I can’t believe I missed this, but ten days ago my favorite punching bag Nick Kristof wrote about Tibet and China. It’s the usual mixed bag, where you can see Kristof struggling with some principles of peace, social justice and democracy while maintaining his usually strong pro-Beijing compass. The central discussion of the article is whether or not the Chinese government should avoid negotiations with the Tibetan Government in Exile until the 14th Dalai Lama passes away and, the presumption is, the Tibetan movement will fracture and become less relevant. While agreeing with Lodi Gyari that the Chinese government should not play this game, Kristof quickly runs into a problem with facts:

China is waiting for the Dalai Lama to die, so that Tibetans will lose their leader and cohesion. But the result is not that Tibet will be easier to dominate; rather, it is likely to become more violent. There already are many, many young Tibetans who think the Dalai Lama has been too patient, too conciliatory, too pacifist. This is particularly true of the exiles; Tibetans actually in China tend to be more pragmatic and willing to work things out. But overall, my hunch is that we’ll see more violent resistance after the Dalai Lama goes.

First, it’s true that there are “many young Tibetans who think the Dalai Lama has been too patient,” but I don’t think any Tibetan either inside or outside of Tibet thinks His Holiness the Dalai Lama has been “too pacifist.” We’re talking about a monk who is a living god – pacifism is pretty much a given expectation here, especially within the Tibetan community.

Second, while it is true that there are many and growing voices in exile for the Dalai Lama and the TGIE to be less conciliatory, I do not know of a single Tibet Support Group that advocates anything other than non-violence. Protests for Tibet outside of Tibet and China are exclusively non-violent. Any suggestion that the exile community is advocating or supportive of violence as a means to achieve Tibetan independence is a repetition of Chinese government propaganda. In contrast, Tibetans inside of Tibet who live under the oppressive rule of the Chinese military occupation have at times in recent years responded to violent crackdowns against their peaceful protest with violence. This is to be expected and is not a reflection on anything other than when you rule by the gun (as opposed to democratic self-determination), you make it more likely that violence is seen as a remedy to political, social and economic injustice.

So my hunch is that after the Dalai Lama dies, Tibet will come to look more like Xinjiang. Human rights abuses will get less attention, because the Dalai Lama isn’t there to call attention to them. But protests will be more violent and more common, and there’ll be some genuine terrorists bringing in weapons from abroad.

I think it is irresponsible of Kristof to speculate how Tibetans inside and outside of Tibet respond to the passing of the 14th Dalai Lama, whenever that happens, especially given that there is currently no documented cases of Tibetan “terrorists bringing in weapons from abroad.” Presuming that the Chinese government has continued their decades-long efforts to stall any meaningful dialogue with the TGIE, it would not be surprising if there is anger in Tibet after the Dalai Lama passes away. But what has become clear over the last number of years is that both inside and outside of Tibet there is a growing recognition of Tibetan self-identity and undying desire for independence. These will be the determining factors for the response of Tibetans to China’s military occupation and they exist now as the 14th Dalai Lama lives and will continue whenever His Holiness passes. Obviously Tibetan self-identification and a desire for self-determination do not presume violence as an outcome to the Dalai Lama’s death.

Of course, Kristof doesn’t slow his roll after making dangerous statements about Tibetans’ magically unrealized propensity for violence. He goes on:

The other problem with the Dalai Lama dying is that any kind of a solution to the Tibetan issue is going to require painful concessions on both sides. It’s not clear that the Dalai Lama is willing to make the kind of concessions necessary, but if he is he could probably carry the Tibetan people behind him. In contrast, after he is gone, there is simply no one who could unite Tibetans and persuade them to accept the necessary concessions. The chance of a peaceful political solution will die with the Dalai Lama.

Note how it is up to the occupied people, who have spent more than a half a century under military occupation, who must be reasonable and make concessions to the Chinese Communist Party. You see, Tibetans have not been sufficiently deferential to the Chinese government, so it’s up to them to get the recipe of self-humiliation right and adequately circumscribe their human rights to please the PRC.

