HOW CAN TIBET BE IN ANYONE’S NATIONAL INTEREST? Tibetans have a genius for timing, for seizing the moment when it arrives. Such moments are rare, even more so these days in a world distracted by each rich nation’s internal problems, deficits, austerity programs and precarious economies. Yet there is a highly professional band of Tibetans […]
A SERIES OF THREE BLOGS ON CHINA’S LEADING INTELLECTUALS AND THEIR SELF-REFERENTIAL WORLD ONE: THE ENDURING APPEAL OF ESSENTIAL CHINESENESS Many Tibetans, whether in or beyond Tibet, take whatever opportunity that arises to engage with educated Chinese, in the hope of sparking dialogue, even a meeting of minds. The results are usually disappointing. […]
A SERIES OF BLOGS ON CHINA’S LEADING INTELLECTUALS AND THEIR SELF-REFERENTIAL WORLD TWO: THE DISSIDENT LIBERAL LEFTIST WANG HUI: FRIEND OF TIBETAN HYDRO DAM PROTESTERS Not all Chinese intellectuals belong to the party-state establishment, or toe the mass line. Although open dissent in Tibet is not […]
A SERIES OF BLOGS ON CHINA’S LEADING INTELLECTUALS AND THEIR SELF-REFERENTIAL WORLD THREE: THE DISSIDENT LIBERAL LEFTIST WANG HUI: THE PAIN OF THE TIBETANS IS A FIGMENT OF WESTERN FANTASISTS CHINA, CENTRE OF ALL UNDER HEAVEN There is so much in Chinese tradition to draw on that leading intellectuals compete by cutting […]
THE TIBETAN FRONT LINE OF THE CONTEMPORARY SECURITY STATE Thanks to the unending flow of top secret documents going public, we now know that every state spies on everyone, not only to monitor terrorists but also to manoeuvre for military, political and commercial advantage. We have long known China does this, to intercept the military […]
MONGOLIA’S PASTORAL NOMADS IN NEOLIBERAL FREE FALL In Mongolia, a democracy for almost 25 years, popular disappointment in the corruption of successive, elected governments has reached a point of disillusion deep enough to trigger symbolic warrior attacks on the parliament by horsemen armed with bows, arrows and rifles. The statist response has included speech […]
PROVINCIAL MINDS What the global diaspora of Tibetans seldom manage to do is to look at Tibet thru Chinese eyes, not only in Beijing’s eyes but also from the perspective of Lanzhou, Chengdu, Xining and Lhasa. Things look very different if these provincial capitals are the starting point. Lhasa is showered with central money, whatever […]
URBAN TIBET UNDER XI JINPING’S NEW “MASS LINE” Blog 1 of 2 on ideologies and technologies of silencing Tibetans In a secret internal directive to all 80 million members of the Chinese Communist Party, the CCP has made explicit its many fears and siege mentality. The central command is to NOT SPEAK of […]
HOW TO LIVE UNDER LOCKDOWN: URBAN TIBET IN CHINA’S HI-TECH GRID SYSTEM OF SURVEILLANCE AND BEHAVIOURAL COMPLIANCE Blog 2 0f 2 China’s agenda in Tibet explicitly requires Tibetans to state publicly, on the record, their gratefulness to the Chinese Communist Party, and all it has done for Tibet. These public statements of compliance with […]
Spoiling Tibet: China and Resource Nationalism on the Roof of the World by Gabriel Lafitte available now from Zed Books reviewed by Kerry Brown A few years ago, I was seated next to a professor of geology at Oxford University. We broached the subject of China’s resource assets. “China has very little that is easily exploitable,” he said. I asked about […]