I’m a bit sorry that I’ve gotten as far into this topic as I have, because I actually have a only a very limited interest in defending the hypothetical average Tibetan independence activist. I very much agree that the average person, even a lot of political activists, has a very superficial understanding of politics at best. Whether being well-meaning but ignorant does more harm than good on net is an interesting conundrum about which I have no strong opinion. I am inclined to come down on the side of good intentions, but, on the other hand, getting involved in a fashionable and safe political movement where you can meet cute girls or boys doesn’t prove the super-goodness of your intentions. In my experience of talking to Americans about China, I have actually not generally heard them express very many negative opinions about China; perhaps this is because they quickly get the impression that I am a bit of a Sinophile, and they don’t want to be offensive? Or perhaps it’s just that I tend to steer conversations with acquaintances away from topics that might be at all sensitive? I have noticed and been a bit surprised that so many Americans I talk to seem to show a reflexive support for Tibet without being terribly knowledeable about it; since this is an opinion that I share, though, I’m not inclined to look that gift horse in the mouth. When someone I’m talking to says something in favor of, say, free speech, I do sometimes wonder if they’ve thought very seriously about it, but I’d rather be surrounding by unreflective pro-free-speech neighbors that unreflective censors.

You say that I “implicitly equate wanting China to become democratic with caring about the opinions of Chinese people”. I did sort of imply that, but what I really meant was to give this as a typical and well-intentioned view among Americans. In conventional American political thought, the idea that people don’t want democracy is an oxymoron, since democracy is equated with getting what you want. I personally take a view that is quite different, but I still think this opinion is well-intentioned within the constraints of the conventional paradigm. The people with this opinion show a typical and average level of ignorance, but not a spiteful indifference to what other people want.

I have to take issue with your argument that “As for Tibet’s situation being comparatively interesting, I suppose that’s true, assuming one accepts your version of history — and I’m sure you’re aware not everyone does.” I suppose it’s true that Tibet seems interesting to me because of my view of Tibet, but that’s because I don’t subscribe to the stereotypical Western hippie view of Tibetan history: “Tibet was once a small and isolated land where the people lived simple but happy lives with a low carbon footprint. Under the benevolent and probably magical rule of the Dalai Lamas, Tibet was at peace continually for thousands of years, until the eventually the Chinese attacked for no reason in 1959. Since then, Tibetans have faced daily torments and Buddhism is illegal.” In fact, Tibetan history is rich with political intrigues, competing power centers, and facts that can be interpreted in various ways. Both sides tend to want to ignore the complexities in the service of contemporary political goals, which inevitably saps the colour of the story.

At the risk of stooping to psychoanalyse other people, I suspect that Tibet seems boring to a lot of Chinese people because they view it is basically a backwater of Chinese civilisation, instead of recognising it for the complex and distinct civilisational center that it is. On the other hand, trendsetters in China have begun to adopt of more Western view of Tibet as an atavistic and more pure part of China. This tends to reduce Tibet to a tourist destination, no more culturally distinct from China than Colonial Williamsburg is from the U.S.

Regarding the last few points you bring up, they’re interesting enough that I, as you noticed, I decided to make a separate post about one of them over at Jigme’s blog. You brought up some more very interesting points in your response, which I am keen to respond to. Unfortunately, I’ve run into some constraints on my time from the non-blog-related portion of my life, so I don’t think I’ll have time to reply to you over there until the weekend. (Actually, I didn’t really “have time” to type up everything I did just now, but that’s the way it goes sometimes).

I’m not sure I agree most of the world’s comparable countries are “living within their means”. Looking at small autonomous countries in Africa, for example, many of them are still extremely poor and war-torn, as are many of the smaller South American countries. I’m not arguing they wouldn’t work things out eventually, I just think that going that route is likely to lead to more suffering than waiting out more autonomy from China (because I think that for better or for worse, the current regime is going to have to let go a little bit to keep power in the future. I don’t think they’ll ever grant Tibet full independence, but more autonomy is certainly possible).

Also, how would the existing TAR administration stay in place? I can’t imagine they wouldn’t be called back to Beijing in the event Tibet became independent. Some people would stay, certainly, but I think at best the Dalai Lama would be inheriting a crippled skeleton bureaucracy.