Things really go off the rails when Kristof starts blaming the Dalai Lama for not sufficiently seizing the opportunity in the 1980s to negotiate with the government that invaded his country:

After the Cultural Revolution, the Tibetans just didn’t trust Beijing and thought time was on their side. They made a historic miscalculation in the 1980’s, and then the window for negotiation closed with the departure of Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang.

Unmentioned: why Tibetans might have not trusted Beijing after the Cultural Revolution. For those that don’t know – presumably this includes Nick Kristof – China’s invasion and military occupation of Tibet, which began in 1949, has cost 1.2 million Tibetan lives. The bulk of these came in the initial invasion, in the outright resistance that occurred in 1959, and…wait for it…the Cultural Revolution. According to the Tibetan Government in Exile, the Cultural Revolution lead to “a further wave of death and destruction in Tibet. Han Chauvinism that manifested itself throughout China was particularly brutal in Tibet. Beyond the murder and cultural devastation, Cultural Revolution policies lead to mass starvation, as well as onslaughts of Han Chinese settlers arriving into Tibet. So no, maybe it isn’t that surprising that the Tibetan Government wasn’t trusting the Beijing government following the Cultural Revolution. Keep in mind that the TGIE adopted the Middle Path of autonomy and forswore independence in 1973. There have been ample opportunities for the Chinese government to negotiate in good faith, before, after and during the 1980s.

Kristof’s closing is an unparalleled disaster, a confluence of Western privilege, pro-Beijing arrogance, and straight-up hypocrisy that is impressive even for someone with as long and ignominious a history of writing about Tibet as Kristof.  First, he suggests the Dalai Lama should “devote himself to improving his Mandarin skills.” Because after all, it’s hard for him to be sufficiently obsequious to the Chinese Communist Party and Nick Kristof if he isn’t begging for the rights and survival of his people in the language of his oppressors. Then Kristof moves on to a more traditional plea of saving Tibet, for culture’s sake:

More Han Chinese are moving to Tibet, destroying its traditional character so that it will be gone forever. A political deal is the only way to forestall that and avoid violence, but it’s hard to see such a deal coming.

I am as strong an advocate for preserving “traditional character” in Tibet as any, though I hope it doesn’t sound so positively arrogant when I note that the best way for people like Kristof to “save” Tibet is by Tibetans having independence. Frankly, it’s not about traditional character. No one laments the loss of New England’s colonial farming lifestyle through modernization and development, as it was undertaken by a free people making conscious choice. Tibetans have a right to choose how they preserve or evolve their “traditional character.” It’s not up to people like Kristof. The problem is that now and for the last half century, the Chinese government has been deliberately destroying Tibet’s “traditional character.” Kristof does not mention this.

Kristof doesn’t do a fraction of the leg work to recognize that over the last decade, the TGIE has been ready and willing to make political deals. TGIE delegations have repeatedly gone to China to have dialogues (but not negotiations, because the Chinese government doesn’t want to negotiate). And as the Chinese government stalls negotiations towards a political solution, they use their military and paramilitary to forces inside Tibet to perpetrate violence against Tibetans, to steal Tibet’s natural resources, and destroy Tibetans’ land. This violence is going on on a daily basis and blame for it is entirely one-sided.

I do think Nick Kristof genuinely wants there to be a political solution to the Tibet question and he probably even wants one that happens in the Dalai Lama’s lifetime to forestall even the possibility of violence. But his recipe for achieving these goals is bizarrely one-sided. Demanding the victims of 60 years of occupation and brutality bend over even more to appease their occupiers into a political solution which would almost certainly not result in Tibet being a free country is not only unreasonable, it is cruel. To put expectations on Tibetans that he has never, ever attempted to put on the Chinese government is absurd. It’s not that Kristof is making a false equivalence between the two sides’ culpability for not reaching a political solution by now – it’s that he clearly seems to think the onus is on the Tibetan Government in Exile to make something happen now.

