FRIDAY, March 29, 2024
nationthailand

Why China’s ‘liberation’ of Tibet was no such thing 

Why China’s ‘liberation’ of Tibet was no such thing 

Re:  “Even most Britons acknowledge British Empire was a criminal enterprise,” Have Your Say, yesterday.

It is disappointing to see Yingwai Suchaovanich resurrecting the tired old Chinese Communist Party line claiming that their 1951 invasion of Tibet was actually a selfless and noble-hearted enterprise aimed at liberating the oppressed Tibetans from “centuries of feudal serfdom”.  
Admittedly, the old Tibetan system was not a model of enlightened governance. But the claim would be more credible if the Chinese had performed such a service, stayed long enough to enable the Tibetans to develop their own form of independent, democratic government, and then withdrawn.
They did no such thing. They stayed, and have ruled Tibet with an iron fist as a Chinese colony ever since. Worse, they have done everything in their power to erase all traces of Tibetan religion and culture except those tailored to mollify world public opinion and attract tourists.
That was not liberation. That was ruthless conquest of a weaker ethnic group by a stronger one. It represented a victory of raw military power, not of any conceivable form of benevolent altruism.
Let’s not talk about a long-handled, manually operated earth-displacement system when we can call a spade a spade.
S Tsow
Samut Prakan 

nationthailand