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International recognition of Tibet

Copied from User talk:Ran and User talk:Hottentot

Tibetan passport of Tsepon Shakabpa

About 13 years ago the first Tibetan passport was lost from an eastern Indian hill station. Last year, it was recovered in a junk shop in Nepal. This passport shows that the countries of India, the UK the USA, Italy, Switzerland and France all issued visas to Tsepon Shakabpa. This is more proof that Tibet was an independent country. See the articles here, here, and here. Also to see the actual passport, go here. If Tibet was part of China before 1950, why would these countries issue visas to this man? ---User:Hottentot

Tibet has been a part of/not part of China throughout the course of its history. I don't even know what you are trying to raise by bringing this up considering that today many countries (including US and India) recognize PRC sovereignty over Tibet.--Lssah 88 04:46, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not the expert on this, so I can only give you an analogy: millions of Taiwanese citizens travel all over the world on Taiwanese passports, yet most countries of the world do not give diplomatic recognition to the Republic of China (Taiwan). Why then would one Tibetan passport stamped with visas mean that Tibet is diplomatically recognized? -- ran (talk) 21:20, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)

Ran, here is where you mentioned Tawan in referance to Tibet. Trying to use Tawainese passports to show your point on the Tibetan passport. Me 16:30, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually, Foreign relations of Tibet gives a detailed account of how that passport and the stamps on it came to be. A rather interesting read I must say. -- ran (talk) 00:47, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)

And here's an even more interesting read from the Tibet in Exile website: [1]

China today claims that "no country ever recognised Tibet." In international law, recognition can be obtained by an explicit act of recognition or by implicit act or behaviour. The conclusion of treaties, even the conduct of negotiations, and certainly the maintenance of diplomatic relations are forms of recognition. Mongolia and Tibet concluded a formal treaty of recognition in 1913; Nepal not only concluded peace treaties with Tibet, and maintained an Ambassador in Lhasa, but also formally stated to the United Nations in 1949, as part of its application for UN membership, that it maintained independent diplomatic relations with Tibet as it did with several other countries including the United Kingdom, the United States, India and Burma.

This seems to suggest that indeed, no country except Mongolia gave explicit recognition to Tibet, but many countries gave implicit recognition to Tibet, by reaching agreements, etc. This is the same level of relationship maintained between Taiwan and other countries, and for that matter, between Taiwan and the PRC. Although we do not doubt that Taiwan today is a state de facto, it is not recognized to be one by most countries in the world.

Mongolia is a rather interesting case. If I remember correctly, after declaring independence, signing a treaty with Tibet, etc., it actually rescinded its independence and agreed to become a part of the Republic of China. (And we know that Mongolia was a Soviet satellite by 1949, so it's unlikely that it recognized Tibet as anything other than a part of the PRC by then.) But if anyone knows more about Mongolia-Tibet relations between 1913 and 1950, please enlighten us. -- ran (talk) 00:52, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)

Ran, you speak of "Chinese public opinion" in a comment regarding Tibet. I can access the government's position as expressed in the white papers, but I can only guess at public opinion as there are very limited venues where it might be freely expressed. What public opinion does exist is badly distorted by lack of access to information.The impression I have from my reading, is that most Chinese in Tibet would just like to leave what is a hardship post for them while almost all Tibetans (Chinese too, after all) would be happy to see them gone. Fred Bauder 19:55, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

Fred: Chinese public opinion and debate are actually very visible in the form of political advocacy websites and online forums. The idea that it does not exist other than in government-manipulated forms is patently false and grossly patronizing, considering the amount of discontent being expressed online regarding all sorts of government policies, from the hukou system to recognition of minorities, to Sino-Japanese or Sino-Russian relations. Of course, the ability to read Chinese is crucial if you want to find and read such views, especially the lively, fiery political debates that rage in various forums (at least, before such debates are deleted by nervous moderators). Another example is the Chinese Wikipedia: the sysops there, of whom half are mainlanders in mainland China, have maintained a commendably open atmosphere and very high level of NPOV. (Better than the Japanese Wikipedia IMO.)

It is very true that these opinions are affected greatly by limited access to information and the general bent of the media (which by and large are quite obedient to government instruction), but 1) media bias is everywhere, and I would hardly consider the one-sided, black-and-white, simplistic, and patronizing views of many Westerners about China to be much better and 2) the Chinese media isn't always obedient, and a few recent high-profile incidents show that the government is compelled to clamp down on unruly journalists digging up dirt on government officials, and 3) much news and opinion is disseminated on online BBS's and blogs, and while webmasters frequently exercise self-censorship so that they don't get shut down by government agencies, this self-censorship is in no way comprehensive and timely (nor is government enforcement), and much gets slipped through. The fact that the Chinese Wikipedia, full to the brim with risqué content, has managed to get itself blocked and unblocked in the same month (June 2004), and has survived ever since, is testament to the patchiness of government censorship. (Though the reluctance of the Chinese Wikipedia community to start Wikinews is a dark note: I must admit that I myself voted against the proposal, for fear of government reprisal.)

And this is just online. Speaking with Chinese people personally also reveals a wide range of personal opinions, ranging from very pro-authoritarian to very pro-democratic, or from pro-Mao to pro-Deng. Of course this also varies according to background (a Han Chinese in Beijing is likely going to have a completely opposite opinion of Uyghurs compared to a Han Chinese in Xinjiang), but there are certain tendencies shared by all Chinese. I'm sure you'd agree that Westerners, regardless of specific political bent, tend to share a few common beliefs (e.g. freedom & democracy), which are enforced from childhood by indoctrination and acculturation carried out by the media, the education system, and other members of the same culture. Similarly when I speak of "Chinese public opinion" I speak of opinions that are in general shared among people in mainland China.