The reality is that the TGIE could do every single thing Kristof ever suggested they do to appease the Chinese Communist Party, but it would never be enough. The Chinese government policy is clear and it does not involve things like the 14th Dalai Lama returning to Tibet while he is alive nor does it involve genuine autonomy. As is always the case when Kristof writes about Tibet, it is transparently clear that he should not have done it, at least not until he finds a way to leave his pro-Beijing leanings at the door and is able to apply a reasonable lens of justice and fairness to a horrible situation that is only perpetuated by the Chinese government’s military occupation of Tibet.

Update:

Students for a Free Tibet Executive Director Tendor has a great response in the comments of Kristof’s post that is definitely worth reading.

High Peaks Pure Earth has posted translations of two popular Tibetan songs about unity by prominent Tibetan musicians. Here’s a piece of the analysis:

Both songs share the same topic of unity amongst Tibetans but are markedly different in style. Whilst these two songs indicate that Tibetan identity and unity amongst all Tibetans were themes in songs both before and after the turbulent year for Tibetans with the protests of 2008, “Mentally Return” is the more cautious of the two songs in terms of the way the messages of the song are conveyed and the lyrics are arguably even more powerful and poetic in their subtlety. For example, in “Mentally Return”, the word “Tibet” (in Tibetan, bod) is never mentioned and instead, Tibet is referred to as the “bountiful land on the roof of the world” or the “Land of Snows”. The metaphor of the Tibetan circle dance is used to indicate unity and Tibet is also called both the fatherland and the mother – a place of comfort with the feeling of home. Tellingly, the singers are also from various parts of this “bountiful land”, Yadong, Kunga and Tsewang are from Kham and Gangshuk is from Amdo. Their places of origin in themselves are at odds with the map – none of them are from the place marked today as “Tibet” (Xizang in Chinese, known by Tibetans as U-Tsang, central Tibet).

On the other hand, Sherten’s 2010 song “The Sound of Unity” directly addresses “Tibetans” and boldly uses politically loaded phrases and words such as “three provinces”, “nation” and “freedom” – all studiously avoided by “Mentally Return” but implied nonetheless. Whereas “Mentally Return” inferred a unity that was related to an inner geography, “The Sound of Unity” literally calls on Tibetans traditionally of all three provinces Amdo, Kham and U-Tsang to unite and to draw strength from each other.

Today in Tibet, the cultural has become political. Music, art, poetry, film and writing have all become major channels for Tibetan political self-identification and expression. In response, the Chinese government has jailed dozens of leading intellectuals and artists, as well as prominent community leaders. But as the Chinese government’s crackdown on art and intellectual life with political intonations has increased, so too has the pace with which Tibetans are turning to culture as a means of expression.

It’s hard to imagine a situation in Tibet, short of the Dalai Lama returning, that is more frightening to the Chinese government than the one that is ongoing today. Culture is fueling a political awakening in Tibet and in turn, an increasing politicized Tibetan populace is turning to art, music, and poetry to express their political views in the open.

This first broke earlier this week on Phayul, but Radio Free Asia now has more details. Chinese security forces opened fire on a crowd of Tibetans who were peacefully protesting in Palyul county. The Tibetans were protesting ” the expansion of a gold mining operation they say is harming the environment.” The shooting took place on August 17th and it is believed that 4 people were killed and as many as 30 more protesters were wounded in the shooting by Chinese security forces.

RFA reports that Palyul is being locked down by overwhelming Chinese security presence:

Drime Gyaltsen, a Tibetan monk living in India, said he was informed by sources in Palyul that additional security forces had been sent to the area to quell further unrest.

“Additional forces arrived from the neighboring Kardze and Dege counties. Right now all the roads leading to Palyul are blocked and residents are not allowed to move about freely,” he said.

An on-duty officer who answered the phone at the Palyul police station said he had only recently joined the force and was not fully informed regarding the confrontation.

“That incident is not resolved yet. I don’t know the details. You can call tomorrow when our senior officials come to our office,” he said.

