NEOLIBERAL CHINA FINDS NEW WAYS OF EXPLOITING TIBET China’s failure to make constructive use of Tibet’s traditional economy is a major tragedy. For decades there was opportunity to build linkages with the Tibetan livestock raising economy and the growing Chinese demand for dairy and animal products. There was ample opportunity, if the Tibetan nomads had […]
MAKING CHINA IMPREGNABLE AGAINST THE RAW BARBARIANS, WITH YET ANOTHER GREAT WALL Ever since the ascendancy of Xi Jinping as China’s new helmsman, at the end of 2012, Tibetans have looked for signs of fresh thinking on ethnic relations. With the optimism so characteristic of Tibetans, they scanned the media for the slightest sign in […]
CREATING “CHINA’S TIBET” Have you ever wondered at the persistent coupling of Tibet with the possessive prefix China’s? China’s Tibet is obsessively used to claim possession, since that claim is so clearly contested. China never talks of China’s Xinjiang, or China’s Sichuan. Let’s unpack that oithy two-word slogan, and look at what it signifies. THE […]
WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF THE TIBETAN PLATEAU, AS INHABITED, USEFUL AND PRODUCTIVE LAND? FIRST OF TWO BLOGPOSTS ON WHAT MAY HAPPEN SOON TO TIBET Mining and land rights of communities directly affected by mining are fraught topics worldwide, at a time when resource extraction companies are pushing ever deeper into remote areas in […]
WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF THE TIBETAN PLATEAU, AS INHABITED, USEFUL AND PRODUCTIVE LAND? SECOND OF TWO BLOGPOSTS ON WHAT MAY HAPPEN SOON TO TIBET WHAT DIRECTION IS THE WORLD TAKING? China is at odds with the world trend. Currently, under UN auspices, all major sectors and social forces, from big business to small NGOs, […]
CHINA’S MEGA PROJECT TO CAPTURE TIBETAN RIVERS: PART TWO The previous blogpost revealed the vision of the official custodians of China’s Yellow River to build a huge inland shipway, capable of allowing shiops as big as 50,000 tonnes, as far inland as 3300 kms, to the foot of the Tibetan Plateau; all made possible by […]
BIG, BIGGER, BIGGEST A major official agency, the Yellow River Water Conservancy, has grandiose plans to dam all the major rivers of Tibet, and pump massive amounts of water (using hydropower generated in Tibet) uphill to the Yellow River of northern China. First, here is how the officials of the Yellow River Water Conservancy […]
IS IT THE SCIENCE OF ECOLOGY, IS IT CHINA’S MISUSE OF SCIENTIFIC RHETORIC, OR IS IT JUST ME THAT DOESN’T GET IT? China says it is doing the Earth a service by banning grazing, and the Tibetan nomads who graze their herds on the grasslands of eastern Tibet, the most fertile pasturelands of the Tibetan […]
……………..BUT FOR THE TIBETAN NOMADS, THAT’S NOT HOW THE WORLD WORKS China and Australia, after years of delay, are now moving to finalise a Free Trade Agreement (FTA). There is a silent partner at the table. Both countries are confident a deal can and will be done, with a wide range of beneficiaries. On the […]
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 […]