Tibet issue? It's the signature crybaby b.s. that defines Seattle, but has the complete indifference of a shithead President from Texas.

Maybe Leonid Brezhnev would have been more appropriate at this point, but murdering monks is more than an issue. For an open-minded Seattlite, someone seems to be forgetting propping up Sudan and Zibabwe, and let's not forget all those shipments of machetes to Rwanda.

There are a lot of people who have a beef with China not related to the Tibet issue alone.

I think its racy and provocative, but I don't think parodies or comparisons with Nazi Germany should be taboo. Mocking or envoking the Holocaust is one thing, but I see this as making the point that China is THE superpower emerging in 2008 just as Germany was in 1936, and that the rest of the world doesn't realize quite the future implications of this new world player yet.

I think Horsey is just saying protests/boycotts didn't matter much to Hitler's Olympics even though Germany was much worse than China is now in the human rights dept.

(even though I think people forget how bad China has been)

PS: I don't think China's human rights record now is comparable to what Germany's was after the Olympic games of course. Its more the "coming out party" for a suspicious new superpower aspect I think where there is a point made in the cartoon.

The Chinese invaded Tibet, are destroying its culture, and murdering its people. Should "reasonable" Seattleites really give them a pass in some sort of disturbing PC way of being fair to both sides? Right and wrong are clear in this instance. The most pathetic thing I saw this past week were the few Chinese who protested the Dalai Lama's visit. Why are all the Chinese in Seattle either protesting all the negative things being said or sitting silently complacent (or should I say complicit)? I'm no more proud of our country's treatment of Iraq, but I don't object at all when other countries point their finger at us and I think we are on the wrong side and I say so. Where are the Chinese who are doing the same (jail, I'm guessing).

So where does your gf stand on the Olympics/Tibet question?

Plus, China has been relying on the Summer Olympics as basically a propaganda extravaganza - look! We've cleaned up the air! See all the happy workers! Come spend money in the nice "Western style" hotels we've built! - and frankly, I could understand from a purely objective perspective why they might be put off that not everyone is buying the P.R. manure they've been spreading around.

But, between Tibet, continued hostility towards Taiwan, suppression of human rights, massive population displacements caused by ill-conceived infrastructure projects (The Three Rivers dam has turned into a complete fiasco), continued environmental degredation, not to mention dumping shoddy, potentially dangerous consumer goods onto the U.S. market, they're going to have to do a lot more than gussy-up Beijing and wave the IOU's they're holding in our faces to get us to ignore all the socio-economic-political dust they've swept under the rug.

Maybe we'll get lucky and this whole kerfuffle will just kill the Olympics once and for all.

China should return Tibet to its people as soon as the United States returns California, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas and Colorado to Mexico.

It is not a bad cartoon at all. China is ruled by a government that Mao set up and he killed millions in doing so.

Let's have your girlfriend explain why China is entitled to Tibet and Taiwan.

How do you blind an Asian?

Put a windshield in front of them!

Arturo. After the US returns California etc to Mexico. Then Mexico can return the land to the first nations there.

@7 - every host country uses the Olympics as a propaganda vehicle for how great they are - from a host's point of view that's, like, the whole point.

@9: that dog won't hunt.

there's a difference (if in degree only) between invasions & annexations done within living memory & those in the pre-modern era.

iraq had to give back kuwait. indonesia had to give back east timor.

More to the point, why do people get exercised about the Tibetans when they don't even know who the Uighurs are? No charismatic, media-savvy bald dude in picturesque robes, I guess.

From all the figures I can find, adding all the people who died in the cultural revolution to the millions who died in state-engineered famines (thanks, Lysenkoism!) brings Mao's totals higher than both Hitler and Stalin's, making him arguably the deadliest dictator in history. And yet his picture is going to be waving in the background on many of those wonderful Olympic panorama shots we'll be seeing when the TV coverage begins.

Tibet is just one travesty in a long line.

