Tibet - Independent or Not?

Actually I've been trying to control myself from blogging about this. But I think internationl inteference is getting out of control and people are showing their support for Tibet irrationaly (when urge to do something, to simply help overpowers), out of pure sympathy without thinking whether such effort would be futile or effective. Without analysing the situation from all points of view and looking at it objectively, yahoo groups, Facebook groups, websites to free tibet have all been set up. Yes, all of us, millions of us, billions, trillions can sign a peitition to Hu Jin Tao and ask him to free Tibet, but would that work? Honestly?

Look at the Chinese governement these few years and how they delt with independence issues of Taiwan. Even under the pressure from USA where they've sent missiles to boost Taiwan's defence, Chinese govt has not given up. Even under the pressure now from countries in EU to boycott the olympic games, chinese govt has not compromised. With pressure from the US to talk to Dalai Lama, China has stood firm (remained stubborn if you would like to put it that way) on her stand with regards to independece of Tibet. So, i think it is quite impossible that China is going to give up Tibet in the near future.

When facing with so much pressure from superpowers around the world, why do you think Hu Jin Tao should listen to millions of common people who does not threaten China's trade, or economic gains in any significant ways? If you can gather about hundreds of big shot CEOs of powerful cooporations currently in china to sign these petitions, it would probably work. But those people are highly unlikely to do it. Why? China is developing, and they wouldn't forsake their money for something like this that may japordize their earnings in China. the opportunity cost would be simply to high.

Yes, I agree that there maybe some human rights issues involved with regards to how China is dealing with the riots going on in Tibet (china needs to change that definitely). But with international interference that is going to boost the emotional uproar in Tibet, the situation is highly unlikely to get any better, maybe the reverse. Since China is unlikely to give up, Tibet is sort of umpowered to go on strike, then the end result would mostly likely be unending fighting, rioting and blood shed. Is that what we want when the Olympics is starting in just 4 months time?

Honestly speaking, I feel that Tibet is not powerful or strong enough to stand on its own still. Dalai Lama may appear to be a wonderful fatherly figure who empathise and shows concerns about peace and safety of his people, but he may not have enough chrisma to build up self-defence in Tibet to sustain its development. In this case, when Tibet is freed from China, being an area with rich resources, weak defence, how can we make sure that it is not taken over by another country? How can we then make sure that is it not abused in the same way?

Adding on, the time period where all this conflicts happened is the right moment for anyone to doubt that there maybe political motives involved in creating unhappiness against the chinese government. In the time where US is facing economic recession, where China is probably going to have another growth peak due the Olympics, issues of Tibet can be used as a political tool to distract Beijing from what it should be busying itself with now. By making Beijing deal with other countries issues to settle unhappiness and unrest, there will be less focus on its growing economy, on its positive side. But more focus on things like human rights, bad government control etc. This will probably hinder economic growth to a certain extent. But other countries have been very tactful. Unhappiness needs to be shown, yet not to the extent that their relations with Beijing will be entirely destroyed. So far US has not been saying that she will boycott the olymic games, only urging peaceful talks between Hu and Dalai Lama. But that is unlikely to happen either.

On the other hand, China needs to curb unhappiness shown by its people towards the outside. After all, the western media is more influential, people are supporting Tibet and Dalai Lama, and certain doubting China's right to excercise political control over Tibet. So China needs to have the right attitude to slowly, very slowly win back people's faith and understanding.

Give China some room to settle it. The only problem now is not whether Tibet is free, but how the rights of tibetans are improved so that they have sufficent religious rights, economic rights that bring them equal profits as the Chinese, and decent respect.

Please, help in the right way (: