Henry

You are right. The problems you indicated here all exist in China. It causes many problems and unclaimed harm in our future like pollution. We will pay for what we did. But the reality is cruel. The world is greedy. Money talks everywhere. Do we have anything to do? Those at the bottom have to work hard to survive. In a TV program, there is a successful business man speaking to these people. "If you want to change your life deeply, you do not think you are human being. You should treat yourself as an animal to suffer whoever can not suffer. And then you will succeed." It is really a shock to me. I could not sleep whole night and think about this question. I feel it is cruel but it is real.

Australia is a beautiful and peaceful country. Its multi-culture is attractive. Indigenous AUZ are treated well. But they are still feel frustrated. Why? If you look at them, it is hardly to find Aboriginal Australians are well educated and work in higher level. Do they have opportunities. YES!! BUT WHY?

I feel the reason is that non-indigenous Australians give too much special care to them. So it is because of themselves. Australians feel bad about what they did in past to aboriginals and give them any support and help now. But the change did not happen as you wish. They give up the opportunities and just complain about how bad their lives are, other than study and work hard in order to change.

It is same in Tibet. As I mentioned before. We have special policies for them. So I say the frustration is caused by themselves.

The last issue is you mention "rather than liberating them unto death with machine guns". In this incident, innocent people are killed by the mobs. It is not allowed anywhere in the world, even in Australia. They have to be stopped to prevent from more killing. Do you agree? So the discussion here should be whether Chinese government should use machine guns to stop the killing.

Hi Lev,

I have considered your question. Be honest I do not know how to answer. If it is person to person, I should consider others and respect others' different opinion. However this question is on level of country. I believe there are more countries like China have same problem, eg. UK, Russia and Germany. They are the countries which have good human rights record (at least better than China). They even do not allow this happen in their land. So could you tell me why they are not allowed a nation to decide by themselves there. I am not a history fan so I could not talk about it here. I respect history but I am more care what we have now. The reality is TW and Tibet are in map of China. And it is recognized by all other countries.

"Lenin's sentiments on the rights of nations to self-determination" sounds right and great. I do not know in what kind of situation, he said this. And what a 'Nation' in his mention refer to. In middle-east, 'nations' are fighting for each other. The death toll increases every year. Do you support them and feel they have right for it. Extremist of a 'Nation' are making this world mess.

To All

Chinese people including its government who want to use this Olympics time to show the world its achievement in last two decade. Boycott Beijing Olympics will only push them away other than sit down to have a talk. Normal people like us here including all of you making an judgement, should look over all aspects. China need to change peacefully. So please give them time. If they have changed a bit. please give them some encourage. Your standard is not applied there right now. But they will and glad to move forward.

Hi NathanC,

Yes, you are right, other countries in the world have the same issue. As you mentioned, the UK (Scotland, Wales, Ireland), Russia (Chechnya, Tatarstan) although I'm not so sure about Germany, unless the majority of Wends which to become their own country - although that is not something I have heard; and just because they have adopted a "might is right" policy over national self-determination it doesn't mean that any of us have to respect that decision as being either morally just or even political functional; although I do note that there are moves towards holding a referendum on the issue in Scotland. It would be interesting to see if China would ever consider such a thing for Tibet (at the moment, Taiwan seems quite capable of deciding for itself).

Lenin's quote is from "The Right of Nations To Self Determination" which was written in 1914. A nation is a historical culture. It is distinct from a country. For example, the Kurds are a nationality without a country, existing within Iraq, Turkey, Iran and small parts of Syria and Armenia.

Where nations are not given the right to self-determination it may reach the situation where they will attempt to establish it by force. The easiest and best solution is to allow nations the choice on whether they want to be independent or join other nationalities in a single country. There would be a lot less violence in the world if countries took that policy! But of course, politicians all seem to want to rule the biggest and most powerful country.

Recently, some Tibetan mobs, actually a number of organized Tibetan terrorist groups indiscriminately killing the civilians in Lhasa as well as in some other Tibetan areas. The victims also include many ethnic Tibetans. A Tibetan young girl was burned dead together with other four girls of other ethnic Chinese when the mobs surrounded their shop and burn them alive. A high school that many Tibetan children are attended was set on fire by the mobs too. Facing the bloody facts of terrorist activities, the journalists of the “free countries” that had been keen on “Anti Terrorist War” are showing their capricious reacts.

When the local police of Lhasa took actions to suppress the criminals, the western media described police action as “suppressing the demonstration” so that in their reports, the criminal mobs become demonstrators and the terrorist activities become peaceful demonstrations; and the civilians killed by the criminals all become the victims of the police suppression.

The media of the “free countries” deliberately refer the mobs as the Tibetans and refer the policemen and civilian victims as Chinese, though many policemen and the local government officials are ethnic Tibetans, and the civilian victims of the riots include Tibetans, Muslims, Hans and many other religious and ethnic Chinese. At the end, the event of the terrorists indiscriminately killing the civilians is deliberately worded as the conflict between ethnic Tibetan and other ethnics of Chinese.

The media of free countries are taking advantage of ignorance of the most audiences about Tibet so as to spread the biased publicity in favor of the Tibetan terrorists. That is why we can see some western newspapers “mistakenly” use the pictures of clashes between Tibetan demonstrators and Nepal police to describe that the Tibetan demonstrators are beaten by Chinese police, and we can also see many western newspapers “carelessly” ignored the fact that the Tibetan high school was set on fire and the Tibetan girls were killed, and described the criminals as “demonstrators.”

Centra,

Atrocities occur in situations like this; Tibetans attack innocent Han migrants, the Chinese government shoots innocent protesters (http://www.theage.com.au/text/articles/2008/03/21/1205602660907.html).
It says a great deal that China has just now expelled the last foreign journalist known to be in Lhasa, Germany's Georg Blume.

It is ultimately impossible in these modern times for a country to force a nationality to live within their borders if they don't want to. This is a lesson that is equally relevant for the Basque in Spain, the East Timorese, the Québécois in Canada or the Tibetans.

There is a simple solution; let the Tibetans decide, by vote, whether they want to be part of China or not.

Sorry, Lev, but I do not think it is quite that simple at all.

The reality is that no leader in China could possibly support such a vote, it would be political suicide. No leader is going to risk leaving such a legacy.

I am really heartened that On-Line is addressing this complex issue and fostering debate and discussion. I, for one, have not only learned a lot, but have had to question my assumptions and how I arrived at them on this issue.

If the western press opened their minds a little and did not just regurgitate the same old, same old, then maybe China wouldn’t be so wary of them.