And to the anti-PC hipsters who are mocking the concern over Tibet as just more hippie handwringing over the tragedy-du-jour: What's it like to not care at all about other people? I'll bet it feels awesome.

This cartoon is on the mark. The point is that, in the end, the Olympics will happen and all the vested interests will get theirs. It's filthy lucre, and everyone's so addicted to it they're willing to look the other way on almost all of China's machinations of the last 50 years.

It's a fair comparison - Hitler's 1936 Summer Games featured the first Olympic Torch Relay. A cartoon version of things coming full circle, so to speak.

@9

Maybe I'm just crazy, but didn't it go something like: Mexico rebels against Spain. Independence! California and Texas rebel against Mexico-join the US!

So are you suggesting Mexico should be returned to Spain?
The better and more biting commentary would have been "As soon as we return every US state back to the Indian people," but I see why you didn't go with that-that gets you into messy territory about WHICH Native American tribes (federally recognized ones? anyone wearing moccasins?) and whether reservations are, in a way, returning the land to the tribes.

I bring it up only because I've seen that comparison before. My opinion: comparing Tibet v. China to US v. Texas et all/US v. Indians et all is a dumb comparison.

China in Tibet | America in Iraq | Israel in Palestine | Turkey in Cyprus | Britan in the Faulklands | Pakistan in Kashmir | Occupation of the day.

Yes, you're crazy. While some settlers in Sonoma did rebel against Mexican rule and established a Republic that lasted only a few months, California became part of the US during the Mexican-American war via military occupation.

@22 Ah, gotcha. Mexician history has never been my speciality.

However, I was right about the Spanish-Mexician part, correct?

Yes, and you were right about the Texas part too (although a real cynic would say that we were just sneakier about stealing that territory by colonizing, then declaring independence).

FWIW, this excellent article from yesterday's NYT arts section gives a pretty good explanation of why comparing China in 2008 to Germany in 1936 is not too far off the mark.

@12

I don't get it... windshields are clear... how does that cause blindness.

Oh, you're a racist cocksucker.

@26. he's a cocksucker? a derogative term used to imply straight people are gay? but i think your heart is in the right place...

I'm the guy who emailed this to Brendan. It looks like I'm a bit late to the comment party, but I ought to at least supply some rebuttals.



First: Many protesters waving Tibetan flags in San Francisco, when interviewed, couldn't locate Tibet on a map. I'm guessing lots of those in attendance here are similarly informed.



Second: I should clarify my own bias: I don't support China's occupation of Tibet (which is clearly driven by geopolitical ambition and nationalism), but I also do not take the claims made by Tibet's government-in-exile at face value. The government-in-exile has political motives that are not flush with the best interests of the Tibetan people, and claims of genocide and repression are deliberately misleading and greatly exaggerated. Most of you probably think I'm a communist apologist... to this, I simply urge you to read more about the historical background of Chinese occupation and about the living conditions of contemporary Tibetans. It is NOT black-and-white.



@2

Racy and provocative? The trouble is, very few readers will be provoked by this. Most readers will see this cartoon and nod because it confirms the negative image of China they already believe in. It may have been an apt comparison under Mao, but to modern China it's an insult, even more so because it dismisses 30 years of steady liberalization and progress ushered in by Deng Xiaoping that have seen China's authoritarian tendencies relax and its markets and culture open to interaction with the West.



@3


Yes, you're right. The problem I have with the cartoon is that it implies that CHINA IS ENGAGED IN GENOCIDE; after all, isn't that what Hitler is best known for? It simply ain't so. Support of Darfur is deplorable, but China's role in that is hardly tantamount to systematically executing six million Jews. Further, it enforces the Western idea that there is some kind of genocide going on in Tibet, which is simply not true and never has been. The genocide claims made by pro-independence Tibetan protestors center around the causalties of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, which had an even more grievous impact on Han China. I don't mean to trivialize those deaths, but it's speculative at best to imply that there was some kind of organized extermination of an ethnic group (which, of course, is what genocide is).



