jieh-Yung wrote 'will be entering an age of unprecedented prosperity and happiness.'

yung you are a han chinese right...proud of identity, close community bonds, intelligent and progressive in the material things...

tibetaans truly are a different breed...the tibetan plateau is one of the harshest environment on earth...you and I wouldnt survive too long...they do and have for long time and isolated by geography...it takes a special group of people to stay there...otherwise migrated long ago into sunny vietnam...you need to appreciate this point...

tibetaans are spiritually biased, gentle and closed, knowledge and harmony drives their daily life...

peoples republic world envisioned on tibetaans will not work...yes china rules tibet...but the nature of the tibetaans so far stopped them from picking up a gun...but the violent demonstrations show that there is a limit...and once that gun is picked up...china is looking at a war that will make russia-afghanistan childs play in that terrain...

What tibetaans need is respectful distance...allow them to set the lines of meeting...and assist them if needed to live their lives...for they have a knowledge and experience of spiritual side of us that most of us have not even aware exists...very capable to their chosen fields...so its better for us to wait patiently until they show us more of their world...

Sam

You cannot ram 'Han Chinese Prosperity' down a Tibetan throat and expect him not to puke.

Its as simple as day and night.. hot and cold.. look at how the Indigenous Australians feel at the White presense.... look at how disconnected they have become from their own roots.. why ?

"What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but loses his own soul" said Jesus..

and although he spoke this in connection with the material verses the spiritual.. in particular the competing forces of the Kingdom of God, and material wealth, it applies more generally in regard to race relations.

If you destroy a mans spirit, then say "Oh look.. I bought you this nice new pair of shoes".. err.. don't hold your breath waiting for him to say 'thanx'....

Only racist ethno-centrism can see 'good' in racist imperialistic evil done to other people.

Lets make no mistake.. PRC takeover/invasion of Tibet was all about 'expanding territory'... thus it is inherrently evil.

Economic prosperity does dead people no good at all.. dead inside.

The most important thing in all this to address..is 'racist ethno centrism' and how this impacts on the Australian social texture.

We can always have our own protest, but considering China is our BIGGest trading partner.. how far will our own government let that go ?

I'm more worried about Ethnic ANYone.. Chinese, Lebanese, Italian, Greek, Vietnamese.. any.. who approach Australia in terms of their OWN ethnic or religious background and operate on the assumption that Australia is really a new little 'their old place'.

We anglos did it.. why should other be immune? The thing is, we are sufficiently diverse and homogonized now that the various ethnic backgrounds are blurred and we can all ourselves 'Australians'

Several years ago, on a World Conference on Women, many Tibetan women also attended the meeting. These Tibetan women are mainly from the two groups; one from the Tibetan autonomous region of China and the other from an NGO on behalf of the “Free-Tibet” which is financially supported by the major western powers.

As usual, the woman delegates from the NGO claimed that the Tibetan culture is being destructed and the only way to rescue is to reverse the history to let the Dalai Lama come back to lead an “Independent Great Tibet” or “Highly Autonomous Great Tibetan Area.” They voiced out their claims in English, so that their claims were easily passed and quoted by the reporters of major western countries. When the Tibetan women from the Tibet Autonomous Region of China tried to discuss the Tibetan Cultural Destruction issue with the Tibetan women from the “Free Countries,” they found there was no way to communicate directly between them because the Tibetan women from the “free countries” do not speak Tibetan while the Tibetan women from Tibet do not speak English.

Thus, we saw two groups of Tibetans; though they are common on similar faces and having the similar costume styles, the difference between them is the group of Tibetans from “Free Countries” can speak English only but not Tibetan while the group of Tibetans from Tibet can speak Tibetan but not English. When the two Tibetan groups are arguing on the Tibetan issues, the English spoken Tibetans took advantage of the Tibetan spoken Tibetans since their can voice out directly to the journalists of “free countries” while none of the reporters from the “free countries” speaks Tibetan. Nevertheless, the reporters from the “free countries” never bothered to listen to what the Tibetan-spoken Tibetans’ voices through the interpreters. Then, ironically, on the major media and newspapers of the “free countries” the claim of the “Tibetan culture is being destructed” by the Tibetans who have already forgotten how to speak Tibetan are widely quoted while the voices of Tibetan spoken Tibetans were ignored by the journalists of “free countries.”

I still remember the look on the faces of the Chinese officals when Antonio Samaranch announced Sid-din-ney as the hosts of the 2000 olympics.How could Beijing be ever spelt this way?If arrogance and rage could kill,Sid-din-ney would have been wiped from the planet.

We have to look at the reality of global power.At the present the US has the big guns,but not the will or political system to back it up with man power.China will soon have both.China by stealth could invade countries like Australia,and the US could do nothing about it.

Imagine this scenario;the new Airbus A380 can carry 800 people.China would only need a hundred to take Australia.Just take all the major airports in Aust in a surprise attack.Once they have landed,do we think that the US will send troops here to save us?It would be too late!Would the US actually begin a nuclear war with China to save a mere 21 million people?No likely.Self preservation would come first.

With the rise of China Aust needs to take more responsibility for it's own security.We should consider nuclear weapons,and strategies such as having the capacity to make all our airports inoperable at a moments notice.

The US is fast finding being the world's policeman very distasteful,and we could suffer the fallout and suddenly have more empathy with Tibet.

While some people are claiming that this article is rubbish and propaganda, so are the posts of many who are making these claims.

There are (at least) two points of view to every controversy. In another article on Tibet an attempt was made to put a different perspective. It was not accepted. This article may be considered too far the other way but, yet again, people are making no attempt to try to find any middle ground between this and their own ideas which are also way too far the result of propaganda.

The present conflict has been so mis-represented by a lot of the Western press (who, let us not forget, were not there) that even some o/s journalists are protesting.

Of course its been given a lot of publicity here on Chinese TV and lots of footage has been shot. In every TV panel or discussion there has also been Western representation and views. Swedish and Dutch packpackers who were on the scene have been interviewed, along with visiting businesspersons and holiday-makers.

Tibetan residents and those who were caught up in the violence have also been interviewed as have those in hospital. There has been no distinction made in interviews between Tibetan or Chinese patients or bystanders who were caught up in the mob violence which has maimed and injured and killed, as mob violence always does.

Before it is claimed that this article relies too heavily on Chinese propaganda perhaps one should evaluate fairly whether an opposing viewpoint relies too heavily on Western propaganda?

One starting point would be to consider that there was no military presence either on the night, before or since. Local police (a large number of whom were killed) were the only force used to stop the brutality.

once again, nonsense. lo's article is not about the current conflict: it is about how wonderful the chinese government is for the tibetan people. and once again, whatever the tenuous truth of this claim, it is totally beside the point. the point is the right to self-determination.

you guys want to labor the point about the bias of the western media, and the western fantasies of tibet as some kind of spiritual paradise. and that's all true. but it doesn't change the fact that lo's article is apologist, obfuscatory twaddle.