251–260 of 283 posts
Tibet is a Chinese territory, just as the Americans cannot carve out Alaska.
Yes. At least till China implodes into a thousand disjoint pieces. Tibet's salvation will come.
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Should there not be some platforms or speech that is ridiculed to death? I think they should be: anti-semitism (really any racism — it has no place on HN) or even the xenophobic fears of white Europeans being displaced… smh
Why is the Tibet situation sad, and the Belgium situation xenophobic?
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They use "harmony" the same way we use "freedom": as propaganda for control and imperialism. How do you sell violence to the populace? For collectivist countries, it's "they are unlike us, we will show them our ways." For individualist countries, it's "we are unlike them, we will show them our ways." It doesn't really matter what noble buzzword you attach to your violent ideology, in the end you have a hierarchical s…
Your last paragraph goes too far to me. China represses its whole population. Yes, all empires are inherently "evil", but there are far more freedoms in the "west" than in China. You can't just equate them. This site we are talking on could not exist in China.
Most liberal democracies operate this way in fact. They offer their own citizens a modicrum of freedom - a mix of the substantive and performative - but bolster their own economic and political might through imperialism abroad. The only difference between the Europeans and Americans in this regard is the former rely mostly on "soft" power and economic represssion while the USA have a more overtly militant approach.
This does not mean that liberal democracies are not an improvement over the monarchies and fuedal states that preceeded them but lets not pretend that they are not still pretty terrible to anybody that's not either wealthy themselves or the most profitable group for the representatives currently in power to appeal to.
As a zen Buddhist, I've always kinda felt our Tibetan 'dharma brothers' style of buddhism (admittedly, I don't know a lot about) feels much more like a proper religion than the kind of thing I've been into.. Which put me off quite a lot of it, I still hope to someday visit the place. It’s pretty sad that such an essentially peaceful and introspective group of people are abused thus, even if they believe in some prett…
Goodbye to the Indus, the Ganga, the Brahmaputra. China needs its own Cadillac Desert.
What would be the endgame for Tibetan independence. I can see it going straight to theocracy.
Question: What do you think of Israel's governance and military?
I hope the fact this happened is spread far and wide. It's depressing that the Chinese government will try to suppress this, trying to deny any meaning to this man's death.
By most standards the only person that would set themselves on fire is a religious fanatic or someone suffering from mental illness.
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And those Afghanis now starving to death after being ravaged by imperialist war-adventuring for decades
Yeah, creating educational opportunities for girls was the worst. Good thing that's all being put back the way it's supposed to be.
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Tibet has never been under the control of India as far as I know. It was an ethnically independent region in the past and now comes under the govt of China. So major Himalayan rivers originating in Tibet is a big gain for China and a strategic problem for India, considering China has already built several huge upstream damns across these rivers which irrigate much of N India.
I suppose one could claim that at the time of the Convention of Lhasa, Tibet and much of India swore suzerainty to the same nation of Great Britain. There's also the concept of Arkhand Bharat ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akhand_Bharat ) which is the notion of a unified Indian subcontinent.
I lived in Dharamshala (home to the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government-in-exile) for 3 months a few years ago. My partner at the time went back to the US to visit family, and I didn't want to leave Asia so I went there since I had some interest in Buddhism at the time, too. In random book stores, I met actual monks who had served time (in China) as political prisoners. One of which had also written a book about it…
> But, as for the stories themselves, probably not that funny. You can't mention this and not tell a story or two
[0]: https://www.amazon.com/Hell-Earth-Biography-Political-Prison...
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I visited the 3 largest Tibetan cities in 2007. Each city had a "Tibetan Quarter". I can't see how this could ever be an independent country ever again.
Yeah I was there around the same time. The scale of the work being done to dilute the population is astounding. We were there at Christmas time, having driven from Kathmandu. That trip was telling in itself: there was only one way to get a visa to do that trip, and all of the trips were run by a single Chinese government run tour agency. Even with terrible roads, your can do the trip in 3 days of about 4 hours drivin…
The real solution to settlement would have to be Han intermarrying with Tibetans and raising their children as Han.