It is still repression, not development, that keeps Tibet stable

This is BS.

In Tibet, the one-child policy does not apply to Tibetans. The Tibetans have free education in either Tibetan or Mandarin; free medicare; free to practice religions. The grown-up Tibetans are free to be monks and get paid by the tax payer's $ for doing nothing. Tibetan kids can get enrolled into elite Chinese universities with half of total scores of a Han Chinese kid. State of art infrastructures are built, which laid the foundation for any further development and progress of the region. Please, give me some this kind of repression.

One thing is clear, the Tibet development won't model the North American native reserves, where the locals are like Giant Pandas living on poor isolated remote lands. Native kids were forced into “residential schools” for culture genocide.

@ srap

Your points are absolutely valid. Perhaps you should write some articles about how Aborigines in Australia, Native Indians in North America feel about being treated in a similar way - why don't they get as much attention I wonder.

Oh yes, that's right. They've been exterminated to such small populations that they can't really do much about it anymore.

As a chinese, I have to say that: No practice, No say.
If the writer of this article had been in tibet for more than a month, this article has no its birth!
to be honest, the life level in tibet is still not high,however, it doesn't mean no development. When we look back histroicly, everyone will find a great leap for tibetans's life( even if you cannot see the materials ehrichment, undoubtedly, they are not slaves now than decades years ago.)

The facts that matter most

PR China has 1.3billion citizens.

In all the world there are 5.4million Tibetans.

Independence for Tibet pits the interests of 1.3billion people against 5.4million Tibetans.

To settle the Tibet issue as Tibetan independence advocates demand would include 1/3 approx. of the entire land area of Modern China for the sake of nationhood of less than 1/2 of 1% of China's current population!!!

These little details are never mentioned by people arguing for the Independence of Tibet.

They should be front and center for any rationale individual having this discussion.

Putting them front and center makes the outrageousness of the demands for Tibetan independence extremely obvious and irrefutable.

In history nations come and nations go.

China has been one of the very few that has endured.

Tibet while an old nation in its own right, is much younger than China, and regularly throughout their shared histories Independent Tibet took turns with "Tibet, part of the Chinese Empire" and for much of the modern Era Tibet has been part of and ruled by China.

To expect China to relinquish Tibet is about as sensible as expecting the USA to relinquish the Ameirican South West to the Native Americans now forced onto reservations.

Actually based on the #s that deal is far more fair to the USA than giving independence to Tibet is to Modern China.

On some international issues, right and wrong cannot be applied as simply as Tibetan independence advocates regularly try to do.

The inherent wrongness of Modern China giving up 1/3 of its territory, for less than 1/2 of 1% of its population renders the wrongness of depriving 5.4 million people their nationhood.

History has been written in regards to Tibet for hundreds of years.

It's been that long since Tibet has been truly independent.

All the notions of concern from the West are irrelevant as they are hypocritical.

Even using it as a tool to bully China is idiotic.

There are some topics that should be off limits, and Tibet is one of them.

Especially since the treatment Tibetans have received vs. a vs. other Chinese is many times better than the mistreatment of Native Americans at the hands of any nation in North or South America.

It will never bear fruit, but pursuing the issue will ingrain a deep suspicion of all our motive.

With China rising to her historical role that is not only stupid but self-destructive behavior the West simply cannot afford.

If there is a solution to come one day, it will be a Chinese one.

Perhaps one day it will decide to "Vaticanize" Lhasa.

The Vatican was Italy's solution to the Papal refusal to accept the loss of papal rule over large chunks of Italy upon Italian national consolidation.

When the Vatican was created, the church gave up its claims to independent lands in Italy, ending the issue permanently in return for the right of the Church to rule the Vatican free from Italian control.

Since a big part of the Tibetan issue is religious, this might be what happens one day, should China decide it appropriate.

anyone cannot deny what "BradCA wrote":
---In Tibet, the one-child policy does not apply to Tibetans. The Tibetans have free education in either Tibetan or Mandarin; free medicare; free to practice religions. The grown-up Tibetans are free to be monks and get paid by the tax payer's $ for doing nothing. Tibetan kids can get enrolled into elite Chinese universities with half of total scores of a Han Chinese kid. State of art infrastructures are built, which laid the foundation for any further development and progress of the region. Please, give me some this kind of repression.
they are lively facts!
and anyone wize will find one who holds negative opinions on the development in tibet had not listed any facts and cases as BradCA had. thier words just something in air, ungrounded! they don't know tibet ,tibetan and their life! No practice, No Say! No invstigation, No Say!