@5


"The Chinese invaded Tibet, are destroying its culture, and murdering its people."



Yeah, they invaded Tibet. The rest is bullshit. Here's some reading:



This and
this.

@6

So where does your gf stand on the Olympics/Tibet question?



She's totally pro-China brainwashed. The reason I am writing this today is because she and I have had the Tibet debate a hundred times - with ME arguing the pro-independence side - and it's forced me to look beyond the information available from the mainstream media. This has made me realize that the opinion I held, and that most Westerners hold, is every bit as biased as the latest press release from Hu Jintao's desk. For example: Who here knows that the Dalai Lama in pre-invasion Tibet was supported by a system of feudal slavery, where serfs were bought, sold, and killed? This is why the Chinese refer to the invasion as "the liberation", and it's a fact that historians don't dispute but you won't find mentioned anywhere on CNN, the BBC, or the New York Times.

@10

"It is not a bad cartoon at all. China is ruled by a government that Mao set up and he killed millions in doing so."

Mao is dead. China's government has spent the last 30 years distancing itself from his policies, many of which are now seen as disasterous. They deserve some credit for this... it's mistaken to think that modern China is the same government as Maoist China. Read up on Deng Xiaoping. Like @1 said, Brezhnev is a better comparison than Hitler or Stalin.

@11

"Let's have your girlfriend explain why China is entitled to Tibet and Taiwan"



Here are the Chinese positions in a nutshell on Tibet and Taiwan
(note: I don't agree with these; please don't attack me for explaining them)

Tibet:

1. Tibet, historically, is a province of China.
   
   [based on selective reading of history -- it is true that at some points, particularly the Qing dynasty, China had strong control over Tibet, and usually maintained a military presence ironically to fend off invaders. The office of the Dalai Lama has historically been appointed by the Chinese emperor]
   
2. 
   It's not an invasion, it's a liberation!
   
   [basis: serfdom was eliminated, thus freeing millions of slaves in the three Tibetan provinces]
   
3. 
   Tibetans are much better off now than they were before 1951
   
   [Metrics support this: Literacy rate is way up, lifespan is way up, income is way up, as is access to modern conveniences like cars, education, consumer goods, and cellphones]
   
4. 
   China is trying to preserve Tibet culture, not destroy it. Religion and language are supported by the government.
   [This is indeed the official position. Persecution of religion was rife during the Cultural Revolution, but it has tapered off since then and there are active policies to support religion. Schools are bi-lingual, with primary school taught in Tibetan and secondary school taught in both Tibetan and Mandarin. The best argument to support the position that culture is being destroyed comes from the influx of Han Chinese from crowded Sichuan province, who come to Tibet to open businesses, make their money, and leave. These Han businessmen out-compete the native Tibetans in most cases, leaving Tibetans resentful of the Han Chinese's economic dominance... I believe this was the primary factor in the recent riots in Tibet]
   

1. Chiang Kai-shek and the Republic of China govt. lost the civil war, fled to Taiwan, and seceded. The only reason they weren't crushed is because of the threat of foreign [US] military intervention.
   
   [Unlike Tibet, nobody debates that Taiwan is a piece of China. The is a political struggle between competing governments who both claim to represent China as a whole.]
   
   [A long history of foreign imperialism in China, mostly at the hands of Britain and Japan, has left a deep mark in the Chinese psyche. Continued US intervention, is like pouring salt in an open wound. This is why the PRC is so uppity about Taiwanese independence; they see Taiwan as the illegitimate puppet state of a foreign power.]
   

Lonnie-

One of the reasons it took so long for China to get the games was the massacre at Tiananmen sqaure in 1989.
Modern does not always mean good.

you start with such poor logic i'm afraid to wade through your response:

First: Many protesters waving Tibetan flags in San Francisco, when interviewed, couldn't locate Tibet on a map. I'm guessing lots of those in attendance here are similarly informed.

this statement holds no meaning in our discussion.

it implies that CHINA IS ENGAGED IN GENOCIDE; after all, isn't that what Hitler is best known for?

