If we’re to believe the editorial writers at Taiwan’s China Post, that is:
"[China’s railway to Tibet] is key to development and modernization. So Beijing hailed its opening "a route to civilization".
[…]
The railway could double Tibet’s tourism revenues by 2010 and cut transportation costs into the region by 75 percent, lifting its 2.8 million people out of isolation and poverty.
[…]
The changes lamented by Tibetan nationalists and Shangri-La dreamers are largely the inevitable price of progress.
It’s a poor accountant that only adds up the credit side of the ledger. Yes, increased tourism revenues are a good thing, as are cheaper consumer goods. Needless to say, it will also bring in more Han Chinese migrants. Exactly how does it benefit Tibetans if they’re reduced to a second-class minority within their own homeland? Furthermore, it’s a safe bet that none of those freight cars will be bringing in pictures of the Dalai Lama along with all those inexpensive cans of corn. Which is to say, there are some Tibetan needs those trains won’t be fulfilling, and they won’t be purely for political reasons.
That alone puts the lie to the China Post‘s claims of Chinese altruism in the matter.
The real question though, is whether Tibet’s problems stem from its "isolation and poverty" or from its freedom deficit. The Tibetan railway may or may not end up reducing poverty, but it will never, ever, give Tibetans a greater say in how they live their lives. Now it’s fine for the China Post to argue that Tibet suffers mostly from poverty, and for guys like me who argue that their problems are due to a lack of freedom. It’s fine, but it’s all a bit beside the point.
Because the point is, that the Tibetans were never consulted about whether THEY wanted the damn thing to be built in the first place!
That’s the true obscenity. The Tibetans were never free to debate the pros and cons of the issue, never free to choose their own destiny. In the end, they might very well have CHOSEN to build that railway, or they might have chosen a pastoral or monastic life instead. We’ll never know however, because the communist mandarins of China arrogated that right to choose for themselves. And the editorialists at Taiwan’s China Post picked up their pom-poms, and they cheered.
UPDATE (Jul 13/06): Didn’t have time earlier to comment on this portion of the editorial:
But 210 years ago in America, Indian tribes were subjected to a similar "process of civilization". George Washington selected in 1796 the Cherokee Indians, living in the western regions of North Carolina and Georgia, for a pilot scheme in integration. The reluctant Indians were taught ways to build log cabins, till the land and accept Christianity.
Like America’s scheme, China’s new railway to Tibet is designed to put the isolated Himalayan plateau on a fast track to economic development and integration with the country’s other 55 ethnic tribes, to avoid disparity and instability.
So America’s treatment of the Indians 200 years ago justifies Chinese oppression of the Tibetans here in the 21st Century? Holy smokes, what fate for the Tibetans will the China Post endorse next? Slavery?
After all, two hundred years ago, America had THAT, too.
Since the China Post is so blase about "acculturation", I guess they won’t mind if the government requires schools here to drop the teaching of Mandarin in favor of Taiwanese. Surely after 50 years, it’s about time for Mainlanders to become "acculturated" to the Taiwanese language, isn’t it?
LOL. Cultural imperialism can sure be a bitch…when it’s YOU who’s on the receiving end of it.
UPDATE (Jul 14/06): More pro-communist blather from a July 5th China Post editorial:
[The Tibetan railway] completion is good news for Tibetan economic development, human rights and cultural protection.
The first point’s debatable, but the last two? Open a window to the newsroom guys, you’ve been huffing a little too much of those ink fumes.
Besides being an engineering marvel, it is a dream come true for Tibetans who deserve a better life.
Shangri-La admirers have long educated the Tibetan people to reject integration with others and preserve their unspoiled natural beauty, unique way of life and spiritual purity, even at the cost of isolation and prolonged poverty.
Ooh, straw man time. Sorry, but most decent folks think Tibetans ought to decide for THEMSELVES how much integration they oughta have. In contrast, the China Post waxes lyrical when those decisions are instead made a thousand miles away by communists in their latest Five-Year Plan.
Like its predecessors the Euro-Asian rail link and the ancient Silk Road, the Tibet railway leads the modernizing take-off of the vast snowy highlands, benefiting everybody on the way.
Walter Duranty, watch out – somebody’s gunnin’ for your Pulitzer!