@ comment 23: In short, I think some of (not all, of course) the Free Tibet fans are just yelling it because (1) it’s popular and (2) they entertain some orientalist notions about the “simple purity” of traditional Tibetan culture. Westerners, especially, like the idea of an unspoiled mountain hideaway where the people drink out of wooden bowls and where they can hire a human pack mule for slave wages while they climb mountains to blow off steam from their stressful city lives. Furthermore, “fashionable teenagers could do worse things with their time that making gestures toward an ideal that they believe will help other people.” — perhaps, but I reject the idea that it’s harmless. Walk around the streets in the US and ask people their opinion on Tibet. 10/1 odds they say “it should be free” but can’t point it out on a map. These people spread ignorance because people hear them and follow along. Now, most Americans have pretty entrenched ideas about the Tibetans as pure and innocent, and Chinese as conniving and evil. You’d be hard pressed to get someone to tell you that directly, but if you’ve spent any time discussing China outside China I feel certain you’ve encountered such people. Mindless “Free Tibet!” people facilitate that, and regardless of their good intentions, their ignorance begets more (and more harmful forms of) ignorance.

Why Westerners only care about Tibetans is somewhat based on a false premise of course, it’s a sweeping generalization. Note, though, that in your own response you implicitly equate wanting China to become democratic with caring about the opinions of Chinese people, which is sort of what I’m talking about. In fact, the Chinese government is rated quite highly in opinion polls, though people do complain about corruption. I would submit the “democracy for China” people — at least, those who advocate that unequivocally — are also guilty of ignoring actual Chinese people. That’s my constant frustration with the dialogue about China in the West. I don’t necessarily even disagree with some of the ideas personally, but I’m frequently disgusted by how blatantly what Chinese people think is brushed off, ignored, or not even investigated to begin with.

As for Tibet’s situation being comparatively interesting, I suppose that’s true, assuming one accepts your version of history — and I’m sure you’re aware not everyone does. But it is a bit easier to quantify when you define it that way. I think examining the issue in any more depth kind of melts away that argument — what about all the Tibetans in Sichuan? What about other ethnic minorities, shouldn’t they get countries too? etc. — but of course, most people don’t examine it in more depth. Understandable, yes, but regrettable too, and I tend to believe we’re capable of discussing these things at a deeper level than people usually do. Maybe it’s unrealistic, but the alternative is too depressing.

I don’t really know what you mean when you say “people shouting ‘Free Tibet!’ but not considering the issue any more deeply really aren’t considering … the right of those people to decide their government for themselves.” Are you saying that “Free Tibet!” fans should consider the right of Tibetans to decide whether they want to be free or not? That sounds like an oxymoron; to be free is to make one’s own decisions. Or you are saying that you think “Free Tibet!” fans insist on Tibetan independence not because they think Tibetans want to be independent, but because they think Tibetan independence is a good thing even if Tibetans don’t want it? In that case, you would be reading a lot more into their intentions than I think you can plausibly really know.

“why is it Westerners only give a shit about the opinions of Tibetans?” is a frequently-asked question, and I think there are several answers from different ways of looking at it. For one thing, it’s based on a false premise: there certainly are human rights groups in the West that work on behalf of the human rights of Chinese people, and I doubt that very much that the average Western person is against China as a whole becoming democratic. I will agree that the West seems to be more interested in the Tibet issue than in the China issue. Why is that? Well, one answer is, who cares? Different people are interested in different things, and some subjects are interesting to more people than to others. Tibet is a fascinating country and people are naturally interested in it. Another answer is that Tibet has the misfortune of suffering from political system that is fundamentally foreign to it and is imposed from the outside; while, China suffers from the same political system, but for them it’s homegrown. It’s normal for people to feel more sympathetic in the former case; the solution is simpler. Another answer is that, out of all the stateless peoples in the world, Tibet has one of the strongest arguments to be made in favor of its right to self-determination; so, anyone who is interested in anti-imperialism and the rights of small nations in general will naturally be interested in the specific case of Tibet. There are probably lots of other answers that could be given to this question, including some good reasons and some bad ones.

You’re right that electing a new Tibetan government would take some time (the Dalai Lama has suggested that it should take no more than two years). There would necessarily be an interim government in the mean time. In the event that Tibet somehow — through some sort of incredibly fortuitous series of events — gained its independence unilaterally via a movement led by the Dalai Lama, the interim Tibetan government would probably look a lot like what is described here: http://www.tibet.com/future.html . In brief, it says that the Dalai Lama would appoint an interim president on the advice of a committee also selected by the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama would then have no further political role, and the interim president would organise elections for a constitutional convention, and then, on the basis of the new constitution, organise elections for all government offices. As I mentioned, the new elected government should be in place within two years. This document says specifically that the existing TAR administration should remain in place. It’s worth noting that the interim appointment is made specifically by the Dalai Lama personally, and the rest of the Government-in-Exile plays no role in this scenario; in fact, it is explicitly dissolved. However, it then proceeds to say that “although no one will be entitled to special privileges by virtue of his/her position in the Tibetan Administration in exile, I hope the officials of the exile Administration will willingly accept whatever responsibilities are entrusted to them in view of their qualifications, experience and abilities.” This implies what is to be expected anyway: that there would be a tendency to appoint relatively qualified Tibetan exiles to the higher positions within the administration, acting as leaders for the general body of functionaries who are holdovers from the PRC era.

