The problem with many people who have an open mind about Tibet, is that
they tend to criticize both Western and Chinese treatment of their
respective minority nationalities, and
take the fall back Western line of a pox on both houses. Well, that's
not the way it is. The Western anglophile countries still treat their
natives populations like shit. And most US citizens don't really give a
damn. Native Americans still live in extreme poverty, have the highest
suicide rates, highest drug abuse and alcohol abuse rates, highest
levels of depression of any other demographic in the US. Their kids are
still being taken from their families and put in Anglo foster care
homes. I could go on and on.
On the contrary, no matter what the Tibetan exile community (which obviously has an axe to grind) says the Chinese government, which is the government of all of China, treats Tibet in the exact opposite way that the US treats Native Americans. Billions are invested in Tibet to raise living standards, provide housing, promote health and education. It is not true, as some Tibetan exile mouthpieces state that the Tibetan language is not being taught and Tibetan culture is being downplayed and Tibetans are being forceably assimilated into Han culture. It is also a lie that China is trying to relocate Han to Tibet. There is freedom of movement in China. Tibetans can travel throughout the country and many migrate to Chinese cities for business or other employment opportunities. And other Chinese travel to Tibet for tourism or to conduct business. Most non-Tibetans settle in Lhasa which has become a cosmopolitan hub. I can tell you from personal experience that few if any Chinese want to or could even physically adjust to the rigors of living in Tibet outside of Lhasa.
Actually Tibetans have adapted genetically to high altitude living like other populations that live at high altitude in other regions of the world. And life in Tibet is much harder than elsewhere in China, even given the rapid economic development of the last two decades. So why would Han Chinese inundate Tibet. Again it is not government policy to resettle people in Tibet. That is not how China operates today.
Read the 2010 US State Department White Paper on Tibet (
http://www.scribd.com/doc/201632307/Tibet) and the report from the recently held Fourth Forum on the Development of Tibet just completed in Lhasa (http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2014-08/14/c_126868303.htm). Oh, critics will say its all Chinese propaganda, but is it? What about the propaganda published in the NY Times, by a self-styled Tibetan dissident Tsering Woeser (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/15/opinion/learning-to-forget-tibet-in-china.html?_r=0). Read her article then read her bio in Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woeser) and you can see that they don't really jive.
She states that, "In 1981, the year I graduated from junior high school in Kangding in the Tibetan region of Kham, high schools in China’s heartland were starting to recruit ethnic minorities like me. In official parlance, this was the beginning of what was to become a larger “Help Tibet” campaign. Minority students were plucked from their native villages to be “cultivated” in Chinese schools in order to serve their people and the nation."
Sounds as if she was simply a regular ordinary ethnic Tibetan kid recruited to a Chinese school to be indoctrinated in Han and communist Chinese ways. Well, if you read the Wikipedia entry she was nothing of the sort. "Her grandfather, Han ethnic, was an officer in the Nationalist Army of the Kuomintang and her father was a high rank Army officer in the People's Liberation Army. When she was a small child, her family relocated to the Kham area of western Sichuan province. In 1988, she graduated from Southwest University for Nationalities in Chengdu with a degree in Chinese literature."
So her narrative is a bald-faced lie. She comes from a privileged, Sinified Tibetan family, not some ethnic Tibetan redoubt. So why should anything she says be believed. I don't know why she has decided to take the dissident route, there are usually some deep-seated animosities that lead to people pursuing the route she has taken.
So it comes down to who are you to believe? Obviously both sides in the dispute surrounding Tibet have their own axes to grind. You can't blindly accept what the exile community outside of China says, nor can you blindly accept what the dissident community says. You can't blindly accept what the Chinese government says or its foreign supporters like myself say. You have to investigate on your own and come to your own conclusions. Hopefully what I say here is of some help.http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2014-08/14/c_126868303.htm
On the contrary, no matter what the Tibetan exile community (which obviously has an axe to grind) says the Chinese government, which is the government of all of China, treats Tibet in the exact opposite way that the US treats Native Americans. Billions are invested in Tibet to raise living standards, provide housing, promote health and education. It is not true, as some Tibetan exile mouthpieces state that the Tibetan language is not being taught and Tibetan culture is being downplayed and Tibetans are being forceably assimilated into Han culture. It is also a lie that China is trying to relocate Han to Tibet. There is freedom of movement in China. Tibetans can travel throughout the country and many migrate to Chinese cities for business or other employment opportunities. And other Chinese travel to Tibet for tourism or to conduct business. Most non-Tibetans settle in Lhasa which has become a cosmopolitan hub. I can tell you from personal experience that few if any Chinese want to or could even physically adjust to the rigors of living in Tibet outside of Lhasa.
Actually Tibetans have adapted genetically to high altitude living like other populations that live at high altitude in other regions of the world. And life in Tibet is much harder than elsewhere in China, even given the rapid economic development of the last two decades. So why would Han Chinese inundate Tibet. Again it is not government policy to resettle people in Tibet. That is not how China operates today.
Read the 2010 US State Department White Paper on Tibet (
http://www.scribd.com/doc/201632307/Tibet) and the report from the recently held Fourth Forum on the Development of Tibet just completed in Lhasa (http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2014-08/14/c_126868303.htm). Oh, critics will say its all Chinese propaganda, but is it? What about the propaganda published in the NY Times, by a self-styled Tibetan dissident Tsering Woeser (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/15/opinion/learning-to-forget-tibet-in-china.html?_r=0). Read her article then read her bio in Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woeser) and you can see that they don't really jive.
She states that, "In 1981, the year I graduated from junior high school in Kangding in the Tibetan region of Kham, high schools in China’s heartland were starting to recruit ethnic minorities like me. In official parlance, this was the beginning of what was to become a larger “Help Tibet” campaign. Minority students were plucked from their native villages to be “cultivated” in Chinese schools in order to serve their people and the nation."
Sounds as if she was simply a regular ordinary ethnic Tibetan kid recruited to a Chinese school to be indoctrinated in Han and communist Chinese ways. Well, if you read the Wikipedia entry she was nothing of the sort. "Her grandfather, Han ethnic, was an officer in the Nationalist Army of the Kuomintang and her father was a high rank Army officer in the People's Liberation Army. When she was a small child, her family relocated to the Kham area of western Sichuan province. In 1988, she graduated from Southwest University for Nationalities in Chengdu with a degree in Chinese literature."
So her narrative is a bald-faced lie. She comes from a privileged, Sinified Tibetan family, not some ethnic Tibetan redoubt. So why should anything she says be believed. I don't know why she has decided to take the dissident route, there are usually some deep-seated animosities that lead to people pursuing the route she has taken.
So it comes down to who are you to believe? Obviously both sides in the dispute surrounding Tibet have their own axes to grind. You can't blindly accept what the exile community outside of China says, nor can you blindly accept what the dissident community says. You can't blindly accept what the Chinese government says or its foreign supporters like myself say. You have to investigate on your own and come to your own conclusions. Hopefully what I say here is of some help.http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2014-08/14/c_126868303.htm
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