Germany was not engaged in genocide in 1936, at least not as far as the rest of the world and most Germans knew.

At most, it implies that China will eventually engage in genocide.

Anyway, I'm still trying to figure out the purpose of depicting China as an obese woman.

@30

My remark was ad hominem, and I apologize for that.


But I disagree that it was irrelevant. It supports my point that the dominant Western thinking about Tibet is not well-informed.

@29

Zander-

I'm not saying that modern China is a paragon of virtue, only that it has improved and continues to improve.

You are right to point out that Tiananmen Square is a damning stain on China's recent human rights record, and perhaps more troubling is that Chinese students I have spoken with don't sympathize at all with the Tiananmen Square protesters.
However, relative to the horrors of the Cultural Revolution, even Tiananmen Square seems pretty mild. The Chinese perspective on why Tiananmen Square went awry is twofold: First, that the students were unwilling to compromise and pushing for too much change, too fast; and second, that China had no trained riot police, and the military was unable to contain the situation without escalation to serious violence (on both sides - by the time the smoke cleared, there were mutilated bodies of soldiers dangling from lampposts).

it was ad hominem, sure. but it had a few other problems in there, too.

1) you cite no sources. this makes it anecdotal (and possibly hearsay). i do not know if it is true at all, but cannot debate it either.

2) you do not quantify the results of the survey. "many protesters" is not defined. how many? a majority? or seven? how many did they ask? did more know or not know?

3) you do not provide the specific question(s) asked. what were they asked, and what map was used? was the question misleading to be used as propaganda? was tibet on the map?

4) you do not demonstrate why there is a parallel between the subset of group A and this group B. they didn't know, why does that mean we don't know?

5) you do not demonstrate how you can quantify the number of people here to "lots".

6) you have not demonstrated why a person's lack of this bit geographical knowledge invalidates their political opinion.

7) you are disqualifying an idea based on the knowledge of a certain number of people supporting it. even if they missed the geographical question, what does that have to do with the actual issue?

and that was just two sentences! it made my head spin a bit too much to proceed. so in your defense to say why it is relevant, you say, "It supports my point that the dominant Western thinking about Tibet is not well-informed." ah!

A man was murdered last week. I don't know his home address; does that mean I can't say it was wrong?

Lonnie: I think you make some good points. My problem with the arguments about how Tibetans are better off now than they were under their awful old form of government is that those arguments sound suspiciously like "Hey, these people were all just sitting around in mud huts taking orders from their 'Chiefs' before we showed up and bestowed upon them the fruits of civilization."

In other words, it's a rationalization for colonization. And I think pretending that an independent Tibet would return to being a medieval theocracy is part of that party line. Tibet is never going to be what it once was. Even the Dalai Lama is not suggesting that it could or should be.

the life of tibetan people in the old tibet was more peacefull and happier than both of old china and modern china.

I was growing under red chiness flag. I went to Tibet two times from 2001. hua

the life of tibetan people in the old tibet was more peacefull and happier than both of old china and modern china.

I was growing under red chiness flag. I went to Tibet two times from 2001. hua

the life of tibetan people in the old tibet was more peacefull and happier than both of old china and modern china.

I was growing under red chiness flag. I went to Tibet two times from 2001. hua

@34

Man, it's a comment on Slog, not a peer-reviewed journal publication. Of course it was anecdotal, and I used it as an anecdote to illustrate a point. Admittedly, my source was not a proper survey, but a segment run by the San Francisco CBS affiliate; you can watch it here.