For decades the Chinese government has stubbornly insisted in its blatantly shortsighted and paternalistic policies towards Tibet, believing that material and economic improvement alone will solve the ongoing conflict in the remote plateau. As long as China doesn't agree to look into the root causes of this conflict, nothing will really change.

The simple reality is that Tibetan people deeply resent to be ruled by who they perceive as a forcefully imposed alien regime. A regime that has treated them in the condescending and arrogant way only colonial powers treat their "backwards" subjects, a regime that they fear is trying to make their culture and national identity disappear through assimilation and massive immigration.

No amount of subsidies or "civilizing" schemes will calm down that anger and that sense of aggravation. It's time for the Chinese government to quit their childish qualms and look at the conflict in the eye and do the proper thing: recognize the uniqueness and the frailty of the Tibetan culture, and hear the wishes of its people, to live how they see fit, manage their own affairs in their ancestral homeland, and preserve their amazing culture.

I laughed after reading this story. I didn't know the Economist had a satirical section.

But seriously though, this article fails to provide me with any recent news regarding the Tibet situation, let alone independent/thoughtful analysis, which the Economist does very well for its Europe/U.S. articles.

Should I even bother reading the Asia section at all nowadays?

BradCA, what you say is mostly true, but the classical problem facing any occupier is that all the good things they do are taken for granted, while they get the blame for anything that goes wrong. Japan industrialized China's northeast (Manchuria) during its occupation, does any Chinese thank them for that?

@ Samata

Your impressions of feudal Tibet are grossly misinterpreted. Furthermore, you seem to overlook the fact that the most recent bout of Tibetan riots have been very violent - as far as I know, almost all modern nations and their people are peace loving, but that does not mean that they are beyond violence. My point earlier is that China is giving far better treatment to Tibetans than many other indigenous peoples have received by Western colonizers. Sure there is room for improvement, but you should be arguing for better policies to help the Tibetan people achieve the religious freedoms they seek rather than advocating independence. That I believe anyone would support - but it will take time before the Chinese leadership can adjust their policies to allow for that. It is a young government and it's still ironing our many issues in the country. Give it another decades or two and I'm sure the situation in China will improve dramatically.

Also, if the West wants to see China let go of Tibet so badly, then they should lead by example and start returning native lands to their rightful owners. But I don't see that ever happening in N. America or Australia. Otherwise, stop this hypocritical whining.

Let the Tibetans vote on whether or not they want to maintain Chinese suzerainty.

Regardless of whether they vote for it or against it, the issue will be settled.

@ Froy'' wrote: Feb 4th 2010 10:36 GMT

“This article forgets to mention that the so-called “comfortable-housing projects” or "socialist new villages" has generally been a disastrous policy for the hundreds of thousands of Tibetan nomads who have been uprooted and forced to abandon their traditional ways of life and settle down in roadside houses, where they have fallen prey to unemployment, marginalization and alcoholism.”
---------------------------------

Looks like you are confusing the situation for the American Indians in the US Indian reservations.

Still, would you rather have Tibetans to continue to live like nomad rural serfs in poor and destitute conditions, just to satisfy some Western Shangri-La mind set — that’s good for nothing "except" to be looked at as curiosity on display at some comfortable distance? Like in the old and gone Dalia Lama days?

Tibetans Chinese and human beings you know, and today they make at least twice as much as the 1.1 billions of Indians south of the border do, per capita GDP wise. Tomorrow, they will make even more.

This article forgets to mention that the so-called “comfortable-housing projects” or "socialist new villages" has generally been a disastrous policy for the hundreds of thousands of Tibetan nomads who have been uprooted and forced to abandon their traditional ways of life and settle down in roadside houses, where they have fallen prey to unemployment, marginalization and alcoholism. The blind insistence of the Chinese government in forcing their idea of "progress" on others that don't even ask for it is causing senseless suffering and planting the seeds of yet more unrest.

It says a lot about The Economist that you can provide a balanced and insightful story about observable events. Without an in-depth understanding of the plight of the people as well as the multi-faceted dimensions of governance in the autonomous region it is extremely difficult to look in from the outside of any entity, be it organizations, corporations, geographical regions, autonomous regions, or countries, and assert knowledge and prognosis.

nkab, so I guess that, according to your point of view, it would be better to, instead of having native Americans to continue to live like nomads in "poor and destitute conditions", just to satisfy some whatever- mind set, it was better to take over their lands and destroy their traditional way of life and culture in the name of "progress", right?

Nobody will say that what was done to native Americans nor to any other colonized aboriginal people was something right or good. But China is not very far from those misdeeds in its treatment of Tibet.

