| Dear Jian Shuo Wang, I'm an American who used to be one of the "Free Tibet" supporters, but I left the movement due to my anger about the hypocrisy among so many people in the pro-Tibetan movement. They criticize China for the situation in Tibet, while they ignore the far worse crimes of e.g. the British and Americans in North America-- where almost the entire indigenous native American population was wiped out by the British settlers, and where the US Southwestern states were stolen in a bloody war against Mexico in 1848 (and where Latinos are again becoming the majority), where places such as Hawaii and Puerto Rico were seized without the consent of the natives. Since California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and other neighboring states will soon have a Latino majority, and since the USA took them in the Mexican-American War, should we let them secede as a new country now as a result? Or the Hawaiians? Same with e.g. the British and Australians in Australia, where the indigenous aborigines were brutally slaughtered, or in New Zealand, which was taken from the indigenous Maoris. And yet, my pro-Tibetan friends hypocritically ignore this history in a bid to attack China. Don't yield an inch on the Tibet issue. Try to be nonviolent, and address issues in the region by for example, encouraging entrepreneurs from other places in China to move in and start businesses in Tibet, which will employ Tibetans and better integrate the Tibetan economy with the rest of China. Also, increase educational opportunities and provide Mandarin language instruction for Tibetans to better join the rest of the economy. Much of the unrest in Tibet has been fomented by troublemakers from outside of Tibet (including a Canadian-American group that is more anti-Chinese than pro-Tibetan), but to the extent that there is frustration there, best to solve it by better joining the Tibet economy with the rest of China to share in the prosperity. Same with Xinjiang-- integrate the Uighurs better into the overall Chinese economy to share in the prosperity, encourage Chinese from all over to go to Xinjiang, and provide more Mandarin-language instruction to increase job prospects there. |
Why I Didn't Cover About Tibet