The cause of the protests were concerns by local Tibetans of the damage mining activities were inflicting on the area.

The group complained that gold mining operations by the Chinese-owned Kartin Company had led to an overcrowded population, severely degraded the fertility of their farmland, and adversely affected the local grassland habitat.

“The county officials refused to hear their plea and, instead of listening to them, had the petitioners detained,” Drime Gyaltsen said.

“The Tibetan villagers saw this as deliberate bullying, and about 40 additional Tibetans arrived at the Palyul county center demanding the release of those detained and calling for officials to compensate them for the destruction of their land,” he said.

The group picketed in front of the county government office for three days, and in the early hours of the fourth day police used an incapacitating gas on the crowd and attempted to take them away in waiting vehicles, Drime Gyaltsen said.

“When some of the protesters affected by the gas were being forced into the vehicles, their comrades who were unaffected … resorted to shouting and began protesting. At that time, the police fired their weapons,” he said.

Tibetans are not consulted when Chinese mining (or logging or drilling etc) companies come to Tibet to extract Tibet’s natural resources. When Chinese companies (or Western companies for that matter) come to take Tibet’s natural resources, they bring cheap laborers from China. There is no consultation about where the mining can and should take place, leading to the destruction of Tibet’s sacred lands and spiritual places. Throw into the mix the consequences of mining – polluted water, degraded soil, reduced grazing lands and so on – and you have a mix that almost guarantees that indigenous Tibetans will reach a breaking point. Unfortunately, while the Tibetans in Palyul expressed their frustration in peaceful protest, Chinese security forces used homicidal violence to quell Tibetan dissent.

While a crackdown is ongoing in Palyul, RFA reports that local officials are negotiating with Tibetans and the Chinese government may begin an investigation into how mining is affecting the area. This is a step in the right direction, though I doubt it would have happened in the absence of Tibetans protesting the mining and the Chinese forces then murdering them. The inability for the Chinese government to find ways to develop Tibet with consultation of and input from local Tibetans is one of the kinetic forces that is going to continue to drive protest and Tibetan self-identification. This is a huge problem for the Chinese government and their continued military occupation of Tibet.

Ellen Bork, the Foreign Policy Initiative‘s Director of Democracy and Human Rights has a really great piece on how the Obama administration is failing to pursue a clear Tibet policy, to the detriment of Tibet and possibly in violation of statute. Of note from the piece, which should be read in its entirety:

The administration’s downplaying of Tibet undermines Chinese liberal intellectuals and activists who have criticized Beijing’s policies on Tibet at great risk to themselves. After the March 2008 uprising, a Chinese think tank called the Open Constitution Initiative issued a report challenging Beijing’s position that the riots were incited by the Dalai Lama and criticizing the crackdown that followed. This organization was later shut down and its staff harassed.

In addition, 29 intellectuals, lawyers and activists signed an open letter in March 2008 supporting dialogue with the Dalai Lama and urging and end to official propaganda vilifying him and Tibetans. One of them, Liu Xiaobo was later prosecuted on subversion charges for his writings and sentenced to jail for 11 years.

American officials should know by now that nothing is gained by acquiescing to China’s overbearing behavior on Tibet or any other issue. Adapting to Beijing’s “correct understanding” of Tibet undermines not only the Dalai Lama and human rights for Tibetans, but also America’s own “core interest” in seeing these respected in Tibet and China as well. To be credible, America must clearly and publicly pursue a well-established policy on Tibet.

This is interesting:

With over 600,000 people, including hundreds of Chinese, following him on networking site Twitter, the Dalai Lama has said the non-resolution of the Tibet issue is making the voices of those seeking independence of Tibet from China grow stronger.

Answering questions from his Chinese followers on Twitter, which he joined last month, the Dalai Lama said: “There are forces within our community such as the Tibetan Youth Congress who criticise our Middle Way policy and demand complete independence (for Tibet). It seems their voices are growing stronger (these days).

