Sunday, March 30, 2008

Chinese idea that Tibetans would be happy with Chinese rule if not for Western subversion

I am quite worried about very common Chinese "anti-Western" interpretation of current disorder in Tibet which is that the West (via CIA, etc.) controls the Dalai Lama who instigates Tibetans in Tibet to revolt leading to spoiling the Olympics causing Chinese national loss of face and thereby inhibiting China's rise to great power status. Many Han Chinese I know are individually very angry with Westerners in general because they think like this.

This line of thought could lead to bad things in China domestically and in China's foreign policy. It would discredit the "Western" human rights doctrine in China and tend to make China confrontational rather than cooperative in international relations.

1 comment:

Xujun said...

True. The overheated nationalism sentiment in China is my concern as well. And the desire to become a superpower is bad for sure. On the other hand, the western bias toward China does not help either. I am increasingly disturbed by the fact that all my American writer friends still view the present Chinese government as the same "evil" as in the past. Thus all they (Americans) do is protest and damn, and branding the Beijing Olympics as "genocide Olympics". This attitude does not encourage changes. It only fans anger and more nationalism from the Chinese people, especially the young generation.