Tibet never a sovereign state – unlike the countries ransacked by Britain
Robin Grant claims that “China’s destruction of Tibet [was] worse than any crime by British colonists” (Monday’s Have Your Say).
He was responding to my letter of March 1 (“Shameless farang still praising colonial thuggery”) which was supported by a photo of the Bengal famine, added by the editor. The Bengal famine of 1943-44 has been called the worst genocide in history engineered for profit. It killed up to three million people. The culprits were British rulers, who diverted grain to the war effort and took other measures that caused the mass starvation.
History also tells us that British troops led by Francis Younghusband invaded Tibet in 1903 and slaughtered thousands of helpless Tibetans for no reason. Tibet had been under the suzerainty of the Mongol and, later, Chinese rulers in Nanjing and Beijing, with reasonable autonomy given to the Tibetan leaders. The region subsequently declared its independence in 1913, when the Qing dynasty fell, but was not recognised by either the UK or US. As such, China’s modern reorganisation of Tibet is an internal affair, while the British navy crossed the oceans to ransack hundreds of countries. Come on, Mr Grant, use fair and realistic thinking and not your narcissistic bias.
Prasan Stianrapapongs
Pattaya