“We cannot blame them for this since our successive efforts to bring about a mutually beneficial solution (to the issue of Tibet) have failed to produce any positive results and, under such a situation, their viewpoint is gaining momentum (in our society).”

The Dalai Lama whose middle path approach for the last few decade has been seeking autonomy for Tibet under China, was replying to a question from a Chinese follower who wanted to know whether Tibetans will resort to violence and terrorist activities after his death.

The 1989 Nobel Peace Prize winner was submitted 317 questions recently by 1,558 Chinese people through renowned Chinese writer Wang Lixiong. A total of 11,705 Chinese netizens voted for 10 most important questions out of which this was listed as the most important question.

For the Dalai Lama to speak publicly and recognize the growing call within the Tibetan community both inside and outside of Tibet for independence, and not autonomy, is a strong statement about where Tibetans are these days. It’s also a good sign in that it speaks to the volume of calls for independence being able to penetrate the Dalai Lama’s inner circle (or dare I say, bubble).

What’s more, the Dalai Lama is rightly placing blame on the Chinese government for their failure to be good faith negotiating partners with the Tibetan Government in Exile. The lack of progress in these occasional dialogues only serves to solidify the desire among Tibetans for real independence; the Chinese government has shown that they are not ready and willing partners with Tibetans. What is clear is that the Dalai Lama is cognizant of the consequences of fruitless dialogues with the Chinese government. The results are not going to go in the direction that the TGIE, nor even the Chinese government, want. Delay only strengthens the resolve for independence, as it validates the critique of Rangzen (independence) supporters of the Chinese government not having any interest in finding a solution to the Tibet question. Obviously it isn’t satisfying to be right when the lives of millions of people hang in the balance, but what this all shows is that those of us who have advocated for Rangzen have accurately understood the Chinese government’s long-term strategy in their relationship with the TGIE: delay and stall. To borrow a phrase from Dennis Green, they are who we thought they are.

My friend Josh Schrei happened to be traveling in Ladakh, a historically Tibetan region in northern India, when the area was hit by uncharacteristic rain storms that prompted massive flooding and mudslides. It is likely that over 1,000 people were killed in the landslides, which fundamentally changed the region. The quotes that follow from Josh are from a series of emails he’s sent, though I expect if he gets the opportunity, he will post them online. Josh reports (Update: at the Huffington Post):

If the scope of the devastation isn’t clear or is overshadowed by Gansu, let me just say that all the economic development that Ladakh has enjoyed over the last 15 years is totally gone. Every river valley and over a dozen villages are either effected or totally wiped out. Death toll will be above 1,000, and, given the remoteness here, probably never accurate. As of today the tourist death toll is 23. It is going to take them years and years to rebuild and they need help.

He describes the rarity of the situation:

I returned from Pangong to Leh to find something rather unusual. It had been raining there, which it almost never does. Ladakh is a desert, absolutely dry and free of vegetation, the lush river valleys fed entirely by Himalayan snowmelt. The monsoon weather of the Indian subcontinent is blocked by the vast wall of mountains to the south. For there to be successive days of rain was almost unheard of. I asked my guesthouse owner about it, and he was unequivocal in his answer. “It never does this. Global warming.”

And here is Josh’s description of the storm’s aftermath:

In one hour, the land of Ladakh was forever changed. This vast country shifted. Every valley in the Ladakh range of the Himalaya saw high mountains dislodge themselves downwards. Tragically, the way Ladakh is constructed, every village clings to a river valley of mountain snowmelt, and when these mountains dislodge themselves downwards, there are people living underneath.

The next morning I heard from my guesthouse owner that there had been “some problem” at the bus station from the rain. Instinctively, I grabbed my camera and headed down. As I went, rumors grew of the scale of the “problem.” One person along the route said that the Leh bus station was “gone.”

