[Phouepou]

Dalai Lama to Tour India Region Despite China Ire - TIME


The Dalai Lama is going ahead with a scheduled visit to India's remote northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh next month, ignoring protests by China, which claims the region as its territory, a spokesman said Thursday.

The Tibetan spiritual leader will visit the Tawang Buddhist monastery in the state bordering China on Nov. 8, said Phuptel Samphel, a spokesman of the Tibetan government-in-exile.

Beijing on Tuesday protested the upcoming trip.

[zoneouddy]

China claims a whole state of India as its own territory because it thinks it is part of "South Tibet"-- nevermind that Tibet itself was never really considered a part of Han China. Similarly, China has already usurped about 30,000 sq km of Aksai Chin, a part of the original Kashmir region; China has built an all-weather highway through there that connects Tibet with its another tense minority region, Xinjiang, where the Turkic-speaking local Uighurs are fighting for some sort of local governance-- also fighting the onslaught of Chinese immigration and flooding out of the local minority (as does sparsely populated Tibet).

China also plans on damming the Brahmaputra in Tibet, which could have tremendous repurcussions in India and Bangladesh which depend on its waters.

All this to say that, since 1950s and especially since the brief war in winter of 1962, China has never stopped claiming entire regions of India as its own. It did the same for Sikkim, another Buddhist-majority state in India which has close cultural ties to Tibetan Buddhists-- at least now China accepts Sikkim to be a part of India because it has allowed a border trade route through there that connects Sikkim to Lhasa, Tibet.

Recently, it raised a big stink when the Asian Development Bank (similar to the World Bank/IMF) agreed to fund about $2 billion in development aid for India's northeastern states to include Arunachal Pradesh.

Pakistan bought off China by giving away a chunk of northern Kashmir (Northern Territories) that it controls, way back in 1960s. And China has territorial claims over the oil-rich and strategic Spratly Islands that are also claimed by The Phillipines and Indonesia. Not to mention the cold war over the status of Taiwan. Or how about the border struggle between China and Vietnam? And China continues to fund and protect the North Korean regime.

Basically, they know what they want and aren't afraid to bully anyone to get it, they might even go to war to grab territory.

So what does someone like Google Maps do? Check it out:

Google Placates India, China With Different Map Versions by PC World: Yahoo! Tech

That is not some small land exchange we're talking about...

[polleroy]

ABC does a resonable job of overview of the range of conflicts between China and India.

India & China Face Off in War of Words - ABC News

[AssinHT]

AFP: Dalai Lama defends visit to disputed Indian state


Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama Saturday said he was surprised at China's protest against his planned visit to an area of India claimed by Beijing, hinting he backed India on the border issue.

The Dalai Lama also criticised China's one-party rule and its state-controlled media, while praising India's "successful" democracy.

The Buddhist monk, who arrived in Tokyo Friday for a week-long stay in Japan ahead of his November 8 visit to Arunachal Pradesh state in northeast India where China and India fought a border war in 1962.

"I was surprised" at China's criticism of the planned visit, the Dalai Lama told reporters when asked about the motive behind his trip.

"Because in (19)62, the People's Liberation Army already reached that area, already occupied... then India sort of pushed them back. The Chinese government unilaterally (made) ceasefire, withdrawal," he said. "So what's the problem?"

The Dalai Lama, who fled to India in 1959 after China crushed an anti-Chinese uprising in Tibet, is viewed as a "splittist" by Beijing, although he says he wants autonomy rather than full independence for his Himalayan homeland.

China has said it is "firmly opposed" to the Dalai Lama's trip to Arunachal Pradesh

[maxfreemann]

Is the Dalai Lama still trying to get his serfs back?

[assohillA]

No, he gave up on that. He is more concern about them controlling their own future and land, and not Beijing, as Beijing has a lot of ideas, none that are good for the people.

[BruceCroucshs]

The people who've voted stating that they prefer Chinese rule to being the playtoys of a theocracy? (although such a referendum, I admit, could be faked)

I have little love for the Chinese way of government, but I have less love for theocratic feudalism.

[koebforfrn]

Dayman, do you realize that Tibetans are a minority in their own land and have been for a few decades now? Tibet has more Han Chinese now than ever. Do you think those people would vote against Chinese rule?!

Tibetan language and religion and culture are quite different from the Chinese one. And that culture is dwindling and essentially set to zero out in the near future while the Chinese exercise their version of lebensraum.

[VastDrura]

Like I said, I have no love for the Chinese way of governing.

But when people (especially in Hollywood), look to the Dalai Lama as this freedom fighter and some vague type of powerful spiritualist, and believe he can do no wrong, it irks me.

