I was on another thread with Die_another_day and realized that there was something oddly disjointed about Die's posts. I think you might have put your finger on it. Die may very well be posting from within the military dictatorship that is The People's Republic of China and dealing with the internet censorship that goes on there.

Why is Tibet so important to China? As Die_another_day said, it's all about the land. Land. They're not making it anymore. If Tibet was a few hundred acres of swamp with no importance whatsoever up for grabs, China, or whoever was the nearest big power, would grab it.

After the Vietnam War, China tried to latch on to a few hundred square miles of Vietnam's northern border. They ran into the razor sharp and battle hardened army of North Vietnam, who booted their butts out of there. So much for the "domino theory."

What is going on in Tibet is geopolitics as played by the great powers. Grab and hold what you can and then pump out the propaganda baloney justifying your actions. Everybody accepts that, including the Dalai Lama.

We're on to a new problem now, the problem of, not China, not the Chinese people, but the Chinese Communist Party. This is a problem that the people of China share with the people of Tibet and the people of Taiwan.

The Chinese Communist Party is a vehicle by which military warlords control China in the time honoured Chinese way. What it needs to do is to evolve, change it's name to the Chinese Capitalist Party, modernize it's management techniques and get on with making money, like everyone else is doing.

The Chinese people are, and have always been among the world's greatest capitalists and business innovators. Everybody knows this. They don't need Chinese Communist lunkheads telling them how to run a business, or how to deal with religious and linguistic minorities.

Obviously, if left to themselves they would do what everybody else with a brain in their head does. Let the minority have it's language and religion and get on with making money. This is what is done in Canada with Quebec. And believe me it works. There is nothing like money to make people happy and sticking with the money making machine.

The real problem in China and Tibet is the Chinese Communist Party. They can't be Maoist thugs forever. Forget the Tibetans, the Chinese people themselves will not put up with it. Remember Tienanmin Square?

[edit on 20-3-2008 by ipsedixit]

School text books in China have maps which claim all sorts of neighbouring countries as part of the greater Chinese motherland.

China claims Kashmir, India's Himalayas, Nepal, Assam, Burma, Thailand Cambodia, Vietnam, part of Borneo and the Philippines not to mention Taiwan.

This all arises because China considers the territories conquered by the Mongols as part of historical China and land which must be restored to the motherland.

Kublai Khan the Mongol emperor of China exacted tribute from Tibet which is the basis for their claim on Tibet, but when the Manchus overthrew the Mongols they never regained control of Tibet.

To suggest that China owns Tibet because the Mongols invaded it over 700 years ago is ludicrous.

Tibet is rich in minerals and oil. It is also the major source of china's water.

Yes, but all I am saying is that China giving more freedom to Tibet would open up a can of worms about self determination that many parts of China would have similar demands/concerns. China most certainly does not want that can opened up.

Pavil why should distinct ethnic minorities in China not have self determination ?
Tibet was not a minority but a sovereign nation in it's own right.

If it is about natural resources then why shouldn't China buy those resources from the Tibetans like any normal trading nation ?

China attacks western nations over imperialism, well guess what ?
This is Chinese imperialism.

Different nations and cultures of Europe have created a trading bloc by free association. If China is serious about it's future it needs to look at creating a federal system with free association.

China was desperate to get entry to the Free Market, but it does not want free trade with Tibet.

It still wants to own and control Tibet in a manner incompatible with Free Trade.

First of all for the one who did see my posts about the biased double-standard complaint from me towards ATS:
- My thread is re-opened again after the moderator NGC2736 spent a lot of efforts on convincing me that ATS is not biased against my viewpoints and spent even more efforts in checking in my complaints in details raising it to the attention to the other moderators.

I am certainly convinced that ATS tries to uphold the policy of keeping a neutral stand for any topics. And that moderators need to maintain a forum with a hugeload of threads in different boards to keep the bandwidth and threads manageble.

However I also understand (and proven) that a Moderator system is based on human beings, people who has their own viewpoints and act differently towards a similar issue. It's indeed an imperfect system as someone told me.

My critics go to the Moderators who are acting way too fast without looking into the matter closely or try to understand why a member would make a complaint to them privately or publicly. ATS should have more Mods like NGC2736 and JAK/Asala, who are acting promptly when a real unfair issue against a specific member is caused by another Mod or themselves.

My kudos to NGC2736 for contacting me immediately after he read my post here instead of publicly posting and trying to defend his colleague's decision without looking into the matter if my claim was justified or not. (Looking at Skyfloating). He spent the efforts in investigating and understanding the complaint.

I do have to clarify that in no way I wanted this particular (pro-Western) Thread to be closed, but I did feel being singled out of my thread being closed when I saw that this thread was allowed to be discussed in the same board where ALSO another similar thread is ongoing. (Moved to AbovePolitics after my thread is re-opened and moved to another board).

Originally posted by Skyfloating
Just to clarify something here: Your thread was not closed because we are biased, it was closed because it was a Repeat Topic about which several discussions already exist. If you open a thread in favour of China with a new topic or a new twist on a topic, it will certainly be left open. ATS wants ALL sides to a story.

Vanitas: Sorry for posting off-topic, it was important for me to clarify this.

Now back to the scheduled programme.

Skyfloating: Please read my comments above, I understand that you felt it is important to you to protect the image of ATS, but you should understand that not every member making a complaint is unjustified. I am not saying that my complaint is 100% justified as well, but for someone who did followed it or do look into the issue in details would say, "hey, maybe we should have handled it slightly different".
So,
If my thread was closed for your raised reason, then this one should have been closed too.
If my thread needed to be moved to another board, then this one should have been moved too.
Final results: ATS corrects it now, well appreciated.

Well, enough posting here.



Vanitas: Great for the understanding, but I had to go off-topic again.

[edit on 20/3/08 by IchiNiSan]

Originally posted by IchiNiSan
Well, enough posting here.

I guess all's well that ends well then. It's a win win situation. We should have a special Chinese Communist Party forum, where skillful thread disrupters can showcase techniques of subterfuge, sabotage, and ideological propaganda.