Tibet heats up; Beijing loses its cool

Tibet heats up, and
Beijing loses its cool

Tibet may have a Burma-style uprising with Buddhist monks;
part of the fallout from the Dalai Lama's award received in the U.S.

October 21, 2007 (CSN) -- Ming Pao, a Chinese-language newspaper in Hong Kong, has reported that the Dalai Lama's award ceremony in the U.S. was followed by four days of clashes in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. Reportedly, one monastery with over 1,000 monks was surrounded by 3,000 Communist Chinese security personnel.

This conjures to mind similar scenes that have recently occurred in Burma -- where monasteries full of saffron-robed Buddhist monks have been raided by security forces.

The reports from Tibet have not indicated that any raids or arrests have occurred; just "clashes" and the encirclement of a monastery. The monks within were attempting to celebrate the U.S. award of a Congressional Gold Medal to the Dalai Lama, as occurred at a ceremony on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on Wednesday, October 17.

The October 17 ceremony was also followed by reports on October 18 that Communist China was hijacking and redirecting internet traffic, bound for the U.S. search engines Google, Yahoo, and MSN, to instead land at the Chinese search engine Baidu.com. Analysts speculated that Communist China was retaliating, in a fit of anger, at the United States for conferring its honor upon the Dalai Lama.

Throughout all of this time, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been holding its 17th National Congress, an event that happens once every five years. "They are rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic," offered John Kusumi of the China Support Network, in his analysis of the Party Congress. "The CCP has declining relevance and is not expected to last until the next Party Congress. (PRC President) Hu Jintao made a speech that can be summarized as 'Stay the curse.' He is resisting the Chinese democracy movement, and I trust that in the near future, there will be penalties for so doing."

Another item that Hu Jintao is resisting is the demand for China to get out of Tibet. Kusumi offered his view that "When a bank robber is caught on the scene, it is correct to say, 'Put down the loot.' Similarly, Tibet and East Turkestan had their independence prior to 1949 when the Communists came to power. The rise of Mao included the invasions of Tibet and East Turkestan (referred to by the PRC as Xinjiang province). Because their independence was not rightfully taken, one could say to China--just as to a bank robber--'Put down the loot.' Is it not correct that criminals should disgorge their ill-begotten gains?"

Continuing with his tradition of hardline anti-communist thoughts, Kusumi added that "The PRC claim over Taiwan is also specious, because Taiwan was a part of the ROC, and never for one minute was it ever a part of the PRC. The Red Army of Chairman Mao never set foot on Taiwan; one cannot re-unify two items that were never unified in the first place."

Even while it is an anti-communist thought that re-unification is impossible, Kusumi noted that Chinese dissident Xu Wenli, with his China Democracy Party, wants to implement a "rollback" to China's political state of 1947. "If this were 1947, Taiwan would be in China, while Tibet and East Turkestan would be independent. If that's where Xu Wenli wants to go, he should consult with the present leaders of Taiwan. Maybe Xu can accomplish what Mao could not."

Kusumi also noted that "The Dalai Lama has stood for a Middle Way of having Tibet with meaningful autonomy as a confederated state within China. While that way is better for Tibetan taxpayers, Tibet has a strong faction with understandable sentiments that demand total independence from China and full restoration of Tibet's sovereignty; let's call it the Rangzen faction. I believe that this faction should be offered the chance to campaign for the outcome which they prefer, and at the least, the matter should be put to a vote of Tibetan-blooded electorate in a public plebiscite. Let Tibetans vote on the question, 'Should China put down the loot?'"

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Published October 21, 2007 by the China Support Network (CSN). Begun as the American response group in 1989, CSN represents Americans who are "on the side" of the students in Tiananmen Square -- standing for democratic reform, human rights, and freedom in China. For dissident news; to support a stronger China policy; or get more information, see http://www.chinasupport.net/.