And Chinese public opinion is this: China should be unified, by whatever means necessary. Some people with a clearly vicious fascistic bent would suggest any means necessary, including ethnic cleansing. Others, with an (over)dose of Western ideals of freedom and diversity, would suggest federalist systems or even EU-style supranational unions to appease the Tibetans and Uyghurs so that they will stay. But public opinion (and by this I mean 99% of people, in the same way 99% of Westerners would support democracy and regard dictatorship as a tragedy) is that if Tibet and Xinjiang were to break away, it would be a terrible tragedy.

So sorry to break this train to nowhere. If the Chinese public opinion is this: China should be unified, by whatever means necessary, then the Chinese people in general are nationalists. Is that true? I know Chinese people and that is not the case with them. Also you are wrong about Tibet breaking away. It will be tragedy if the poor peacful people of Tibet have to die in the name of their freedom but the kind of tragedy I see is that the Chinese people will have to keep on living in their own poverty and suffer under Communist rule until they change their government. Then democracy will decide and popular vote (elections) will decide what will happen to Tibet. Tibet will have to vote for their leader to be trully democratic and trust me, they will elect either HH The Dalai Lama or a person appointed and supported by Him. So THERE IS NO TRAGEDY IN FREEDOM! Just lots and lots of good karma for the Chinese people if they change their political system to democracy! Me 01:47, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Nor are all Han Chinese "posted" to Xinjiang or Tibet. Many were posted there 50 years ago, and have since then raised children and grandchildren. They have made a new home, and can no more leave than the Poles can leave Silesia, the Jews leave Palestine, or the whites leave Australia and the Americas. In this sense they are no longer just "posted". Others are recent immigrants who are in search of private business opportunities, and they are not involved the government. -- ran (talk) 20:24, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

There is public opinion in China and it is viewable to outside observers and to Chinese themselves in an anecdotal way. There is a lot of this sort of opinion in Sorrel Wilby's Journey Across Tibet: A Young Woman's 1900-Mile Trek Across the Rooftop of the World, Contemporary Books (1988), hardcover, 236 pages, ISBN 0809246082 What is striking is how friendly and supportive both Tibetans and Chinese were friendly and helpful to this young Australian woman. It presents a very attractive picture of both peoples. Research into Chinese public opinion is quite another matter. I know of no research by Western organizations and understand that internal research is a state secret. There is another matter, public opinion is a phenomena that develops in public forums, in the United States on talk radio, blogs on the internet, and political campaigns as well as on mainstream media. Input comes from all strata of society. This national conversation is rather stunted in China. Fred Bauder 21:19, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

Another matter which will not be pleasant, when Tibet does regain her independence you can expect, as in the Baltic states after their liberation, for it to be required that those Chinese who stay to respect Tibetan culture, extending to adopting themselves to the customs and language of the indigenous people. I suppose some English did stay in Ireland after independence, but very few and not as great landholders and bosses. Fred Bauder 21:19, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

wow, look RAN, I know what the chinese in the USA say. Do not try to speak for the people of communist china, oppressed every day... WHO is your reliable sourse of info to express 1 billion people's opinion? Wow Ran do you personally know 1 billion people?? How do you have time to guard the chinese tibetan article from people like me? And wait, I havn't even emailed all the extreme pro tibetan groups yet! What are you going to do when this western and democratic site becomes flooded by tibetan and democracy and truth supporters?? Me 01:28, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Look, even a quick journey through the Chinese Wikipedia reveals that Chinese public opinion is not "stunted". The government is attempting to stamp out the most troublesome aspects a la whack-a-mole-y, but more moles are coming out all the time and these moles are lively as ever. I have watched and taken part in political debates with other Chinese people. There's a lively discussion regarding this very same topic (Han Chinese in Xinjiang and Tibet) started by me, going on in the Chinese Wikipedia right now.

As for your other comparison, I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. Nor do I think Tibet is a good comparison with the tiny, wealthy Baltic States (or Slovenia, or Slovakia). For starters, the border will be impossible to fix, and attempts to include areas like Xining, Ya'an, Kangding, Panzhihua, the Chaidam Basin etc. will result in a country that is majority Han Chinese. Secondly, such a scenario is likely to be accompanied by massive civil strife and violent clashes, especially in the major cities. Thirdly, we have no idea how the non-Tibetan non-Han peoples will react (Kazakhs, Mongols, Qiang, Lisu, etc.). A better comparison would be with Bosnia, Kosovo, or the Caucasus. -- ran (talk) 21:41, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

The Han do not have the emotional attachments that the Jews have for Palestine, and have not lived in Tibet and Xinjiang as long as the Poles have been in Silesia or whites in Australia or the Americas. How would they ever break away, barring war with India or Russia? I don't believe China will be organising referenda on secession anytime soon. "A terrible tragedy"? Have you canvassed Tibetan and Uighur public opinion?

Lapsed Pacifist 21:12, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Look, I'm stating what is currently Han Chinese public opinion, not supporting or opposing it. I'm providing you with information, with what's objectively true. If you don't like it, that's your opinion. As for the Han's "emotional attachment" to Xinjiang and Tibet, — oh yes, they do have it, a very strong one. Especially the people who've been there for 2 generations — it's the only home that they know. You can attribute it to government propaganda or whatever. I can also attribute the Polish attachment to Silesia to government propaganda, and the Jewish attachment to Palestine to religious fanaticism.