So, I would say that you’re right to an extent that this scenario would probably produce a government — at least temporarily — in which Tibetan exiles had a lot of influence. While it would be fascinating to watch how this process would play out if it could really happen, it would of course be virtually impossible for the Dalai Lama’s side to emerge so completely victorious. Even if things were to go very remarkably well for them, the creation of independent or autonomous Tibet would still almost certainly have to be mediated by the involvement of some outside power, either a gracious and friendly China or a helpful foreign government. In either case, that friendly power would obviously be able to insist on a certain type of transition — for instance, they might insist that the Dalai Lama and the exiles have no political role at all during the transition.

I apologise for this lengthy tangent about a hypothetical transitional Tibetan government. My point is that you say, “Electing leaders to run an independent Tibet would take time, too, especially if one wanted to do it right,” but managing the transition doesn’t strike me as an insurmountable problem, nor one that hasn’t been considered yet, and, what’s more, it probably would be up to the Tibetans to handle the transition unilaterally anyway.

If China granted Tibet independence willingly, the scenario I described above might play out differently, but it’s hard to imagine what course of events would lead to that. Anyway, I wonder how many of the other third world countries you’re talking about that have economies that rely on foreign powers for 90% of their income? I’m not an economist — and I mean that seriously, not sarcastically, maybe there are some — but I would guess there aren’t any. Electing leaders to run an independent Tibet would take time, too, especially if one wanted to do it right.

My point — and this is something everyone always seems to miss — is not that there isn’t a set of conditions that might lead to a happy free Tibet. My point is that the people shouting “Free Tibet!” but not considering the issue any more deeply really aren’t considering what they’re demanding, and whether or not it’s good for the people they are supposedly advocating for — and, for that matter, the right of those people to decide their government for themselves.

Granted, that’s a right they don’t have under Chinese rule, but neither do any other Chinese citizens, so why is it Westerners only give a shit about the opinions of Tibetans?

You say “third-world hellhole” quite casually, it seems, but that covers a lot of area. An independent Tibet would certainly be part of what most people describe as “the third world”. China is itself part of what most people describe as the third world. “Hellhole” is entirely subjective. The material wellbeing of the average Tibetan person in Tibet under the current regime is nothing to write home about. Could it get worse? Sure. Would it? I don’t know. That’s really their business, so I’d just assume let Tibetans decide what direction they want their country to go in without pre-judging their possible choice as a hellhole-to-be. “It could become a hellhole” is basically an argument against the independence of any developing nation in the world.

You write, “The Dalai Lama and the rest of the exile community would probably return. They would arrive to find a society greatly changed from the one they ruled over half a century ago, and a people who have had little contact with them for decades.” Yeah, so what? Who cares how the exiles feel about things? You’re right that there are many people, Tibetans and foreign sympathisers, who advocate independence for Tibet, but who exactly is it that advocates independence and rule by the exile elite? What I hear people talking about is independence and democracy. I’m not sure what kind of expertise you think the new Tibetan government will need the lack of which will result in starvation and anomie. Why can’t people just vote for the best leaders they can think to vote for, and then those elected muddle along as best they can? The way to feed people and generate prosperity isn’t by having skilled bureaucrats, but by allowing markets to do their job. My main concern is that an independent Tibet would tend to re-socialise the economy, since the Dalai Lama often sounds lukewarm on the market economy, and Tibetan in Tibet have had mixed experiences with markets under the Chinese.

Above, I’m assuming a hypothetical scenario in which the Chinese government decides to allow independence for the entirety of the Tibetans’ land. This is, of course, an unimaginable development unless China loses a war; slightly less completely impossible would be for China to grant independence only to the TAR while retaining the other Tibetan areas. That situation would certainly put the fledgling Tibetan state in a very difficult position, since it would essentially come into existence missing half the territory it claimed for itself, and more than half the population, with said population a short distance away, probably clamoring for national unification but under the watchful eye of a far more powerful country. This would greatly exacerbate the ethnic tension inside Tibet, which would have some tensions anyway, much as the former Soviet Republics do.

Lastly, I don’t agree with your premise that China would be able to keep every country from involving itself in supporting Tibet. I don’t think anything that China could say would prevent the U.S. from insinuating itself into Tibet to the greatest extent the Tibetans would put up with. This fact is actually unfortunate, since Beijing obviously doesn’t want this to happen; but how could they prevent it if they were to loosen their control over the area? If Tibet were independent, they would have very little they could do. Even if it Tibet merely became autonomous, Beijing would probably still fear American infiltration.