China’s view of Tibet
From the blog of the New Voice, I was let to this article: China’s View of Tibet by Kishore Mahbubani — dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. Let me quote a small part:
… the Chinese recall that the latest efforts to separate Tibet from China came as recently as the 1940s and 1950s, when British and U.S. agents were seen to be encouraging Tibetan independence while the new People’s Republic was still weak. The Chinese also have powerful memories of Britain’s central role in the notorious opium trade of the 18th and 19th centuries, when European trading companies sold the drug to smugglers, then used the ill-gotten gold to buy silk, tea and porcelain.
The related Opium Wars, during which Hong Kong was seized by Britain, are a distant memory in Western minds but remain in the forefront of the Chinese psyche. When the West is seen to be trying to detach Chinese territory again, it rubs salt into this still-fresh wound. Virtually no Chinese believe that Western governments have a strictly moral interest in Tibet. …