And you might want to research how Silesia was depopulated and repopulated after World War II. Or how Australia and the Americas were completely repopulated. The processes involved were a lot brutal than Tibet and Xinjiang. And yet the Poles in Silesia today have a right to stay there. The whites, blacks, and Asians can all stay in North America. To clear the Poles out of Silesia today would be ethnic cleansing, even if it was ethnic cleansing that brought them there in the first place.-- ran (talk) 21:16, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

Why not revert your comments about Ireland? I found them interesting. You think Ireland is tragic? You have plenty company. Did you really feel my comments were "crushing"? I will try to moderate my language. You contend you are defending NPOV, yet when PRC policy in Tibet and Xinjiang is questioned, you send out a flurry of comments and messages. I detect a lack of zeal on your part when PRC policy is portrayed as benevolent. You claim you are stating Han Chinese public opinion, and neither support it or oppose it. Yet the manner in which you present it indicates to me that you agree with it (comparing Chinese attachment to territorial gains to Europeans' attachment to democracy). Why not say so? This is a talk page, your opinions are valid here. If the Han have an emotional attachment to territories they are not native to, it does'nt compare with the Jews' towards Palestine. I'm already familiar with the population movements in Europe in the 20th century. You gave me a link to a Tibetan website that belied much of what you claimed about "advantages" given to Tibetans. Why? Did you even read the article? You make condescending remarks to other users about western attitudes to state censorship in China. I'll ask you again, when you're online, do you canvass Tibetan and Uighur public opinion on PRC ethnic policy?

Lapsed Pacifist 22:00, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You claim you are stating Han Chinese public opinion, and neither support it or oppose it. Yet the manner in which you present it indicates to me that you agree with it (comparing Chinese attachment to territorial gains to Europeans' attachment to democracy). — this is exactly the sort of patronizing chauvinism that I was talking about. To many Chinese, the European attachment to democracy is just as questionable as the Chinese attachment to territorial integrity is to Europeans. So when I make this comparison, why do you automatically conclude that I'm making a positive statement about the Chinese position, simply because the European position is positive to you?!

And why do you think I canvassed Tibetan and Uyghur opinion? Did I make any statements about Tibetan and Uyghur opinions? Don't both the reality in Tibetan and Xinjiang, and the passionate statements of exiled Tibetans and Uyghurs already express quite clearly what they think?

As for the article I gave you, of course I read it. I read it from beginning to end. Perhaps you should too, this time without preconceptions.

If you think that I have a certain level of "zeal" on PRC policy, I'm afraid that you're sorely mistaken, since I most certainly do not. I defend NPOV regardless of whether the opinion in question is agreeable to me or not. Go read the NPOV policy again, since I'm not sure you understand it. -- ran (talk) 22:09, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

Ugh, this is turning distinctly unpleasant.

Wikipedia is not a political discussion forum. It is unlikely that I can change your political opinions on a Wikipedia Talk page, and since I haven't expressed my personal political opinions, your rebuttals aren't exactly changing mine. Let us focus on the articles at hand. -- ran (talk) 22:24, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

Let's. As you have read the article, did you agree with the points made?

Lapsed Pacifist 22:36, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I agree that the opinion and interpretation made in the article are popular, especially among Tibetans and Westerners. I also agree that such an opinion contradicts both the PRC's opinion, and the general opinion of Han Chinese, especially those in XJ and Tibet. (Note that these opinions are all different; the Han Chinese in XJ hate the PRC opinion too!)

For example, from the perspective of the Han Chinese, things are turned against them, especially when they're trying to apply to universities, etc., and they feel that the authoritarian government is cheating them out of something they deserve. From the perspective of the Uyghurs, things are also turned against them, since they are incorporated into an authoritarian country that's ruled by Han Chinese and is completely callous to what they feel are legitimate needs of their community. And of course the PRC government is trying to not fall from power.

So a well balanced article should take into account all of these views without discrediting all of them. -- ran (talk) 01:46, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps it would be more productive to report the opinions of selected, identified, significant individuals/organisations, rather than guesses as to what "most westerners" or "most Han" believe. I don't think most Han are regularly surveyed as to their political opinions. ;) Mark¹ 01:51, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Well... the problem with such an approach is that a lot of things will get thrown out. For example, the PRC government is never going to talk about how the Han Chinese or Uyghurs in Xinjiang really think, it's only going to say that they're harmonious and all that. -- ran (talk) 01:57, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

How about online articles? Here's one:

http://www.mlcool.com/html/01271.htm

A bit long to translate, but basically, the article talks about:

• the East Turkistan movement in Xinjiang in general
• It opposes Xinjiang independence
• Blames independence movement on PRC government
• Mentions policies that give incentives to Uyghurs in employment, education etc.
• These policies anger Han Chinese
• But these policies are implemented poorly and out of synch with market reforms
• So Uyghurs are not appeased either
• Poverty among Uyghurs is another factor
• As a result there is visceral hatred among Uyghurs towards Han Chinese
• There are neighbourhoods in Urumqi that are simply not safe for Han Chinese to go to
• Han Chinese in Xinjiang are the victims of violent crimes perpetrated by Uyghurs
• Several stories of Han Chinese being stabbed to death by Uyghurs in broad daylight while Uyghur bystanders and police tolerate / ignore what's happening
• Han Chinese in Xinjiang are all at the brink of breakdown because they're being shortchanged by government policies
• Also talks a bit about the history of Uyghur independence movements and Uyghur hatred for Han Chinese
• Blames the PRC again, for coming up with policies that do not solve the problem at all
• Hopes for peace and harmony in Xinjiang in the future and the hatred to end

Would this work? -- ran (talk) 02:12, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

Well, "Source X says Uyghurs hate Han because... Source Y says Uyghurs love Han because..." is fine. That would be a good source X. What I'm wary of is us saying "Uyghurs believe", or "Han believe", since we can't verify those claims however plausible they are. Mark¹ 02:23, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hmm, okay, I agree with that. But what kind of sources are acceptable though? -- ran (talk) 22:01, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

I suggest editors (including myself) should try to familiarise themselves with all attitudes, histories and the different stances taken; those of the PRC government, of the separatist groups (and their foreign supporters), of the different categories of Han who live in these particular regions, and of mainstream public opinion in China, and write about them. Then we should explain how they have come about and determine which have a factual basis. Readers can then figure out for themselves the rights and wrongs of the situation.

Lapsed Pacifist 23:21, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

My country was not recognized by any of the world powers while it was under another nation's ocupation for 500 years. But guess what? We are free now and enjoying recognition from all over the world, plus we are part of NATO and so forth... Trust me, Tibet will be back in the hands of the Tibetans and not the Chinese. It is a matter of time. History repeats it self. :) Tsering! Me 01:36, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Since when was Tibet a part of NATO? Source?--Lssah 88 04:37, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Nepal's recognition of Tibet's independence?

I just did some edit: Nepalese regarded its mission (namely "Vakil") as only a Trade Commission (similar to the British Mission), thus had nothing to do with recogizing Tibet's independence. For example, the Vakil was allowed to stay/operate in Tibet until the 1960s while the Nepalese-Chinese treaty signed in the mid 1950s had long recognized Tibet as part of PRC. The Treaty text itself also mentioned Vakil.--219.79.30.35 05:03, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

We will see about that. Me 16:00, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Chinese nationalists?

This sentence, "Historic Tibet commonly claimed by Chinese nationalists" seems somewhat iffy. Which Chinese nationalists make this claim? The Chinese Nationalist Party does not. I changed the phrase to "Areas historically within Tibetan cultural sphere" because Sikkim, Ladakh, Bhutan, and Tawang are areas that have historical ties to Tibet and share a common or similar language, culture, and religion. --Yuje 00:02, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

As I recall, the Nationalists even claimed Mongolia. Fred Bauder 01:35, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

Yes they did. But Bhutan and Ladakh weren't part of the areas claimed. --Yuje 01:36, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

Oh, I don't mean the Kuomintang, I mean contemporary Chinese nationalist groups online, who tend to make far reaching claims that include Outer Manchuria, Mongolia, Tuva, etc. The Falun Gong newspaper Epoch Times, for example, trashed the government for signing the recent border agreement with Russia, since China basically surrendered all possible current and future claims on Outer Manchuria. -- ran (talk) 05:51, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

I don't know how to phrase the last claim any more... "nationalists" seemed a bit strange, since although it is certainly a common opinion that Sikkim, Bhutan, and Ladakh are a part of historic Tibet in China today (the Chinese Wikipedia for one states this as a fact, with no qualification whatsoever), not everyone who holds this opinion is necessarily a wild-eyed fascist who wants to invade India to get these lands "back". People just feel that since Amdo, Kham, and U-Tsang can all be included into historic Tibet, their great cultural diversity notwithstanding, then there is no reason why Bhutan, Sikkim, Tawang, and Ladakh can't either, and that the only reason Tibetan exile groups aren't doing this is because India is showing them great hospitality, and they can't very well turn around and start claiming Indian territory. (And laying claim to Bhutan, a sovereign country, would obviously be very bad PR. China doesn't do this either.) -- ran (talk) 01:05, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)

I get the impression that people who claim those areas as part of China get taken as seriously as Russians who want Alaska "back". I think those areas should just be mentioned as part of the historic Tibetan/Himalayan region which shares a similar culture, religion, and language.--Yuje 01:49, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)

Interesting topic. So Chinese nationalists are like the old German nationalists and try to claim anywhere there is some colorable claim, like Germany's claim to Austria or Sudetenland? Do we have an article on them? Or do they amount to enough of a tendency that an article could be written? Fred Bauder 02:08, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)

My understanding of the situation. The PRC's official claims are to Taiwan, the Diaoyutai islands, Arunachal Pradesh, and the South China Sea Islands. The ROC officially claims all of the above, plus Outer Mongolia, Tuva, and parts of Central Asia in Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgistan, because those areas were part of the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China before independence for the former, Soviet annexation for Tuva, and Russian Empire annexation in the last areas. The PRC also ceded claims to some border territories during border negotions with Myanmar. Since the Republic of China never participated in those negotions, their old territorial maps (and official claims) may include some territories in modern-day Myanmar, but I'm not sure. Arunachal Pradesh is claimed by both, I believe, because parts of it were actually administered by Tibet, and because no Chinese government ever agreed to the McMahon Line. In any case, while the Republic of China's claims are still official, their government is not actively pursuing such claims since reconquering the mainland isn't a very realistic possibility at this point. Some Chinese nationalists also feel Outer Manchuria should belong to China since they were originally part of the Qing Dynasty and ceded to the Russian Empire in the Treaty of Aigun and the Treaty of Peking, which most Chinese believe to be Unequal Treaties. Some Himalayan states like Bhutan, Ladakh, Sikkim, and Tawang, however, were states which were tributary to the Dalai Lama, who himself fell under Chinese suzerainty, but were not formally part of the Qing Dynasty. I believe Nepal was also one of these tributary states after a Chinese army (during Qianlong's reign) fought off a Ghurka invasion of Tibet and in turn invaded Nepal, however Nepal is Hindu and not part of the Tibetan cultural area. And that is the summarized and short version of all these claims. The information is found scattered on various China-related pages on Wikipedia, but I don't believe there's a specific article detailing these claims. I also doubt there's a unified opinion among Chinese or even among the nationalists over these territorial disputes.--Yuje 02:41, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)

Edit: parts of Myanmar are indeed claimed by the ROC, as seen in this map. Note that it shows Yunnan having a border with Bangladesh. The modern PRC province does not. --Yuje June 28, 2005 07:24 (UTC)

Minor clarification, Bhutan has never been under the control of Lhasa, and traditionally the Dge-lugs establishment in Lhasa and the government of Bhutan were bitter enemies. --Nathan hill 13:32, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Bhutan indeed warred with many of its neighbors, not only the Tibetans but also the Sikkimese and the Monpa. But in 1730 two rival emergents claimed to be the Bhutanese lama. Tibetan troops invaded and planted their preferred lama in power. From then on, Bhutan sent an official to Lhasa every year to "pay his respects and give presents to the Tibetan government". "This custom, known as Lochak, was continued until 1950". This is from the book, Tibet: A Political History, by Tsepon W. D. Shakabpa, though the author is admittedly a Tibetan. --Yuje June 28, 2005 03:52 (UTC)

To Fred: It's probably very hard to write a separate article at this point, since I don't think there's actually a coherency in the claims made. Most people probably don't know or care about the situation in this area. Most people probably don't even know about the Arunachal Pradesh situation, unless they've actually taken a Chinese government map and a National Geographic map and compared them carefully (which, I suspect, most people don't do in their spare time ^_^). I remember an incident where the official magazine of the China Geographic Society included a thematic map (of habitats or something) that showed the line of control rather than the Chinese claim. It was a mistake on their part that caused a minor uproar on certain geography-related BBSs, but most people probably didn't notice. And the fact that the China Geography Society can produce a map like that shows how little attention this issue gets.

And we have to separate a few concepts here. People who know about the history of the area are probably going to be somewhat sad or disappointed at how things turned out, due mostly to China's weakness over the last 200 years, and they might consider Bhutan, etc. to be a part of historic Tibet. But they won't support getting those "back", because it'll entail wars, invasions, death and destruction, etc. Only the more wild-eyed nationalists (called fenqing) are going to actually advocate such drastic actions. (And whether they're even serious, I don't know.)

The Fenqing article, though, can probably use a bit of expansion, and information related to irredentist claims can certainly be added. -- ran (talk) 23:38, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)

Sad news and deja vu all over again. In November 2005 China sent troops 20km inside Bhutan where they built roads and bridges, ostensibly to promote economic progress in China's western territories[2]. My voice in the long-standing Tibet article wars has been to include the Chinese side as accurately as possible, so the reader can judge for himself. But that doesn't mean I endorse the Chinese military action of 1959, or the one apparently looming over Bhutan in 2006. If you are strongly opposed to what happened 46 years ago in Tibet, consider writing your congressman or member of parliament to alert them to what soon may be happening again in Bhutan. technopilgrim 00:50, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Don't be silly, there's no analogy. The international community recognized Tibet as a part of China 46 years ago. In contrast, the international community (PRC included) recognizes Bhutan as a sovereign state. If China invaded Bhutan, it would be an international incident, incurring severe diplomatic repercussions that will hurt China's economic rise, which is incidentally precisely what the Chinese government currently builds its legitimacy upon. And that's not mentioning the fact that China's trying to get friendly with India right now (2006 is "China-India Friendship Year"), and invading India's protectorates isn't really the best way to show friendliness. So no, your fearmongering here doesn't make too much sense. -- ran (talk) 01:24, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Then how do you explain Chinese troops on Bhutanese soil, if their goal is to show friendliness? technopilgrim 04:07, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

The dispute appears to arise out of the undemarcated border between China and Bhutan, with sections of it disputed. All we know is that Bhutan has protested and China has attempted to explain. All further speculation -- whether based on the inappropriate analogy to 56 years ago or on a vague, irrational hatred of "Red China" -- are nothing more than speculation.

You're probably giving the PRC government more credit than they're due anyways. China is already facing a chain of hotspots along its entire eastern border, and is trying to do everything possible to calm the northern and western borders, even at the risk of provoking domestic unhappiness. (The recent border agreements with Russia, for example, were widely seen as too yielding; in response, the government censored the subject.) Invading Bhutan can only mean that the PRC government is undergoing a bout of sudden and severe stupidity. And though that is also possible, it's irresponsible to make such claims unless you have more compelling reasons to do so. -- -- ran (talk) 10:40, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

The US first recognized China's sovereignty over Tibet in 1966 -- 40 years ago. Just being picky. (At that time the US didn't recognize Beijing, so this would mean ROC.)Kauffner 03:21, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Hmm... so what did they view Tibet as? -- ran (talk) 23:06, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

A territory of China. At least they've never questioned Tibet's political subordination to the Chinese sovereignty/suzerainty:

• "For its part, the Government of the United States has borne in mind the fact that the Chinese Government has long claimed suzerainty over Tibet and that the Chinese constitution lists Tibet among areas constituting the territory of the Republic of China. This Government has at no time raised a question regarding either of these claims."

[ Department of State, 15 May 1943 ]

• "I stated that, despite the large degree of autonomy that existed in Tibet, the U.S. Government had traditionally recognized and continued to recognize the de jure sovereignty of China, with whom we maintained the most cordial relations."

[ Fulton Freeman, Department of State, August 1948 ]

• "What is U.S. policy toward Tibet? The United States considers the Tibet Autonomous Region or TAR [hereafter referred to as "Tibet"] as part of the People's Republic of China. This long-standing policy is consistent with the view of the entire international community, including all China's neighbors: no country recognizes Tibet as a sovereign state. U.S. acceptance of China's claim of sovereignty over Tibet predates the establishment of the People's Republic of China. For instance, in 1942, we told the Nationalist Chinese government then headquartered in Chongqing (Chungking) that we had 'at no time raised (a) question' over Chinese claims to Tibet."