Yes, the bus station was gone. A vast river of mud and rock had torn through central Leh, ripping apart houses, demolishing shops, flattening structures to the ground. Buses were tossed about like toys, slammed up against buildings, wedged under trucks, flattened and twisted in incomprehensible shapes. As I walked down the length of the slide, I realized that it was far more than the bus station. The cascade extended all the way down the valley, 2 miles or more, and much of lower Leh was, well, utterly ruined. I saw a schoolyard buried under 8 feet of mud, its basketball hoops just managing to peer over the top of the slide. I saw bloated cows tossed about, and one lonely, dazed donkey, wandering through the wreckage, covered in dried mud and bleating sadly, perhaps just to hear the sound of his own voice. And yes, I saw bodies. Leh hospital was quickly lined with them. Bulldozers lifted splayed-limbed victims out of heaps and heaps of mud.

Josh has already spent days helping dig out from under the wreckage. He asks that if you want to help in the relief efforts, you can make a donation to the Ladakhi Buddhist Association, the main relief organization on the ground, at www.gadenrelief.org.

The Times UK (subscription link) is reporting that Dorje Tashi, believed to be the wealthiest Tibetan in Tibet, has been sentenced to life in prison by the Chinese government. No charges have been disclosed, though it is suspected that Dorje Tashi is being targeted for political activities. His trial lasted only three days and his brother was also sentenced to six years in jail, again on unknown charges.

Dorje Tashi was arrested and held without charges after the spring 2008 national uprising; his brother was arrested shortly after and held as well.

What’s particularly notable with the Times’ report is this passage:

Dorje Tashi had many other business interests and was believed to have close links with the Chinese authorities in Tibet that had enabled him to build up his enterprises and which prompted many Tibetans to regard him as something of a turncoat.

Shortly after his arrest, reports surfaced that he had been held on charges of corruption. However, Tibetan sources said there were also rumours that, like many other well-off Tibetans, he had donated some of his wealth to monasteries or even to the Dalai Lama.

Such donations would have enraged the authorities after most of the main monasteries in and around Lhasa staged peaceful demonstrations in the days leading up to the March 14, 2008 riot.

Robbie Barnett, a Tibet expert at Columbia University, said the harsh sentence underlined talk in Tibet of a pattern or retribution against prosperous Tibetans suspected of giving money to monasteries.

He said: “It looks like a long-term drive among Tibet officials to oppose and criticise lay donations to monasteries. It is baffling because leading businessmen have always avoided politics as far as anyone has ever known and have benefited from the current Chinese economic system.”

This isn’t terribly different from other prominent cases we’ve seen over the last two years. Dorje Tashi had close ties to the occupying Chinese government and officialdom. He was a respected businessman who ran one of the most successful hotels in Lhasa. He had no history of public political action. And yet, he was detained and disappeared for over two years and even now, there is no clarity about what charges he faced and why he was convicted.

This is a fairly similar set of facts to the jailing and subsequent disappearance of Karma Samdrup, a prominent Tibetan environmentalist and philanthropist who was long considered to be a widely respected Tibetan with close ties to the Chinese government.

While there is similarity between Dorje Tashi and Karma Samdrup’s cases – prominent, wealthy, non-political Tibetans with close ties to the Chinese government – there is not the same degree of similarity to the cases of Tibetan artists and cultural figures who have recently been arrested. Some of the most prominent are the writer Shogdung, the musician Tashi Dhondup, the blogger Kunchok Tsephel, and the film maker Dhondup Wangchen. While these are very famous and prominent individuals, they were somewhat more openly political than what we know about Dorje Tashi and Karma Samdrup. These cultural figures have been first and foremost advocates for Tibetan culture. But the culture has become political, as Tibet is undergoing an intellectual and artistic Renaissance.

The common denominator in all of these cases is that the Chinese government is cracking down on any Tibetan individual who achieves prominence, even within the colonial system, and maintains a Tibetan identity. Cultural leadership and preservation of the Tibetan identity is a threat to the continued Chinese occupation of Tibet. As cultural outlets become more consistent avenues for expressions of political views, the Chinese government’s stranglehold on power will only be more threatened.

