IMPERIAL ARROGANCE CREATES ITS OWN DOWNFALL Reflections on a visit to Vienna at the invitation of SaveTibet, and a talk given at Universitet fur Bodenkultur, 11 April 2011, by Gabriel Lafitte Here in Vienna, as always, the situation is critical but not yet serious. On the surface all is well, the heurigen (wine bars) do […]
Category: China
Issues within China
WHAT COULD EUROPE DO TO HELP TIBET? A briefing by Gabriel Lafitte Presented at European Parliament Tibet Intergroup 30 March 2011 www.rukor.org, editor@rukor.org, +613 407 840 333 In a world where active, violent conflicts inevitably dominate headlines and the attention of policymakers, unresolved conflict over Tibet attracts less attention. It is a political reality of […]
MOBILITY AND MOBILISATION: WHY MODERN STATES CANNOT TRUST NOMADS Gabriel Lafitte March 2011 China, at its imperial centre, has long mistrusted the mobility of the nomads of its northern and western edges. The mobility of the nomads was always the core of imperial fears and strategies. Mobility was an ever-present problem for successive dynasties facing […]
CHINA’S FIRST FIVE-YEAR PLAN FOR TIBET By Gabriel Lafitte March 2011 China’s 12th Five-Year Plan has been launched, covering the years 2011 through 2015. This twelfth plan continues a lineage of central plans originating in the revolutionary years when Stalin’s Soviet Union was the model for everything, including the dream of a […]