CHINESE ROCKET SCIENCE AND THE “WICKED” PROBLEMS OF TIBET #5 in a series on THE FUTURE OF TIBET The engineers of the old Politburo that retired in 2012 had a secret religion, called metasynthetic engineering. It worships computerised modelling of reality, believing that there is a rational, scientific solution to all social problems. The key […]
PERVERSE OUTCOMES FOR CHINA AND FOR TIBET #4 in a series on THE FUTURE OF TIBET Why are Tibetans so unhappy? Why have 70 Tibetans burned their bodies in protest? Is it possible to understand this solely as a question of religious repression and individual rights? China’s policies are failing to meet China’s own goals […]
ALLOCATING TIBET A ROLE IN THE GLOBAL DIVISION OF LABOUR #3 in a blog series on THE FUTURE OF TIBET If China succeeds in enmeshing Tibet with the lowland economy of China, Tibet will not only be re-oriented to look east for all economic connection, it will also be globalised. China is deeply enmeshed in […]
CHINA’S SCALED UP INTERVENTIONS IN TIBETAN LIVES AND LIVELIHOODS #2 in a series on CHINA AND THE FUTURE OF TIBET China has big plans for the Tibetan Plateau. China has long had big plans for Tibet, but often they failed to materialise, or eventuated in unexpected and perverse ways that did not meet Chinese expectations, […]
INTRODUCING A NEW SERIES OF REPORTS ON TODAY’S CHINA & IMPACTS ON TIBET CHINA’S NEW LEADERS: CAN THERE BE A RESTART ON TIBET? China has new leaders. A new generation has replaced the engineers who believed all problems have an engineering solution, including human engineering on a large scale, shifting entire populations away from ancestral […]
GEOLOGISING THE ROOF OF THE WORLD In 2013 the 25,000 worldwide members of the Geological Society of America will celebrate the organisation’s 125th birthday. GSA is a global fraternity of the profession of geology, and is flourishing. Fed by competitive resource nationalisms, fears expressed by governments that they should not have to depend on other […]
HOUSING TIBET IN COMFORT: CHINA’S ULTIMATE SOLUTION TO ALL TIBETAN PROBLEMS Paper for TIBET POLICY INSTITUTE SEMINAR ON TIBET THIRD POLE 11 APRIL 2012 In the middle of a lengthy 2012 polemic against self-immolations in Tibet, a senior Communist Party leader said: “To improve the living standards of monks and nuns in the Tibet autonomous […]
THE SHORT LIFE OF JAMPHEL YESHI A shower of white silk scarves thrown from even the farthest edges of the great crowd, rethrown and rethrown, fluttered inwards to the bier atop which lay the charred body of Jamphel Yeshi, an unknown Tibetan of no country, and no home, his life taken by his own hand. […]
REPRESENTING TIBETAN ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT: What do we mean by our ten top key phrases? A presentation to a TIBET POLICY INSTITUTE seminar 29 March 2012 So many people speak of Tibet, or for Tibet, with various agendas. The language used to represent today’s Tibet inevitably settles on metaphors which do a lot of work, […]
CHINA’S KEY METAPHORS OF TIBET’S ENVIRONMENT: Presentation given to TIBET POLICY INSTITUTE seminar 29 March 2012-03-27 China has a set of slogans that define its approach to the environments of the Tibetan Plateau. These key metaphors, endlessly repeated, shape China’s thinking, limit China’s imagination, close Chinese minds to the complex circumstances on the ground that […]