The problem with this is that culture should be an outlet that every nation has free and open recourse to, regardless of the content of the ideas expressed in song, poem, film, and art.  Cracking down on cultural figures, environmentalists and businessmen is the sign of a powerful dynamic in Tibet: ever-increasing sickness of Chinese rule and ever-increasing strength of the Tibetan identity. In the long run, it is exactly this dynamic that is most likely to bring change to Tibet.

It hasn’t been widely reported in the US media, but late last week there was massive flooding which caused a landslide in Drugchu, Amdo, Tibet (Chinese: Zhouqu, Gansu Province). Drugchu is in north eastern Tibet; the Tibet Action mapping project is keeping track of incoming reports (as well as of recent flooding in Ladakh, a Tibetan area of northern India). The latest update is that there are over 700 confirmed dead and over 1,000 people still missing.

It appears that many Tibetans on the ground believe this disaster to be directly or indirectly caused (or exacerbated) by large scale mining activities, damming and major deforestation in the region. Oiwan Lam at Global Voices Online has a report on this, based around work by Tibetan poet and blogger Woeser, who is combing Twitter for updates and responses.  Oiwan Lam documents a long history of warnings coming from Tibetans about the dangers of flooding and landslides in Drugchu from many construction projects and logging, as well as a lack of adequate notification systems for landslides and flooding. In short, this was not a natural disaster, but a man-made disaster, caused by the Chinese government’s reckless resource exploitation policies, which coincidentally displayed a massive disregard for the value of Tibetan life.

As has always been the case in human history, being an apologist for the colonizing activities of empires is a desirable and rewarding business. One notable China apologist posing as an academic in Hong Kong is Barry Sautman, who recently has published a number of essays and even a PowerPoint presentation in which he puts for “historical” evidence for Tibet always being a part of China, since time began. Over at Rangzen.net Professor Elliot Sperling takes on Barry Sautman’s polemical case on Tibet’s historical status. Sperling does this by simultaneously using primary sources where Sautman is using only secondary or tertiary sources, as well as by exploding internal inconsistencies in Sautman’s writing.

Sperling’s piece is well written and you don’t have to be intimately familiar with the history of Tibet and China going back thousands of years for his case against Sautman to be devastating. I definitely recommend giving it a read.

I’m just getting word that Tibetan environmental activist Karma Samdrup has been sentenced to 15 years over bogus charges of political activities that defy even the cynical standards of the Chinese government’s crackdown in Tibet.

Andrew Jacobs of the New York Times had a great piece on Karma Samdrup and his brothers, as well as other instances of the Chinese government’s crackdown on Tibetan intellectuals, artists, and activists.  I’ve seen a lot of crazy cases where the Chinese government drums up charges against Tibetan political figures, but the Samdrup case goes so far beyond what even the CCP does, that it is truly Kafka-esq. What makes it particularly remarkable is that Samdrup is a wealthy art dealer and environmentalist who is widely known in China and viewed as someone who has really worked within the system and did not engage in politics.

Kate Saunders of the International Campaign for Tibet summed up what’s happening with the current crackdown well:

Kate Saunders of the International Campaign for Tibet said the recent arrests of about 50 poets, bloggers and songwriters represented the most concerted attack on the educated and artistic elite since the Cultural Revolution ended in 1976.

“It appears that almost any expression of Tibetan identity can be categorized as separatist or reactionary,” she said in an interview from London. “These are not angry monks raising their fists in protest but people working within the system who are engaged in work that’s essential for a healthy civil society.”

What is also remarkable is the extent to which a number of the recent cases of China detaining and jailing Tibetans have received a fair deal of international attention, including that of the writer Shogdung, the musician Tashi Dhondup, the blogger Kunchok Tsephel, and the film maker Dhondup Wangchen.

The Chinese government is petrified of Tibetans. That much is clear. What is frightening is that they are more scared of Tibetans than what the outside world thinks of their actions. Though, that may be a statement about how little the West is willing to pressure the Chinese government on human rights and political prisoners.