“Would you rather we pacify the region through brute force instead?”

Bring it on, son. We will resist you by any means necessary, even if it requires us to develop morals, ethics, a more just and decent system of international legal norms, or visions and dreams for a better world in the future. Non serviemus.

You really think that will work? I expect it would have no effect, or maybe be counterproductive. I suppose Beijing has been planning on parachuting in a reliable Tibetan leadership since 1951. How’s that going so far?

@FOARP #200,

You’re right. It’s hypothetically possible to have a long-term equilibrium in which Tibet is an autonomous part of a liberalized China. The more anger and resentment build up from the current policies, the harder it will be to effect this.
I’m not sure what you mean about co-opting the élite. Most of them are in exile. Tsering Shakya noted in 2008 that the government was having a hard time finding influential lamas to lean on to support their policies, having lost so many to exile, prison, and gradual attrition to old age (for instance, Bomi Rinpoche, the widely-respected Acting Gandän Thripa, who presided at the selection of the Chinese Panchen Lama, got sick not much later and died after a couple years. There doesn’t seem to be a new Acting Gandän Thripa). Almost no reincarnated lamas were identified in China prior to the Karmapa in 1992, so the younger generation of Rinpoches (e.g. Pawo, Trungpa, Ghungthang, Reting) is still young and their ability to influence the public untested. As far as secular leaders, it’s notable that, in the last few years, two of the most prominent Tibetan businessmen, who were seemingly non-political, have gotten lengthy prison terms for putative subversion.

The geopolitics of the modern era demands this whether China democratizes or not. The Himalayas is a natural boundary between the two regional powers of India and China. Offensive force projection is basically nullified by this natural fortification. No sane Chinese leadership will just give it up. Too bad, so sad…

To the guy above ranting about a liberal revolution with Han marching side by side with Tibetans, LOL. This is reality not a Les Miserables musical, buddy.

‘Does that matter?’

Yes. I doubt that you could play much of an active role in either the cultural carpet bombing of Tibet or the pacification of Asia while sitting at your laptop in Starbucks, Chicago. So perhaps you shouldn’t use ‘we’.

What’s all this ‘we’ business? You’re in Chicago, buddy.

Does that matter? Answer the question.

‘Would you rather we….’

What’s all this ‘we’ business? You’re in Chicago, buddy.

You’re proposing the sinification of Tibet through casinos? Do you write for the China daily show or something?

Would you rather we pacify the region through brute force instead?

You’re proposing the sinification of Tibet through casinos? Do you write for the China daily show or something?

It is toward that liberal goal–a free, prosperous, and confident China–that reformers work towards every day. They are the heroes of China, and, ergo, they deserve the support of every true Sinophile.