And don't give me any GDP or subsidies or investment figures. Japan also invested millions in Manchuria, and built the largest railway network in the whole China, along with schools, hospitals and factories, while the rest of China was "poor and destitute". Does that make any good or justifiable its colonization of China?

It baffles me the short memory people can have.

I wish the Chinese and outsiders would start talking about Tibet's development in terms of, say, reducing the number of children with diseases related to malnutrition rather than simply income per capita.

Buddha teaches: there is no right, there is no wrong, just do the right thing.

China is becoming the major economic and social power in the world. However, China must not repeat the grave mistakes committed by previous super powers. Tolerance, patience and lots of meditation will do some good for Chinese Communist leaders.

When a gentle and peace-loving people are suppressed, when their lands are taken over and when their universally loved leader, the Dalai Lama is exiled from his own home, what "progress" can the brutal Han Chinese claim? You do not shove development down a resentful human being's throat. For China to develop Tibet, it must first leave it to decide it's own destiny. Democracies and all right-thinking people will then get together to support Tibet in it's quest for peaceful growth.

China must first get out of this land that it so cruelly annexed by evil means. Progress will then come naturally. China - leave Tibet.

The security forces in Tibet looks to be all non-Tibetan personnel. This would give the impression of occupied territory.

This article clearly reflects the fact that The Economist throws Professionalism and Journalistic standards out of the window when publishing articles relating to China.

It might be true that Tibetans are not satisfied with economic development, but that is because of lack of religious freedom and migration. This lack of religious freedom is not a discriminatory policy, since it applies even to the majority Han Chinese.
I find it amusing that the western media talks about Chinese minorities like Uyghurs and Tibetans only in terms of religion. This just shows the media's condescending attitude and the fact that they think the minorities to be more backward than the Han Chinese.

Regarding migration, it is inevitable that if Tibet is developed, people will migrate there in search of jobs. Then what is the government is supposed to do - not develop Tibet at all? The author has conveniently forgotten that nobody is stopping Tibetans to migrate to Beijing or Shanghai.

Further, the author has the foolishness to say "Tibet’s first rail link with inland China, opened in 2006, is blamed by many Tibetans for a surge of migration to Tibet by ethnic Han Chinese, an influx that helped trigger the unrest two years ago". So I guess ,according to the author, the solution is that the Government should not build any infrastructure at all!! (Then this same magazine will accuse the government of ignoring minority regions!)
If the government enacts a law restricting Han migration into Tibet, then it will be accused of violating "Human Rights"!

Compared with the minority rights approach in Europe, which focuses on non-discrimination, the intention of China’s approach is not only to protect minorities from negative treatment, but promote a broad scope of POSITIVE RIGHTS, even privileges. Some policies conferring benefits on minorities are preferential treatment, so much so that they have generated public concern that the MAJORITY is being discriminated against - which might as well have been the cause of the rioting.

Some of the policies which favour Tibetans are:
1. The relaxation of the one child policy.
2. Reservations for Tibetans in educational institutions.
3. The Constitution requires that the state cadres in the autonomous regions be selected from the local dominant ethnic minority.

Also, the Tibetan government is filled with - guess who- Tibetans!

The article stresses that "an ancient way of life risks being wiped out" by the government building houses for nomads.
Does The Economist want the Tibetans to be nomads and goatherds all their lives?

On the one hand, the article itself admits that nomads are being encouraged to live in proper houses and get jobs. Then it uses fancy sub-headings (which the author probably thought was catchy; who cares that it was entirely false and misleading?) like "Let them eat Yak"!

"Officials have yet to undertake any critical re-examination of how their policies went wrong in 2008" Yeah, right. I guess it's because of these 'wrong policies' that Tibet was largely peaceful from 1959 to 2008 - and suddenly the riots erupted around the time of the Olympics!

The accusation that the 'Dalai clique' used the Olympics and the Anniversary to orchestrate the riots has not been examined by the western media (including The Economist) at all.

In short, this article, without proving that "It is still repression, not development, that keeps Tibet stable"; in fact proves that the tourist attractions that the author might have enjoyed while in Tibet were the only thing that saved the "rare visit to Lhasa" from being a complete waste of time.

Maitreya
http://indiaschinablog.blogspot.com/

I don't think anyone can argue that China has not acted aggressively ,or violently, in the past towards the Tibetan people and their religious ways. However, it is equally difficult to argue that the immense investment China is making in the region will not improve the lives of the people there. I suppose this improvement will be material and decidedly not spiritual, but as an American I am not in a position to forsake the value of the former.

Also, this talk of the the failures of the US and Australia to address indigenous populations as some sort of justification for China's imperfections is misguided. We can always do better, no matter the situation.