[ Jeffrey Bader, Department of State, testimony to the Congress, 13 May 1997 ]

• "Historically, the United States has acknowledged Chinese sovereignty over Tibet. Since at least 1966, U.S. policy has explicitly recognized the Tibetan Autonomous Region...as part of the People's Republic of China."

[ Department of State, Relations of the United States with Tibet, 1995 ]

The State Department never questioned that Ukraine was part of Russian either, but the same principle applies, the right of a people to govern themselves. Fred Bauder 13:49, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi Fred, I agree that self-governing right must be respected! But the case of Ukraine seems little bit different: Factually U.S. needed not to question bacause it was the Russians who has voluntarily separated Ukraine from its territory as early as 1922. Take a look at the U.S.S.R. map, the Russian S.S. Republic and the Ukrainian S.S. Republic were two separated entities. And soon after the WWII Moscow even allow the Ukrainians to have its own membership in the newly-formed United Nations. Right? MainBody 09:52, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, you are technically correct, but you are not mentioning a strong separatist movement, vigorous efforts to suppress the movement, efforts by the United States to infiltrate guerillas, etc, all very similar to Tibet. And Ireland has only been mentioned. I have mixed feelings. Conditions in Tibet were miserable for the slaves, and the tiny ruling class, while certainly ladies and gentlemen, were remarkably obtuse, but I think any fair observer would draw the conclusion that the bulk of the people would chose the misery of the past over the occupation of today. Fred Bauder 13:16, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

"but I think any fair observer would draw the conclusion that the bulk of the people would chose the misery of the past over the occupation of today".

That is an overly gross generalization.--Lssah 88 04:31, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Maps published in the 1920s

Here are two maps showing a certain extent of Tibet's (de jure) subordination to ROC: [3] [4] --219.79.27.170 06:51, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Photos of Tibet in the early 1940's

I just found this great website about Tibet today: Photos of Tibet in the early 1940's. It has some beautiful photos, especially the ones of the Potala Palace. The following description is from the main page:

These photos were taken in Tibet by members of the Tolstoy expedition of 1942-43. Two U.S. Army officers, Lt. Col. Ilya Tolstoy and Capt. Brooke Dolan were sent to Tibet from India to explore the possibility of getting military supplies to Chiang Kai-shek's Republican Chinese government, via Tibet. (Click here for more information on the expedition, and a bibliography of sources.) A set of the photographs, including some or most of the ones here, were given to The Office of Tibet in New York. A group of mostly unlabeled photographs was provided to Richard Beresford of the Park Service, a long-time supporter of Tibet. He lent them to Phil West, formerly of Skidmore College, and the box appeared on my desk a few years ago. A number of them were featured in a book by Rosemary Jones Tung, A Portrait of Lost Tibet: Photographs by Ilya Tolstoy and Brook Dolan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), a few were reproduced in Tibet: The Sacred Realm: Photographs 1880 - 1950 (Aperture Books, 1983), in a National Geographic magazine article and a few other places here and there. Many of them are still unidentified. A few have relatively vague pencilled captions on the back, by an unknown hand. With Richard's permission, I am scanning them and putting them up for the edification of my students. There are some amazingly beautiful photographs among the more than 230 which I have made available so far. Some have considerable historical interest, particularly in the light of the transformation of Tibet over the past 50 years.

--Hottentot

Cities of Tibet

I've reorganized the list of major Tibetan cities that appears in the intro. But I don't know which letter to capitalize, so someone please check them...

Frankly, I don't understand why some of the cities appear in the list. Are Pelbar and Tingri, for example, major cities? (I'm not quite sure, please correct me if they are.) Perhaps it can be cut down a little bit? And also... what do we do with cities that are overwhelmingly Han Chinese but are within the bounds of historic Tibet as set by the Government of Tibet in Exile (like Xining, Delingha, Da Qaidam) and cities that the PRC claims as a part of Tibet (like Tawang)?

-- ran (talk) June 29, 2005 05:37 (UTC)

One more thing... should Shigatse be Gzhis-ka-rtse rather than Gzhi-ka-rtse? The Chinese Wikipedia gives an -s at the end of the first syllable. -- ran (talk) June 29, 2005 05:48 (UTC)

Yes, I just double checked in a Tibetan reference book. Also, always capitalize the first letter, that is what the Wylie system recommends. -- NH 29 June 2005 09:57 (UTC)

Hey Ran, sometime maybe you could go through my contributions esp. on History of Tibet and change Wade-Giles to Pinyin and add characters. --NH

I'd be happy to help yon on that. =) In the meantime, could you help me look over the Wylie transliterations given in the introduction? I got most of them from either http://www.tibetmap.com/ or Google, but neither is particularly reliable, I'm afraid. (I've already found a few mistakes and inconsistencies.) -- ran (talk) July 3, 2005 00:51 (UTC)

One more thing... is it proper to use a tsheg (་) at the end of personal or place names when we give Tibetan names in intro paragraphs? -- ran (talk) July 3, 2005 06:08 (UTC)

As mentioned above, I have on hand a book on Tibet authored by Tsepon Shakabpa, the gentlemen with the passport mentioned up above (book was published in 1967, though). In his book, he mentions Xining as being on the China-Tibet border but not as part of Tibet. He mentions road contstruction by the PRC, "one from Szechuan via Kham, the other from Lanchow via Sining". I don't think he considers it ethnically or historically Tibetan, either. For example, during the 1949 invasion, he condemns propaganda "from Sining and Peking" and the PRC candidate for the Panchen Lama is named as the "Sining candidate", and he doesn't mention the city in his section on the towns of Tibet. While he isn't synomous with the Tibetan gov't in exile, he's certainly a major authority on their views. While apparently the exile government now claims all of Qinghai, this wasn't always the case. On pg. 283, he writes "One party returned to Sining in Ch'ing-hai province and the other returned to Tibet". I didn't see any mention of Delingha or Da Qaidam. --Yuje 19:24, July 13, 2005 (UTC)

