• UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      21 hours ago

      Quality of life in Tibet improved enormously under Chinese rule. LIfe expectancies rose from 37 to 78. Literacy jumped from the low 30%s to the mid 70%s. Tibetan lay residents owned their own homes for the first time in their nation’s history. The region’s economy expanded rapidly as did the population, thanks to modernizations in transportation, agriculture, and health care.

      Meanwhile, with the colonial status of Hong Kong at an end and the city incorporated into the general Chinese economy, neighboring Shenzhen has enjoyed a similar economic boom. Residents can move freely into and out of the SEZ in a way they couldn’t under English occupation, they use a common currency rather than relying on conversions to and from British pounds, and they are free from British home rule. Most importantly, the residents are subject to the same taxation and civil rights afforded to the rest of the country - bringing an end to such labor atrocities as the 996 system, tax avoidance, and ecological crimes like illegal fishing and dumping.

      Given the nightmarish wave of fascist policies currently spilling over the UK, I cannot imagine why anyone would envy living on the other side of the planet while being subjected to a Tommy Robinson inspired government.

      • shawn1122@sh.itjust.works
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        9 hours ago

        The problem with this argument is that it assumes Chinese imperialism was necessary to defeudalize Tibet. It’s the same argument that’s often made to justify imperialism I’m afraid. It’s nothing new or special.

        More importantly, it doesn’t justify forced sinicization which is what China has in mind for the region. We defeudalized you so now we get to ethnically cleanse you is a wild take by any measure.

        • AntiOutsideAktion@lemmy.ml
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          4 hours ago

          The problem with this argument is that it assumes Chinese imperialism was necessary to defeudalize Tibet

          You failed to consider my mind palace, fool! I can imagine things going better! The perfect IS the enemy of good, but only in hindsight!

          We defeudalized you so now we get to forcibly assimilate you / erase your culture is wildly unacceptable by any measure.

          You thought my mind palace only had one weapon? Fool! I can invent reality wholecloth!

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          5 hours ago

          it assumes Chinese imperialism was necessary to defeudalize Tibet

          It assumes Chinese Maoists aided Tibetan communists in their overthrow of the brutal theocracy that governed the country to date.

          Certainly possible this could have happened another way, in the same way you might argue the US could have revolted against England without the help of France.

          But the idea that Chinese integration with Tibet constitutes “imperialism” presumes China’s economy is parasitic - leeching resources, robbing land, and press ganging laborers for the benefit of Beijing. None of that is in evidence. Just the contrary. China and Tibet have been engaged in reciprocal mutual aid, to the benefit of both regions.

          Most importantly, it doesn’t justify forced sinicization

          Capital improvements being reframed as “forced sinicization” is just American agitprop. The Chinese government is extending education as an amenity to a province that lacked it. The Tibetans are learning Mandarin because it benefits them to speak fluently with their wealthy neighbors.

          For the same reason Indonesians learn English and Italians learn German, Tibetans are learning Mandarin.

          • shawn1122@sh.itjust.works
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            4 hours ago

            Tibet’s communist movement sought modernization but was sidelined by Beijing. The 1950 invasion was a military annexation by the PLA, not a domestic Marxist uprising.

            France aided an independent American rebellion against a colonial power without occupying the US. China annexed an autonomous Tibet, replacing its government with direct Beijing rule.

            Beijing’s “mutual aid” masked extraction. The 1959 uprising followed vast expropriation of Tibetan land and nomadic forced collectivization, triggering famines documented by the Panchen Lama’s 70,000-Character Petition.

            Replacing Tibetan-medium education with Mandarin-first boarding schools is documented forced assimilation, not an amenity. The UN (2023) stated this system affects one million children, systematically eroding Tibetan identity.

            Indonesians chose English for global trade while maintaining their state language. Tibetans face structural coercion; Mandarin is legally mandated for employment, litigation, and civic survival.

            • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
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              21 minutes ago

              All of this is provably false, and the fact that you aren’t posting a source tells me its probably AI generated from an RFA article.

            • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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              3 hours ago

              The 1950 invasion was a military annexation by the PLA, not a domestic Marxist uprising.

              Tibet wasn’t militarily annexed in 1950, because it was never officially independent. It was annexed in 1720 by the Qing Dynasty and only briefly splintered into an autocratic theocracy during the civil war.

              Indonesians chose English for global trade while maintaining their state language. Tibetans face structural coercion

              You must be joking.