China took Tibet out of the middle ages. It reminds me of this clip from the Life of Brian.

YouTube - What have the Romans ever done for us

[VanDerSmok]

What has China done for Tibet? It's a serious question. I know there are many military installations all over Tibet. And China has flooded the Plateau with ethnic Hans who are not the local populace heretofore. Do Tibetans hold any power to govern themselves or to protect their identity and culture? China does not allow outsiders to even freely talk to Tibetans so we don't know for sure.

It is a brutal put down by a Stalinist state, I don't know how anything can be worse than that.

BTW, I wonder what your thoughts are on another priest-led state, ie, the Vatican. Time to dismantle that little thing and let it be absorbed into Italy, perhaps?

[Agehoobionibe]

BTW, I wonder what your thoughts are on another priest-led state, ie, the Vatican. Time to dismantle that little thing and let it be absorbed into Italy, perhaps? I say down with the theocrats, down with the monarchs, down with the fascists and the dictators and the military juntas, down with the Pope, down with anything but secular and free republics and democracies.

Stop me before I start singing La Marseillaise.

[OccumCymn]

I say down with the theocrats, down with the monarchs, down with the fascists and the dictators and the military juntas, down with the Pope, down with anything but secular and free republics and democracies.

Stop me before I start singing La Marseillaise.

hey, I love La Marseillaise! a bloody national anthem if there ever was one! and thoroughly egalitarian.

[flanna.kersting]

And then it just got weirder

Dalai Lama was a slave master, China tells Obama | AP | 11/15/2009


Obama, as the first black U.S. president and an admirer of Abraham Lincoln, should appreciate the importance of liberating slaves , exactly what China says it did in Tibet in 1959.

"We hope that President Obama, more than any other foreign dignitary, can have a better and deeper understanding of China's position regarding safeguarding its national sovereignty and territorial integrity," Qin said.

"The Dalai Lama was the overall leader of the Tibetan serf system in 1959, and when the Chinese government abolished that system it marked a tremendous step forward for the cause of human rights," Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin told reporters on Thursday. "In the same way, President Lincoln abolished slavery in the United States." I'm sorry, what?

Did they just call the Dalai Lama a cracker?


BTW, when he became ruler of Tibet in 1950, he was 15. At the same time China took over Tibet.

So who was turning who into slaves?

[gambleingsites]

If I had to live as a serf to a theocracy or a citizen of a pseudo-communistic Stalinist regime, I'd chose the Stalinist one any day of the week. At least I have a chance to thrive and become part of the ruling class. You don't as a serf.

[bDvYaQfM]

If I had to live as a serf to a theocracy or a citizen of a pseudo-communistic Stalinist regime, I'd chose the Stalinist one any day of the week. At least I have a chance to thrive and become part of the ruling class. You don't as a serf.

Perhaps you would really enjoy "re-education camps" set up by the Chinese Communist leadership to "train" you to dispise your own past and to appreciate the great goods of the Han Chinese... and you'd have no say in maintaining your own culture, your own heritage. you would have no say in what goes on in your own homeland even as outsiders come flooding in and turn you into a minority in your own home. I'm all for human solidarity and perhaps one day in a far future, we won't have nations on Earth but one people and one government. But until that happens, people such as Tibetans and Uighurs are persecuted nations in their own homes.

[Loxaeed]

But would you rather be a serf? Honestly, you're a slave in all but name to the whims of the priestly caste.

[DoctorDeryOne]

Yeah, but who knows what this Dalai Lama would have done if he had control of his country, after all relations with America weren't even establish until the 60s, who knows what influence would have happen in that area if it was all different then it is now.

[Idorsearogele]

Unfortunately, when it comes to history "what if" is meaningless.

[Bobobsdo]

Yeah, all we got is what we are stuck with, and sometimes I guess that is for the best as long as we can learn from that for the future..

[forexsoft]

China took Tibet out of the middle ages. It reminds me of this clip from the Life of Brian.

YouTube - What have the Romans ever done for us

Except that the Chinese aren't modernizing the country for the Tibetans; they're modernizing it for the Chinese and forcing the native people from their homes.

And then there's the flat-out destruction of thousands of years worth of art and culture by the Chinese when they invaded and far more damage which has been done through neglect over the last sixty years.

I know that the notion that the Dali Lama was an evil slave master has become a popular stance as a reaction against the Hollywood types who've been pro-Tibet for the last 15 years or so, but do you have any idea where that line of thinking is coming from?

It's Chinese state propaganda that you're parroting.