Most recient edits by 24.7.162.192

Ummmm...what should we do about the massive expansion that just happened in the history section? Should we inform the user to merge his material to the History of Tibet article? By the way, this talk page eventually needs to be archived. --Hottentot

Most of it is not very specific e.g. the comment that many Dalai Lama's died before they were twenty one, why not just say that the 8th through 12th died on their 18th birthdays. Almost all of the early history is already covered in the history article and should probably just be removed. The coverage of the end of the Tibetan dynasty in the History article does need to be filled out, but the information here is not specific or accurate enough to be useful (e.g. it is not clear that the last emperor was killed by a Buddhist monk from contemporary sources). (preceding unsigned comment by 134.2.147.103 / Nathan Hill)

Improvement Drive

Lhasa is currently nominated to be improved on WP:IDRIVE. You can vote this article there if you are interested.--Fenice 12:00, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Nation

There is a distinction to be made between a nation and a state. Tibet is not a state, but it is a nation, as are the Kurds. This fact has nothing to do with sovereignty although nations tend to aspire to autonomy as is recognized by the PRC. The article could begin -- "Tibet is a nation of the People's Republic of China". That may not be the best way to start the article but would violate no truth. Fred Bauder 13:21, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

From the Wikipedia article state:

The terms country, nation, state and land are casually used as synonyms, but in a more strict usage they are distinguished:

• country is the geographical area
• nation designates a people, however national and international both confusingly refer as well to matters pertaining to what are strictly states, as in national capital, international law
• state is about government, and an entity in international law
• land may be used for "a country and its people" but also thought of as country belonging to a nation or a monarch

Fred Bauder 13:31, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

From the Wikipedia article nation:

A state which explicitly identifies as the homeland of a particular nation is a nation-state, and most modern states fall into this category, although there may be violent disputes about their legitimacy. In common usage, terms such as nations, country, land and state often appear as near-synonyms, i.e., for a territory under a single sovereign government, or the inhabitants of such a territory, or the government itself; in other words, a de jure or de facto state.

Fred Bauder 13:38, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

There are occasionally disputes on Wikipedia which turn on China or parts of it being a nation, a state, or a country. When I say "China" in the previous sentence it is rather ambiguous, for I could mean any of those three. For our purposes here both China and Tibet are nations, nations which historically and currently coexist in some cases on the same territory. China is a nation-state, but not according to the strictest definition of the term as other nationalities live within China. Fred Bauder 13:53, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

Simply that it is synonymous in common usage is enough for the term to be avoided. A sentence that can only be interpreted one way is superior to one that can be interpreted several ways when used as a definition. anon

Edits by 129.7.248.159

• A historical artical cannot be treated as the main article for 'Tibet'. I moved it to Another view of History of Tibet and linked it under the History section of the current Tibet --129.7.248.159 22:51, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Totally agree. The section of 'Status' is somewhat biased. The territory claim from the so-called Tibet governement in exile is so absurd and is not grounded by the current facts and past history. An main article of Tibet in Wikipedia is not a place to propagandize this claim from an exiled government. --Lastklim 23:33, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm... it looks like to me that 129.7.248.159 and Lastklim are the same people.... --Hottentot

You are missing the point here. Why use a historical Tibet to occupy the main article for Tibet here? --129.7.248.159 00:42, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

If you'd read the article you'd see that Tibet is not just the TAR, it also contains part of Qinghai, Sichuan, Gansu, Yunnan, etc. --Hottentot

That is why I say this article is biased to a historical term . Look at a dictionary and a map to see what Tibet really means today. For example:http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=tibet&x=0&y=0

One entry found for Tibet.

Main Entry: Ti·bet

Pronunciation: t&-'bet

Variant(s): or Xi·zang /'shEd-'zä[ng]/

Usage: geographical name

region SW China on high plateau (average altitude 16,000 ft or 4877 meters) N of the Himalayas capital Lhasa area 471,660 square miles (1,226,316 square kilometers), population 2,196,010

Ok, good, but many people disagree with that, which is why we have to keep things neutral. Also, concerning my user page, that is just a list of articles I found that need cleaning up!! It has nothing to do with my personal opinion. You can talk to User:Ran more about Tibet if you want, he wrote a large amount of the article. --Hottentot

The fact of using a historical term of Tibet to take the place of current Tibet is already non-neutral behavior. Refer to any other encyclopedia's page for Tibet to see how biased Wikipedia is now. The point here is not only PRC refer Tibet as TAR, the whole world officially recoginzes it, except some people in Free Tibet group. The normal policy in Wikipedia is that the main article space should go the most prominent or best-known sue of a term. In the case of Tibet, the prominent concept for Tibet is the Tibet province in China now.

For example

from http://uk.encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761567065/Tibet.html

Tibet, former independent state and provincial-level administrative area of China, in the south-western part of the country. Officially Tibet (Chinese, Xizang) Autonomous Region, it is bounded on the north by Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and Qinghai Province; on the east by Sichuan and Yunnan provinces; on the south by Myanmar, India, Bhutan, and Nepal; and on the west by India. Tibet is the highest region on Earth, having an average elevation of more than 4,875 m (16,000 ft); for this reason it is sometimes called the Roof of the World. It is also one of the world's most isolated regions, surrounded on three sides by vast mountain systems, namely the Himalaya on the south, the Karakorum Range on the west, and the Kunlun Mountains on the north. Tibet has a total area of about 1,200,000 sq km (463,320 sq mi). The capital and largest city of Tibet is Lhasa.

