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Wasn't doubting you in general, it is just that so much info out there is obscure, cherrypicked and hard to come by depending on which side you ask.

I would be interested in more information in that area as well.

My understanding is that Tibet's economy is currently subsistence agriculture, with a good slice of that being herding since what crops can grow there are limited, and tourism. I doubt there's a way to elevate agriculture to anything more than subsistence given the climate. It's not like there's a massive, world-wide demand for yak butter and steaks. I'm not aware of any significant mineral resources, and even if there were, mining is likely to have even worse impact on the local ecosystem than in the lowlands due to how fragile the high-altitude biosphere is. I'm not sure what else is feasible.

Thanas wrote: Sure, why not, as long as the end product is a viable state and not just a tiny cluster of villages?

There is however no reason at all why it would not work for the Tibetan areas of the three provinces and of course central Tibet.

This one is going to be hard to argue isn't it, based on numbers. This old article in 1999 has a useful comparison. It points to China's 1996 budget pumping in 600 million into Tibet while in that same year the US pumped 800 million into the whole of Africa. I trust we don't need to go into the ginormous population differences there. Since then in 2009 China pumped 3 billion into that region (according to the New York Times). Most economic sources dealing with Chinese plans would know that it involves pumping even more money into it.

http://articles.economictimes.indiatime ... n-hao-peng

In 2009 the TAR's GDP was listed as 44.1 billion yuan (not dollars). Unless it doubled every year, the money the central government pumps into it is easily more than Tibet's own GDP (GDP, not government earnings).

The Tibetan population is also higher than when Beijing reasserted control. I guess better sanitation, hospitals and stripping the religious orders the power to force kids to become monks will do that. Sure Tibet will be viable with being a religious theocracy and smaller population, but that ain't going to work now. Its also going to be very hard to see the state managing even a fraction of the development without Chinese money, unless they can harness some mining, which of course will be bad if the Chinese did it.

And this would be a bad thing? Also, it is already going on. Belgium is already split into Flanders and Walloon parts and might very well be two seperate countries in the near future given how they were unable to agree on a Government for over a year.

I will be sure to remember this for future reference. Otherwise nothing else to say on this topic for now.

If this happened over centuries on a natural case of immigration instead of one Government forcing the situation, then sure, we would not.

Ok. Whilst the migration of Western offshoots like USA, Australia occurred over centuries, if we applied the same standards of what you think constitutes "forcing the situation" I don't think you have a case. Forcibly relocating natives to help the new settlers, tick. Building railways to connect one part of the country to the other and hence encouraging migration. Tick.

As long as they can provide a viable state and the majority are against the current political system, then sure. See for example Kosovo, Bosnia, Slowenia, Czechia, Slowakia, Croatia etc.. Are you saying they should have all been forced to continue being one state? For what purpose? Nation states are not invaluable and immortal assets simply by existing. They are tools to serve a common purpose. Once that purpose is no longer shared, they might as well not exist.

Ethnic nationalism worked so well in those areas its been tried before.

Then what is wrong with applying the DL plan, or what is wrong with granting Tibet independence?

YOUR plan for higher levels of autonomy certainly is something that can be looked at. The DL plan of ethnic cleansing.. yeah what is wrong with that plan again?

No. Sigh. Bear with me. It is not "only" ok. Mixed ethnic groups can also try and secede. It all depends on the specific situation. If one ethnic group wants to secede for the specific purpose of enslaving another ethnic group, then of course that is not ok. Or if it wants to install a fascist and wage war.

But wanting to have their own culture, to preserve their own history? What is wrong with that?

I am curious what part of destroying Tibetan culture do you think is happening?
Language? Doesn't appear to be happening. As I pointed out to Broomstick from a Western source Tibetan appears to be spoken even among some ethnic minorities in some areas.

The power of the Monasteries and the old aristocracies. Ok, yeah the monasteries no longer have the ability to forcibly recruit boys to replenish their numbers and serfdom was abolished. I doubt many Tibetans want to go back to that system. So I don't see a problem there.

Traditional lifestyle? If some Tibetans want to do what the other Chinese ethnicities are doing to get rich, eg instead of the traditional lifestyle we instead go to school or urbanise, so what?

