Bullshit.
What has China learned since 1989? That as long as its crackdowns are not viewed by the world's press it can escape reprecussions. So it cuts of the news.
Now the riots are escaping Lhasa and moving elsewhere in China. That's significant not only because it shows planning but it might also suggest that others might join in the protests.
See
Here
ANd if the west were to say, "You want to repress the Tibetans and we're going to have to rethink the summer olympics, because we can't play games with a regime like this." That sends a signal.
Ideally, the west could also say, "You don't want to play by the rules of the global economy, fine, we're going to tax Chinese currency transactions and maybe we'll take you off WTO."
This riots are a result of CHina's crappy policies on Tibet, and the Chinese show a remarkable inability to take responsibility for their own policies. Instead they blame the Dalai Lama (a noteworthy terrorist and revolutionary?),
Bullshit.
If the west does nothing, if there is no protest, what it signals is that China's hands are free to do whatever wants to.
Because that's what the Chinese think now. For example, everyone knows that China props up the Sudanese regime that perpetuates genoicide in Darfur, and yet the world does nothing. Why? Because we don't want to mess with the profits of large corporations that do business in China?
Fuck that.
Let them go somewhere else to invest. IF they have the FDI to go eslewhere, let them go elsewhere.
Because those numbers I cited earlier- 29% of Chinese living on $1 dollar a day- that's partially the fault of western businesses. And allowing that to happen means that our people lose jobs.
And what kind of government does that support- a repressive neo-Facist state controlled by a monopolistic party.
This is a simple problem. The Chinese want to exert hegemony over their territory. In some places, where CHina has done well, that hegemony works. People love to enjoy a higher quality of life in China- if you're not part of the half of China's population that lives in poverty.
The other half doesn't do squat because they know the Chinese will break their heads.
Because were a ruling class isn't able to exert its hegemony, then it resorts to repression.
And that's the problem for Tibet. The Tibetans don't recognize China's hegemony or authority. And they protest as they should because whether they do or not, they get repressed.
And China could, perhaps, exert its hegemony over Tibet or the lower classes, but it doesn't. Why- because it has to feed the members of the party and party allies, who have been the ones to profit while the rest of the population gets fucked.
Now Darkcorp and BN, you may be willing to tolerate that or hold up your hands and surrender and says, "can't do shit about that."
Fuck that.
Because its not just limited to China. It affects the countries that China does business with, who its sells arms to, whose jobs it steals and whose economies it weakens.
I am not willing to pay that price for CHinese Communist Party rule.
Fuck that and Fuck China.
IF we don't act, if we don't tell China that we're reconsidering the Olympics because we don't dig what they're doing, do you really think they will be less repressive? Do you think those people won't be carted away?
Or maybe China is strong arming the situation because it thinks it gets away because the West can't make up its fucking mind about whether human rights are more important than sports, or whether its willing to surrender its balls for a profit.
Fuck that.
And you know what, I feel sorry for those poor fuckers in CHina that live in terrible conditions and are repressed when they protest.
But I don't live in that society. ANd in my society I can loudly China to fuck off, I can lobby my Congressman to boycott the olympics, I can write articles in protest, and I can make my opinion known.
ANd it might not be enough, fine. But it sure as hell beats sittingon your hands and doing nothing, gloating about your own emasculation.
So yeah, FUCK you CHina.
The cool thing is that a lot more people are thinking this way, and we're growing in numbers.
In China the communist party is able to exert its hegemony because it pays off its allies and represses its rivals.
But it depends on economic success to survive. You undercut that economic success and the basis for its hegemony dies. And when that hegemony dies, China's ruling class will have to come up with some alternative to justify their rule, or they will be swept away.
That will be a great day.
So yes, we should hurt China for this. Its ruling class needs to realize that it either plays the game of politics in a fair way, or we can set in motion the death of its ruling class.
And sending the CHinese a signal that we're reconsidering the Olympics is a damn good signal of what could come.
China wants to be a super power. It has the third largest economy. But its still a Third World nation in development and in political form. Fuck them.
Darkcorp- if you we would go by your logic- than Martin Luther King should never have marched on Selma, the Filipinos woudl not have overthrown Marcos, the Indians would not have ended British rule. People protest- that's a source of power. The state can repress, that's its power.
But whether a state can repress or has tolerate resistancfe depends on the whether the costs of tolerance outweigh the costs of repression or whether repression outweights tolerance.
Right now China faces no costs to its repression. And so it gets away with it.
