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Hu acknowledges the elephant in the room
Apr. 11th, 2008 11:12 pm...at least from the Chinese point of view. Here's the article from Reuters, echoed by the New York Times:
"[Chinese President Hu Jintao]'s comments, reported by the Xinhua news agency, were among the clearest yet from the top echelon of China's leadership framing the Tibet troubles as an existential threat to the country.
"Our conflict with the Dalai clique is not an ethnic problem, not a religious problem, nor a human rights problem," Hu said.
"It is a problem of either preserving national unity or splitting the motherland."
Chinese officials have warned that groups campaigning for independence in Tibet have joined Muslim Uighurs fighting for an independent "East Turkestan" in the northwest region of Xinjiang."
This is why the Chinese government will not budge on Tibet, will not budge on Taiwan, and will not budge on Xinjiang. It's why getting Hong Kong and, god help us all, even Macao back was so important for them. They're a federative empire, they know it, and they have very clear memories of what happened to the USSR.
It's all a good chunk of why Leopold Kohr's The Breakdown of Nations is perhaps the 20th Century's most prophetic book.
"[Chinese President Hu Jintao]'s comments, reported by the Xinhua news agency, were among the clearest yet from the top echelon of China's leadership framing the Tibet troubles as an existential threat to the country.
"Our conflict with the Dalai clique is not an ethnic problem, not a religious problem, nor a human rights problem," Hu said.
"It is a problem of either preserving national unity or splitting the motherland."
Chinese officials have warned that groups campaigning for independence in Tibet have joined Muslim Uighurs fighting for an independent "East Turkestan" in the northwest region of Xinjiang."
This is why the Chinese government will not budge on Tibet, will not budge on Taiwan, and will not budge on Xinjiang. It's why getting Hong Kong and, god help us all, even Macao back was so important for them. They're a federative empire, they know it, and they have very clear memories of what happened to the USSR.
It's all a good chunk of why Leopold Kohr's The Breakdown of Nations is perhaps the 20th Century's most prophetic book.