As for the rest, my post is meant to encourage readers to be more skeptical about the information they're presented by the media, and to seek a more in-depth understanding of a topic I feel has been misrepresented in the West. As such, I don't claim to be authoritative on any subject (hence I don't cite sources), but I am confident that those who delve into this will discover that there are more shades of gray to the issue than they may have expected. Res ipsa loquitur, you know?

The Snow Lion and the Dragon: China, Tibet, and the Dalai Lama is a good starting point.

@36

Yes, the Chinese argument of "Tibetans are better off" is a blatant rationalization for Chinese imperialism. It's a hypocrisy that is lost on the Chinese, the fact that their reaction to early 20th century foreign imperialism has been to become all imperialistic themselves regarding Tibet.

However, the increase in quality of life also happens to be true, by most of the standard metrics. For example, the average life span in 1951 was 36 years; today, it is 64. [1] Of course, these improvements are mostly due to modernization, and would have occurred had Tibet modernized under its own leadership rather than that of Beijing. But the Communists did abolish the feudal system, and they did build schools that are universally affordable and available to the lower classes -- two things that the previous ruling class of Tibet had little incentive to do. China has also made huge capital investments in Tibet - for instance, Lhasa has good cell phone coverage - all of which come with a dose of imperialist indoctrination. It's a trade-off, and a fine subject for spirited debate about whether the quality of life improvements are worth ingesting all that propaganda.



[1] I can't find a neutral source for this factoid, so it may be suspect. Then again, it doesn't seem to be contested anywhere, and it's consistent with life span increases via modernization in other developing countries.

hua long

"the life of tibetan people in the old tibet was more peacefull and happier than both of old china and modern china."



It's nice to have this perspective represented, but it would be more useful to explain why you believe this.

@19 that's exactly what I was thinking.

RELATED-ISH: best protest sign yet photographed at a torch event: "Would we have allowed NAZI GERMANY to host the Olympics?"

Bush killed thousands (if not millions) of people in Iraq, does any body dare to put bush beside Hitler? Europeans invaded north america, millions of native indians were killed (genocide). British robbed the whole world in in first half of 19th century. Now these sons and daughters of the murders who happen to live in a place called seattle (which should be some native american indians' homes) are here laughing and talking like they have moral superiority. How disgusting?

@41,

Frankly, every imperialist power says that. It's just sad to see otherwise liberal Americans buy into it. Is it more believable because the imperialists in this case aren't white?

I'm the not the first person to really raise a fuss over Tibet(yes, I think what the Chinese state is perpetuating there is wrong and all that, I just haven't made it a "pet cause" and really don't give two shits about the Dalai Lama), but I don't think this is really being hugely unfair to China. It's making a point, and the point is pretty much true.

Hitler's Germany still hosted an Olympic games, right? It did.

End of story. It's not even mentioning the Holocaust. Hitler was a douche, let's not give him more weight than he was worth.

lonnie, the reason i didn't like your first sentence was that it was wrong, insulting, and full of propaganda. despite that, i was considering whether or not i over-reacting to your introduction. maybe i was over-scrutinizing it, i briefly thought.

then i watched that insanely stupid broadcast -- for which you provided a link -- and i realized i was completely right. that is full of the same propaganda and logical fallacies. even the reporters tone, "...we don't want to embarrass anyone..." that was some of the worst journalism i've ever, ever seen. especially if that was supposed to be an unbiased piece.

i cannot take you seriously if you take that seriously.

not only that, but i froze the frame where he displays the map. come on. are you serious? first, it is just china -- so you cannot stop tibet relative to the surrounding asian nations. secondly it has regions defined on it, but not tibet as a region! whatever...

it was not a useful sample of people. finding tibet has anything to do with the protesters opinion. finding tibet has nothing to do with the actual issues. using a biased interview with a couple of idiots to suggest that the dominant Western thinking about Tibet is not well-informed is ridiculous.

and didn't you say many? they interviewed two who couldn't find it. two!

so i repeat, when i see a post start with that is wrong, insulting, and full of propaganda, i am going to react negatively.