              Which Fortune 500 companies allow you to speak Indonesian exclusively?

              Tibetan is dying out as a language because the Tibetan nationalists never bothered to build up educational infrastructure when they were in charge.

        • 秦始皇帝@lemmy.ml
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          8 hours ago

          You start your argument with a misuse of the term “imperialism.” Imperialism does not simply mean “a state intervening in a region.” In the modern political-economic sense developed by Hobson and Lenin, it refers to the outward expansion of advanced capitalist powers, driven by monopoly interests, finance capital, capital export, military coercion, and the subordination of peripheral economies for the extraction of superprofits. Calling the PLA’s entry into Tibet “Chinese imperialism” simply flattens a specific historical category into a generic moral label that explains nothing if value and holds little analytical meaning.

          You also treat Tibet as if it were an external colony comparable to India under Britain or Algeria under France. That simply does not hold historically. Tibet was incorporated into the Yuan state in the 13th century and remained, through changing forms of rule and varying degrees of central control, within the historical framework of the Chinese state. You can dispute the details of that history, but treating the PLA’s entry as a straightforward case of foreign colonial annexation is not serious analysis.

          You also erase Tibetan class divisions. You treat the old Tibetan ruling strata as “the Tibetan people” while ignoring serfs, slaves, poor peasants, lower clergy, and pro-unification Tibetan figures. The old order was not a democratic national community. It was a theocratic-feudal system dominated by aristocrats, officials, and upper-ranking monastery authorities. Serfs and slaves made up the overwhelming majority of the population, while land, political authority, and legal power were concentrated in the hands of a tiny ruling bloc.

          This means “self-determination” cannot be discussed abstractly. Self-determination for whom? For the aristocrats and monastery estates that controlled land and labor? For the old theocratic administration? Or for the oppressed majority living under that system? If your concept of self-determination means preserving the political power of a serf-owning theocracy, then it is not the self-determination of the people. It is the self-determination of the old ruling class.

          Nor is it accurate to pretend that Tibetans themselves had no role in calling for change. The 10th Panchen Erdeni telegraphed Mao Zedong and Zhu De in 1949 calling for troops to liberate Tibet and expel imperialist forces, and Reting Yeshe Tsultrim also urged the PLA to liberate Tibet as soon as possible the 10th Panchen Lama and Reting Yeshe Tsultrim urged PLA liberation of Tibet.

          It is also worth noting that the central government did not immediately impose sweeping social reform after 1951. Reform was delayed, and in 1956 the central government decided that no reform would be carried out in Tibet for six years. However after the 1959 rebellion (which was materially led by the CIA through the training, arming, and insertion of Tibetan guerrillas drawn from anti-communist and former ruling-class networks) democratic reform was carried out. This reform responded to the demands of broad sections of the Tibetan masses who did not want to return to serfdom should these rebellions of the old ruling class succeed. Just a side note on the rebellion: imperialist powers have repeatedly cultivated separatist or reactionary forces inside socialist and postcolonial states in order to fragment them, weaken central sovereignty, and preserve geopolitical leverage (look at ETIM, the groups such as ISIS and BokoHaram in Africa funded through the CFA Franc etc.). Dismissing Tibetan support for reform altogether simply reproduces the viewpoint of the old elite and its foreign backers.

          The “forced Sinicization” claim is also overstated. There has been no general outlawing of the Tibetan language, Tibetan religion, or Tibetan public cultural expression. Tibetan remains visible in public signage, official settings, education, media, and cultural life. Tibetan and Chinese are both used on public signs, in official documents, and across public institutions; Tibetan is also taught in schools as a major course of study. That does not mean there are no tensions or criticisms to make about state policy, but the claim that Tibetan culture is simply being erased is not supported by the basic observable reality.

          • shawn1122@sh.itjust.works
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            4 hours ago

            Lenin’s definition shouldn’t obscure Chinese hegemony. The PLA’s Annexation of Tibet fits social imperialism: a powerful state subjugating a distinct territory for geopolitical security, resources, and strategic border expansion.

            Suzerainty is not sovereignty. The Yuan and Qing rules were loose, indirect, and distinct from integration. In 1912, Tibet expelled Chinese forces, maintaining de facto independence until 1950.

            Feudal inequality existed, but Beijing weaponized class rhetoric to justify conquest. True liberation requires internal reform, not external military subjugation, cultural erasure, and the absolute destruction of local self-governance.

