In reply to TarlSS, If History is to be any guide, it would show that successful grassroots protests and passive resistance is the exception rather than the rule. History seems to show that lands are conquered, peoples subjugated and nations made thus. Revolutions, coup-detats and rebellions split and form new nations. Most of the world was made that way, and the Chinese "occupation" of Tibet is just that.
The rest of the world will do well to look back at parts of their country which they took by force, which now seems inseparable.
China was not persuaded by the humanity of liberty to become what it is, but cold hard economic necessity. TarlSS is right about Chinese infrastructure in Tibet, but in recent times, Tibetans have come to see it as more of a neo-colonial apparatus bringing in non-Tibetan peoples who dominate the local economies, while they live in comparative poverty. This was a major reason for the recent riots where non-Tibetan business owners have been the target of mob violence.
The anti religious aspect of the PRC is overplayed and China is not anti-religious for atheisms sake. Religious movements as pervasive as Tibetan Buddhism is seen to be, a threat to the integrity of the nation, as separatist movements have always been based around the exiled Lamas, who were ousted from power by the communists. Couple that with culturally insensitive officials looking to reduce the influence of the exiled buddhists and you get something that looks like an atheist inquisition.
People seem to think China is simply "being mean and oppressive" to Tibetans. This is not the case. China is equally mean and oppressive to all those who are poor, and Tibetans, being poor, unsurprisingly get shafted, which western hypocrites then go on to say is the result of the "occupation" and FREE TIBET!!FREE TIBET!! bullshit.
Tibet is part of China. China is not free, therefore Tibet is not free. All that FREE TIBET!! idiocy is based on the idea that slogan shouting can win the freedom of a million people, whereas a free Tibet really requires that a billion be freed, something the banner wavers aren't so optimistic on.
If someone were to carefully consider the precedent set by a "liberated Tibet", it would give momentum to the Xinjang separatist movements in the west, then the mongolians in the north and before you know it, China is split into a dozen small squabbling states. In this perspective, you can see why China will fight tooth and claw to keep Tibet, boycotts, embargoes and wars be damned.
End of rant

Cultural stagnation is the killer of all ethnic groups. Ancent Tibet Monarchy rule stagnanted and gave away to Theocracy God-King (political+religious leader and antithesis to church and state separation political system) rule. Theocracy then stagnanted and ended (only in TAR) during the 1956-59 rebellion against land reformation of the CCP to Tibetan (former) serfs. Combining all accounts from exile friendly and not friendly sources, the political system in Dharmasala had not really changed much from its past Theocracy style (which still being labeled not true with some exiles and westerners but Dalai Lama himself had said he regretted it) beside labeling itself a democracy and elect half of its cabinet. So either the Tibetan culture can revitalized themself and adapt to the new world or fade away like many ancient cultures that were gone or are dying. No amount of political slogans to others can solve anything as long as they don't see that the true problem which needs to be fixed first is within their own culture before they can battle against a giant of a nation. The longer they resist their own change, the faster they will disappear under current world situation.

What can we do about it? Who are we (non-chinese people) to dictate what China's goverment should do about Tibet? Boycot the olimpics, trade embargos, war? That's all bad for everybody.

As already said, China is a superpower, rapidly rising in power, it already has enough power to challenge the US economy directly. They also have a strong army and have nuclear capabilities. Plus, any confrotation between the West and China, Russia will most probably side with China. On a side note, don't underestimate Russia, in all it's history, Russia have never been occupied by another country, Romans, Napoleon, Hitler, they all tried and failed. And the US lost the arms race against Russia during the Cold War, Russia had a stronger military than the US, but that same military suffocated Russia's economy, thus leaving the US as the technical winner of the Cold War. I believe any form of confrotation between Nato and China could elevate into WW3.

Thus what we all should do is follow with peaceful protests and disobedience, India is prove enough that peaceful protests can win independence.

The US and the rest of the world should definitely boycott these Olympics, just like they did in 1936, when Nazi Germany did the exact same thing!

...

Oh wait, they did nothing... The Olympics resumed as planned, Hitler had a big Aryan Domination plan which failed somewhere around the time Jesse got his third or fourth medal, and that was the end of that.
And then, when war broke out, the Olympics were put on hold until 1948. Imagine that irony, the Olympic Games waiting for wars to actually be over before they could be held!

Bottom line of my point: Tibet is China. Has been for the past seven centuries. Hell, even the Dalai Lama says Tibet is a part of China! This Free Tibet! nonsense is another example of the West misinterpreting a movement and acting out on it. Tibetans don't want a free and independent Tibet, they want the guarantee that within the PRC, Tibetans will be allowed to practice their own beliefs, govern their own affairs and proceed with their own culture. China, normally, opposes such a stance as it goes against it's own. Sure, China is doing a fiar bunch of things wrong, but the "military occupation of Tibet" isn't one of them. If you want to pin something on China, go for the censorship.
But all this is irrelevant. For all the world cares, China can go and nuke Tibet, kill a few hundred million people and start shooting excess children in families with more than 1, and nothing would be done about it. Not even if the whole world got together and tried to do something, would anything be done. China has the world by the balls economically and militarily. All the posting on the internet is making a pretty big fart-wave, but that's all it's doing.

Lol, ironic, but its makes sense. where would they have made the olympics during those years? Europe was a war zone, North Africa was a war zone, Middle east was mostly sands, Russia was a war zone, China/Korea/Japan was a war zone, South America was undeveloped by that time, lots of small conflicts there also. North America? Well there were no battles in there, but all the men were enlisted/drafted and away, the women were in the factories, who would be left to go see a Olympic game?

