and uranium-related activities on the Roof of the World. China acknowledges "pollution in several sections of rivers". Since hydrological flows respect no international borders, it should be a cause of concern for Tibet's neighbouring countries who have the right to know which of their own rivers are polluted, how and by what. Unless an urgent action is taken now to stop this, the rivers of Tibet, which have brought joy and sustenance, may one day bring death and destruction. http://www.tibet.com/WhitePaper/white9.html The good news? I hear the dancing is top notch! regards, Brock
You are trialing China as of now, so the way the USA was trialed is relevant IMO. It's not my duty nor intention to argue with lengthy articles that's one sided. If you want to argue, argue with me in your words. Now, what's your point by posting those articles, that the China government is doing a bad job in Tibet, or planning racial and cultural genocide, or is discriminatory against the Tibetans and its culture? I have never said China's human rights are perfect, there's certainly flaws under such a dictatorship, but there is no evidence in your posts showing the Chinese government are discriminatory against the Tibetans. On some fronts the government has done a bad job, such as protecting the environment of the Tibetan province, on some fronts a good job, such as developing the economy and transportation. To be balanced and objective, how about you find me some reports that focus on the good things the Chinese government has done in Tibet? Or you just dismiss anything positive for China on the Tibetan issue as being false?
I respect that you realize some of China's actions in Tibet are wrong. I hope that you see that your previous post about China not having a biased policy on birth in Tibet is wrong. They do. I also hope that you will see that the good things they do in Tibet economically are not for the good of Tibet. They are for the profit of the Chinese government as well as a way for them to entice more Chinese to move to the region. I am not putting China on trial, I am putting the Chinese government on trial. Quite frankly, their actions speak for themselves. I can't imagine how many other things they have done in the region that we don't know about due to the fact that they have a habbit of making unfriendly journalists political prisoners. As a rebuttal, I would be quite interested if you would find me some articles about the good the Chinese government has done in Tibet. I have no problems with you putting the US government on trial as well. You should do that in another thread as that is not the topic of this one. Chances are that I will agree with some of those points and recognize the mistakes of my government. Hopefully you can recognize the mistakes of yours. Regards, Brock
Sorry I'm gonna get a little long with the reply. Here is what you posted: "Evidence collected by T.I.N in 1994 confirmed exile testimonies that considerable force is applied to women, particularly in villages through the mechanism of impossibly high fines and administrative sanctions, to have abortions even though Chinese law does not specifically demand abortions or the use of surgical controls, confining its formal coercion to fines and other punishments. The implementation of the Chinese birth control policy in Tibet differs greatly from region to region. TIN establishes that in Ganze, Kham, there are reports of fines reaching 7,000 yuan (approx. US$830) in some cases: this amounts to five years income for an urban employee and about eight years income for an average peasant. Areas such as the TAR with more aggressive laws have lower fines. Since the majority of Tibetans are far poorer than Chinese the only conclusion can be that the implementation of birth control in Tibet is discriminatory." Let me get it straight since the Tibetan Chinese are poorer than the Han Chinese the stiff fines against prohibited births means it's discriminatory against the Tibetans? So the USA government imposing stiff fines on over speeding is discriminatory against the blacks since they are poorer than the whites? Wow, the need and tactic to demonize China's government is bound by only imagination. I'm sorry, I hope you realize how ridiculous and biased the underlying logic is from the anti-Chinese government articles you posted, don't let hate blind you. Regardless of the government intention, it is a fact that the Tibetan Chinese are enjoying the fruits of economical development, and a large part of it comes from the Han Chinese tourists and the development work the government has done. Ask yourself, if you are a Tibetan, don't you want to make money from tourists like me, charging me 20 dollars for a show that really only worths maybe 8 dollars? Don't you want the government to build railways and airports so the tourists can come in flocks? I think the answer is easy to see. As for you Chinese government developing the Tibetan economy in order to dilute Tibetan population by attracting more settlers conspiracy, it's interesting to hear that because as baseless it is, it's a pretty original idea to me. If the government doesn't develop economy, you or the China haters can still say the government conspire to keep the Tibetans poor so they will never be strong. Damned if it does, damned if it doesn't. I agree with you on the cover up part. It's an unavoidable part of being a dictatorship to cover up stuffs, and it would be much worse under a dictating theocracy, it would be stifling. Theocracy is known to be downright bloody towards dissidents, like burning Brunos alive over scientific disagreement, or the previous theocratic regime led by brainwasher/tyrant who now masquerades as the human rights/peace/democracy/environment preaching old boy Dalai Lama. I think it's on your part to be balanced and objective before reaching a verdict, if you pay me to do research for youself, I'd be glad to do so at the right fees. I'm using a precedent in the case of USA soldiers vs Iraqi rapee to show who the real culprits should be in this Tibetan incident at this point. The PLA soldiers? The Chinese? Chairman Hu of the government? Last time I heard it was the USA soldiers convicted, not the Americans, not Mr. Bush, not the USA government. I'd like to see the same standard applied to China, thank you. The mistakes of the Chinese government are what I would like to bash, the progress of this government is what I would like to see. There is major gripes from me regarding this government, but it doesn't mean I should bend down to bias against it, to make it out to be worse than it actually is. On the Tibetan issue, I understand the government has done wrong things, and this government has been a detractor of human rights against all Chinese(which doesn't equal to being a conspirator), the same time, some of its mistakes were exaggerated, distorted, or fabricated by various groups, especially by the former brainwasher/tyrant Dalai Lama and his followers, who take side with the China emergence phobics. As a result, the criteria of judgement on the government actions isn't giving any benefit of doubt, or is downright hypocrite towards the Chinese government. It's easy to convince people who cares about human rights to believe there's conspiracy carrying out against the Tibetans on purpose, like it was easy to make people believe there was WMDs in Iraq. So although I don't agree with it I understand where it is coming from. I appreciate your concerns over the Tibetan people and its culture, and hope one day you can visit Tibet.