            Self-determination belongs to the Tibetan people, not Beijing. Replacing a local theocracy with totalitarian Han-dominated party rule merely substituted indigenous exploitation with foreign oppression, denying Tibetans any genuine autonomy.

            Selectively quoting the Panchen Lama ignores geopolitical duress. The Panchen Lama was a teenager held under Chinese custody; his “telegrams” were coerced propaganda tools, not a democratic mandate for invasion.

            The 1959 uprising was a popular revolt against broken promises, not just CIA plots. “Democratic reforms” meant land collectivization, the destruction of thousands of monasteries, and devastating famine for masses.

            Bilingual signs mask systemic erasure. Monasteries face strict party surveillance, nomadic way of life was forcibly ended, and boarding schools separate children from their culture, driving systemic, institutionalized Sinicization.

            • 秦始皇帝@lemmy.ml
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              4 hours ago

              “Chinese hegemony” is not the same thing as imperialism, and calling it “social imperialism” does not solve the problem. Again as you seem to have missed it the first time, in the modern political-economic sense developed by Hobson and Lenin, imperialism refers to the outward expansion of advanced capitalist powers through finance capital, monopoly interests, capital export, military coercion, and the subordination of peripheral economies to extract superprofits. The PLA’s entry into Tibet was not Britain in India, France in Algeria, or Belgium in Congo. It was part of the broader liberation and reunification of China after a century of imperialist fragmentation, warlordism, foreign encroachment, and reactionary rule.

              Your second point is just a defence of the monastic aristocracy with nicer language. “Suzerainty is not sovereignty” is a formalistic dodge. Tibet had been part of the Chinese state framework since the Yuan, and the fact that central control varied over time does not make Tibet an overseas colony or a foreign country in the colonial sense. The 1912–1950 period was not some clean democratic expression of Tibetan popular sovereignty. It was the old aristocratic-monastic ruling class exploiting China’s weakness during the Republican collapse and imperialist encirclement to preserve its own power. They were not trying to create a democratic Tibet. They were trying to keep full control over the labour, land, taxes, and bodies of the serfs and slaves beneath them. The “self determination” was only that of the monastic aristocracy.

              You keep saying “cultural erasure,” but you have not shown actual erasure. Tibetan has not been outlawed. Tibetan is widely spoken, used in public life, present on signs, used in official and legal contexts, and taught in schools. Tibetan and Chinese both continue to be used in official documents, judicial proceedings, public institutions, transport, finance, signage, publishing, radio, television, and education Tibetan is used in official documents, courts, schools, media, public institutions, and public signage. Bilingual teaching in Tibetan and Chinese is carried out in schools, Tibetan is listed as an exam subject, and Tibetan-language publishing, broadcasting, and cultural preservation programmes continue Tibetan-language education, publishing, broadcasting, and cultural preservation are officially supported.

              Your self-determination argument again collapses because you never specify whose self-determination you are defending. Old Tibet was not a democratic national community. It was a theocratic serf society. The three major estate-holding groups (officials, nobles, and upper-ranking monks) made up a tiny minority but controlled the land, pastures, forests, livestock, legal authority, and political institutions. Serfs and slaves made up over 95 percent of the population and had no meaningful say in this supposed “self-determination”. What you are calling “Tibetan self-determination” was, in practice, the political autonomy of a serf-owning ruling class.

              The “Han-dominated party rule” line is also revealing. It is a standard orientalist liberal move: assume that a multiethnic socialist state is automatically “Han domination,” while treating the old monastic slaveholding order as somehow more authentically Tibetan. In reality, China’s regional ethnic autonomy system legally guarantees representation for minority nationalities. In Xizang, the offices of chairperson or vice-chairpersons of the regional People’s Congress Standing Committee are occupied by Tibetans, the governor is Tibetan, and 89.2 percent of deputies to people’s congresses at four levels are Tibetan or other ethnic minorities Xizang’s governor and major regional offices are held by Tibetans, and 89.2 percent of deputies are Tibetan or other ethnic minorities.

              Your claim about the Panchen Lama also does not work. I did not present him as a one-man democratic mandate. I presented him as evidence that Tibet was not politically unified behind the old Lhasa elite. The 10th Panchen Erdeni called for the PLA to liberate Tibet and expel imperialist forces, and Reting Yeshe Tsultrim also urged PLA entry. Your argument depends on pretending that “Tibet” had one unified will, represented by the aristocratic-monastic state. It did not. There were class divisions, religious-political divisions, regional divisions, and real support for liberation among people and figures opposed to the old order.