If this was Merkel speaking you would have a point. If it is Der Spiegel, which has condemned Bahrain, Kuwait, German arms deals with these and Saudi-Arabia (much more harshly than their recent article of Journalist oppression in China for example) I don't see where you are coming from. Can you accept that news agencies might not be biased towards one side or the other, but biased in favor of Human rights in General?

As an aside, this is also why I think organizations like AI are necessary. They go after everybody (even the Chinese) when nobody else (*cough* German Government *cough*) dares to question the great eastern factory.

I can accept that some organisations could be biased to human rights in general, if they also applied the same standards to the same side they championed. The Spiegal article clearly criticises the Chinese for not dealing with the DL. Why aren't they looking what the DL's peace plan involved. Its not like its hard to find, and its in English as well.

First, do you think the monks are a threat? I think given how disorganized and non-violent they are, they are far from being dangerous terrorists.

Non violent? Are you smoking crack? Lets assume that when China arrests a monk which they accuse of bombing, they got the wrong person. It wasn't a monk. Even if we ignore that, I don't see how you can ignore violent footage of monks rioting during 2008 seen on western media (all the while playing a narrative of big bad CCP). Your own Spiegel article mentions they engaged in stoning.

Thanas wrote:No. Sigh. Bear with me. It is not "only" ok. Mixed ethnic groups can also try and secede. It all depends on the specific situation. If one ethnic group wants to secede for the specific purpose of enslaving another ethnic group, then of course that is not ok. Or if it wants to install a fascist and wage war.

I just like to touch base on this statement. Your situation clearly would put the CSA as wrong to secede from the US since they among other things wanted to preserve slavery.

Going on with a few historical tidbits
1. Tibet old leaders ran a religious theocracy where most of the population were slaves, er I mean serfs.
2. They had de facto independence between the fall of the Qing and the CCP's victory in the civil war. During that time of a few decades where they were calling the shots, serfdom was still alive and well.
3. Both successor states of the Qing, eg the ROC and PRC would not have allowed slavery as witnessed by their policies during the time they were in power. In fact the PRC ended Tibet's serfdom.

Can I conclude therefore you would consider it wrong for Tibet's old leaders to declare independence at the time the CCP reasserted control, since among other things their old leaders wanted to preserve slavery, er I mean their way of life. If that was the case, are you being inaccurate when you describe China as the "occupying power."?

Please don't insult my intelligence by ever so subtly changing the topic with things like "what has that got to do with now," since I kind of answered with what I think on those other thoughts like autonomy etc.

energiewende wrote:What China is doing is more akin to the Russians in Chechnya

Well, we did what we did. But this is Chechnya now:

Thanas wrote:I don't see a problem with deporting them out of central Tibet. It is not like the people who were settled there by the brutal communist dictatorship moved there.

Uh... Thanas, I didn't expect this from you. So when the USSR forcibly relocates a million people, these deportations are usually considered a violation of human rights (and frankly, they are), but when you suggest to run a deportation on a scale unheard of in modern history (2,5 million people), which would also quite likely utterly annihilate Tibet's economy and towns, and would be nothing different from Pol Pot's epic depopulation of Pnom Penh during Cambodia's Khmer Rouge years, you think that its okay because the settlers were put in place by communist China. Let me get this straight - if this sort of reverse deportation is normal, would it be okay if former colonies expel all foreigners, including those who settled there with families? Is it okay that Uzbekistan and Tajikistan run mutual deportations and pogroms every so often, simply because they can no longer live peacefully with ethnic dispersion, since most likely the resettlement occured under the late 80's USSR, when people didn't even think such violent ethnic cleansings were possible in the nearest future?

Thanas wrote:Sure they would if there was any danger of this being implemented.

Western media were completely oblivious to the ethnic cleansing of Serb minorities after the Yugoslav wars simply because the Serbs were chosen as the bad guys. They started ethnic cleansing, so they only got what's coming to them, right? There was astounding silence on this subject long after all the stuff happened. While I don't necessarily preach against the "they had it coming" idea, I'm then wondering why and how could this be considered a greater standard of humanism. If anything, it is falling into the very same old trap of "they're bad guys sure, but they are our bad guys".