Tibet Quotes
Tibet and some other ethnic enclaves of China have been almost impervious to the general improvement in the standard of living that China accomplished at the end of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st. China is not the only nation to have this difficulty. Some would argue that America still has it with some of its Native American nations. The great challenge is trying to develop and modernize a culture that does not want to be modernized at the moment but still wants many of the benefits of modernization.
Some Tibetans believe that the Han Chinese will indeed develop the area, but will in the process change the nature of the area and its culture—that the Han culture will dominate just as initially minority cultures have dominated and transformed South Africa, India, Canada and even the United States. Of course, modernization per se changes a culture radically.
The treaty was actually written in Persian—a “neutral language.” However, what it illustrates is that very complex treaties could be very short. This is half the treaty. The first sentence introduces the representatives of the parties. The last sentence agrees to keep the roads and trade open. That was it. It ended many years of fighting for control of Laddakh. The Tibetans wrote a report describing the negotiations and have always maintained that these verbal side agreements were also binding. Even today diplomats make side agreements that are too hot to be put in the main treaty, albeit no treaty in modern times has been as short.
The Chinese government at the time was hostile to all religions and particularly so to the Tibetan Buddhists led by the Dali Lama from exile. Centuries before, 20 million Chinese were killed in one year of religious rioting by the Great Peace, religious and political terror movement-sometimes called the "Yellow Turbans”. The leader, claimed to be the Brother of Jesus Christ come to convert and reform China. See {38318} and {619520}. Chinese government leaders have been fearful of organized religious movements that were not under government control since.
While the American Civil War was raging, Pinyin Hong Xiuquan started a quasi Christian religion (he claimed to be the brother of Jesus Christ) in China which initiated a war of extermination with the Manchus and other religions. More than 20 million Chinese were killed in a religious war that proportionately killed more Chinese than the Nazis killed in Europeans. Though hardly noticed in America and Europe, the religious war of extermination had been so traumatic that dissident religions are the most feared problem by Chinese modern leaders—more so than Capitalists, Taiwan or any of the modern ‘enemies’. It is the Falun Gong and the Tibetan Buddhists who the leadership fear might grow into another Yellow Turban movement—the worst Trauma of Chinese History—even worse than the Japanese WWII invasion. Hence the irrational view of the Chinese leadership towards religions they cannot control. See {612649} and {612649}. In Western terms as Wiesel put it, the Chinese leadership suppression of Tibet makes little or no sense, but current Chinese leadership is paranoid as a result of its history.