              The 1959 uprising was also not simply a spontaneous popular revolt against “broken promises.” The CIA’s own public material acknowledges that by 1957 the CIA was training and supplying Tibetan resistance forces, and that CIA-trained fighters were parachuted back into Tibet with American weapons and supplies CIA material acknowledges training, supplying, and parachuting Tibetan fighters back into Tibet. This was a Cold War operation in which imperialist forces cultivated armed networks around anti-communist and former ruling-class elements in order to weaken and fragment China.

              Your description of democratic reform is also one-sided. Yes, monasteries lost their political and estate power. That was the point. Monasteries were not merely religious institutions in old Tibet, they were landholding, labour-controlling, judicial, and political institutions tied to the exploitation of serfs. Democratic reform abolished feudal serf ownership, separated religion from government, cancelled the personal bondage of serfs and slaves, redistributed land, and gave former serfs and slaves political rights for the first time democratic reform abolished serf bondage, redistributed land, and gave former serfs and slaves political rights. Calling that “destruction of local self-governance” only makes sense if you identify “local self-governance” with the power of the old slaveholding elite.

              The same applies to your claim about nomads and boarding schools. You are turning every modernization, settlement, education, poverty alleviation, and infrastructure policy into “cultural genocide” by assertion. The dispossessed were given land, housing, schools, healthcare, roads, and access to state services that the old order never provided. Pretending this was simply a draconian campaign to erase Tibetans requires ignoring the fact that Tibetan language, religion, festivals, publishing, broadcasting, public signage, cultural heritage, and traditional practices remain visible and legally protected.

              What is most striking is the class content of your argument. You consistently treat the political wishes of the aristocratic-monastic ruling class as “Tibetan self-determination,” while treating the serfs, slaves, poor peasants, lower clergy, and pro-liberation Tibetans as either irrelevant or brainwashed. That is a racialized and orientalist defence of a “native” ruling class because its aesthetic looks more spiritual and authentic to Western liberal eyes. You are sidelining the 95 percent who lived under serfdom and centring the “rights” of the people who exploited them.

            • RiverRock@lemmy.ml
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              4 hours ago

              Pictured: a Tibetan man enjoying his self-determination prior to the dastardly communist uprising

            • AntiOutsideAktion@lemmy.ml
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              4 hours ago

              Feudal inequality existed, but Beijing weaponized class rhetoric to justify conquest. True liberation requires internal reform, not external military subjugation, cultural erasure, and the absolute destruction of local self-governance.

              Are you reading this out of a civil war textbook in Alabama?

        • OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml
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          8 hours ago

          Are you using the formal or informal definition of imperialism here? Because I don’t see how it meets the formal definition based on my understanding of the underlying economic mechanisms. For example, if they were engaging in imperialism why would Tibetan’s own their own homes instead of the land being taken over and the average peasant being proletarianized/forced into urban centers or large scale production agriculture to work?

          Why would them taking over Tibet be expansionist? Tibet has been part of China for hundreds of years, only breaking off briefly during instability caused by foreign imperialist powers.

          • shawn1122@sh.itjust.works
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            4 hours ago

            By “formal,” you mean a strictly Leninist definition, predicated on capital export and proletarianization. But reducing imperialism to an oversimplified template ignores the more broad, foundational definition: the forced imposition of sovereign control over a another polity.

            The claim that Tibet was “always part of China” relies on a distorted view of the Cho-Yon (priest-patron) relationship with the Mongol and Manchu (Qing) empires. Neither empire was ethnically Han Chinese, and Tibet maintained its own legal, currency, and administrative systems.

            When the Qing fell in 1912, Tibet declared de facto independence, existing as a sovereign state for four decades.

            In 1950, the PLA invaded. While the state retained nominal land ownership, the subsequent collectivization, destruction of monastic institutions, and systematic dilution of Tibetan demographics through Han migration are classic hallmarks of settler-colonial expansion regardless of whether it fits a specific macroeconomic conceptualization.

      • cattywampus@lemmy.world
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        20 hours ago

        So I’m just taking your word for all this or is there some proof of this from a source without an incentive to make the numbers good or bad? China famously doesn’t openly share accurate negative information about itself.