Besides, were not the ahtletes also drafted for the army? Baseball had some hard time during those years, imagine what would have happen to the Olympics!!!

Good to see people making sense here and accepting that Tibet is part of China and any change will ultimately have to come through the entire country.
The Olympics in the past century have been more about politics than sport, with the cold war, apartheid and a host of other petty arguments causing boycotts left and right. Looks like this year will be no different.
All the peaceful protests and civil disobedience in the world will do no good if none of it comes from China itself. Sure, there's a few rural protests and monks being beaten up, but these people are dirt-poor so the Government doesn't give a damn about them. Those that they might care about are too busy pursuing the consumerist lifestyle.
We read about "re-education campaigns" and "patriotic education" as if it was the cold war. That doesn't happen any more. The PRC took a leaf from the west and now applies Western "mass persuasion" a la CNN. Conservative commentators, self-glorifying national-security oriented tv, biased reporting and plenty of celebrity gossip makes sure no one cares about human rights.
There are those who are so sure that "internet power" will spread freedom to all. What they don't realise is that China has a potent countermeasure; World of Warcraft, so potent, in fact they now require game addiction clinics for young people. Online gameing and pirated media coupled with content filtering means few will bother to look outside.
People have never cared about other peoples freedom or welfare. Boycotting the Olympic will achieve absolutely nothing (since it is a waste of time anyway) and will serve only to reinforce the idea amongst Chinese that westerners are simply bitter and jealous.
Democracy will only come in time. Not nagging, not threats and definitely not force. It might take until the 22nd century, but force it and civilization might not live through the 21st.

As a fellow communist and a personal friend of Mao Ce Tung, I support our Chinese comrades, and hope that soon the whole world will realize that "Free Tibet" is nothing more than a American propaganda... You see, everytime some country grew powerful enough to challege the American Empire, they did what? They destroyed that country, tore it to small powerless pieces! They did it to the USSR, to my Yugoslavia (don't worry, it's coming back...soon), and now they are doing it to China...

They know that we are stronger when we are together, so UNITE my brothers, unite and we will crush those evil Imperialist bastards!

Lol, and you wouldn't do the same if you were in the "American Empire" shoes?

Unite with anyone to change one evil imperialist nation for another evil imperialist nation? No thanks.

Sorry to disappoint comrade, but Communism is dead in China. They killed it and replaced it with free-for-all capitalism. The gap between rich and poor grow wider every day, and we are right now witnessing the most ruthless, cut-throat behaviour in pursuit of material wealth. We were never meant to be nice to each other, thats why Communism will never work.

Communism works flawlessly in near-post-scarcity societies. And heavily developed export-centered nations that are far ahead of the rest of the world. For example, if the USA or the EU adopted Communism and it's core tenents right now, they would manage to make it work.
The big mistake of Communism was instituting it in rural countries, in countries that were just developing past the land-owner society.

Good post, The Great Emperor.

People are quitting the Chinese Communist Party in droves after the release of the nine commentaries by the CCP. Over 35 million Chinese citizens have quit the CCP in the last few years alone. This is a regime that is bound to fall and any event that shows the true nature of the CCP will only hasten its demise. The recent crackdown in Tibet is exposing the CCP which calls the Dalai Lama a seperatist and is behind the uprising. People know better and I don't think those Tibetans died in vain.
There are other groups of people too, like Falun Dafa practitioners who are being persecuted in China that are using non-violence as well. They are behind the big movement to quit the CCP. I have a blog page dedicated to the Human rights issues in China if you want to have a look.

here is the link:

http://chinahumanrights.blogspot.com/

Ruthless?? Cut-throat?? Pursuit of material wealth?? Yep, Capitalism at its finest!!!

One thing though, Communism can work in theory, but so far nobody have followed the procedure to the letter, Russia and China skipped a few parts, so it might work if somebody follow the rules to the letter.




A regime that is bound to fall you say? In a country of over 1 billion souls, 35 million is not even 5% of the population......

i agree with you about a country grows too strong US wil do just about everything
what about the lies about iraq [chemical weapons ehh where??] the many questions about 9/11 were it really terrorists? well i am not so sure after the research ive done
i dont really think they going to invade/attack china though because its no easy target they got the largest airforce in the world for example, dont get me wrong i like US
i just dont like the goverment
and about china its better they stay whole because they could be dangerous
if it fell apart hell they are dangerous now

Without being able to find the source to the following statement I am about to make, please don't tear me a new one on this if i am wrong.

I recall reading somewhere that one of the theories about the reason for the failure of communism resulted from the fact that Karl Marx, when he wrote his manifesto, was referring to and basing his system on an industrial revolution whose foundation was laid upon being powered by coal. That with the development of oil as a viable power source, his complaints about capitalism ended up basically removing themselves from the industrial revolution.

Being that oil enabled a tenfold increase in production with no increase in labor demand, thus opening the way for mass production of goods to the masses that produced them.. Thus no need for communism to be implemented because oil had enabled the capitalist system to surpass the production capabilities of Marxist ideology. It reduced the need for the redistribution of wealth called for by communism.

The only reason I even recall any of this was the part about oil being ten times more productive then coal. Which explained to me why coal was abandoned as a primary fuel source, as to when I got this, I do not recall.