--129.7.248.159 01:23, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

Dare I say that it is possible that encylopedias owned by companies that do large amounts of trade with the PRC, or publications of other governments (CIA factbook), might just have a vested interest in playing down the perspective of Tibet as a 'country occupied by the PRC'? At least in wikipedia we are not beholden to such paymasters and can have a reasoned debate and attempt to present a range of views, especially on such hotly contested subjects. Billlion 18:32, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

Anon: please see articles like Silesia, Burgundy, and Kurdistan. Although administrative divisions with those names exist today, those are also historical regions whose extents are much larger than their administrative counterparts. Tibet is the same situation.

Generally, I feel that if Chinese people feel confident and justified in saying that Tibet is a part of China, (just as Polish people would consider Silesia a part of Poland, for example), then perhaps we shouldn't be so sensitive to the fact that the TAR today is a historical accident / divide-and-conquer ploy that's half the size of the Tibetan civilization, and be more ready and willing to consider the practical and moral pros and cons of such an arrangement. -- ran (talk) 02:08, August 1, 2005 (UTC)

You feel? You should not show emotion when contrib to Tibet. Also I will check if the Polish situation is an example. Me 16:24, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

All I saw so far is just some unrelevant arguments based on guessing. What a shame! Could anybody do some homework to look up dictionaries/books (even most, if not all, of them are from Westerns' point of view, not to mention Chinese'view) and come back for some serious discussion!!?? --129.7.248.159 17:51, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Tibet v. TAR

Wouldn't it be so much more sensible to simply write an article on the country of Tibet, and then have the TAR as a period of its history (just as one would do with a history of Wales, and its eventual domination by England)? -- E. M. Clemwis —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.254.81.188 (talk • contribs) 22:26, 5 September 2005

I think that the separation by the two articles is great. The TAR article can be the communist point of view. So people know right away TAR is something the communist gov. of china has created. Its a new name and a new point of view, since they became Republic of China and are governed by the communist party.

Tibet however is not TAR, it is much much older than TAR. It will stay Tibet for as long as Tibetan Buddhism is around and trust me, that will be a long time. So I do not understand why people who are pro TAR and pro PRC keep editing the Tibet article which is suppose to be on the historical Tibet. They should be editing the TAR article. Any opinions on why they do that? Me 18:08, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

External Link : The truth the mainland Chinese government doesn't want you to know

• The truth the mainland Chinese government doesn't want you to know...

• 'see also this'

Does anybody else think the external link above would be helpful? I have posted it to this article, but it was removed by Hottentot. Please give an opinion. I personally, believe that the link is extremely relavent to the article.--FT in Leeds 02:14, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

I think it probably fits better under a Dalai Lama related article. This article is more about Tibet in general.--130.95.106.154 03:01, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Hottentot should allow the link somewhere, it is a news story about Tibet. I think the Tibetan History article is appropriate, there is some discussion of the Panchen Lama there.

I have allowed it to be in only 3 articles: Panchen Lama, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, and Erdini Qoigyijabu. That's all. And it has to be under the title BBC News article - "Tibet's missing spiritual guide" --Hottentot

I think any article that ends its title '...doesn't want you to know' suffers an automatic credibility hit. anon

For what it's worth, the (other) anon who was insiting on adding that link invented that headline, too. You'll note if you visit the link that the BBC did not actually headline the article in that manner.--chris.lawson 06:05, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Tibet as signatory to San Francisco Peace Treaty?

Recently I was told (personal communication) that Tibet signed the San Francisco peace treaty -- they claimed to have seen the signature. However, I can find no mention of this on the Internet. is this just a furphy? Bathrobe 08:45, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

See [5]. Tibet was not a signatory. It would be extremely strange if Tibet had been, since:

1. The Plan for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet had been signed 4 months earlier, in which Tibet had already acknowledged PRC sovereignty;
2. None of the signatories actually recognized Tibet diplomatically.

-- ran (talk) 03:15, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

List of administrative divisions of Tibet Autonomous Region & List of administrative divisions of Qinghai

I've begun to create a List of administrative divisions of Tibet Autonomous Region. The problem though is that I don't really know Tibetan, only the alphabet and how it converts to Wylie transliteration. Basically I'm getting the Wylie from the ja: Wikipedia and converting it into Tibetan letters the best I can. So if anyone knows Tibetan, please help me take a look and see if there're any mistakes. Thanks in advance. -- ran (talk) 03:09, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

I've also created a List of administrative divisions of Qinghai. -- ran (talk) 06:35, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Name of Tibet in Chinese

The article refer to 'Zang' meaning storehouse - that is untrue. The character zang may be used to indicate 'to hide', but it is not a noun in that sense. It is clearly a neutral transliteration of the 'Tsang' part of 'U-Tsang', and concerning the authority of Lhasa (as opposed to the other Tibetan temporal and spiritual centres of power) at the time the term came into wider use, it was not a bad choice. As well, in early Ming records the term 'Wu Shi Zang' was used.

The Han do use derogatory terms for transliterated ethnic from time to time, such as the case of the old form for the Yao character (refering to the Yao people) having a radical meaning beast, but Zang does not appear to be one of them.

This has been debated before, see Talk:Tibet/Archive 1. Unfortunately, sometimes people insist on reading too much into things like phonetic transcriptions; nor is it the first or last time that it has happened. On the other hand, since Wikipedia is an NPOV encyclopedia, we need to represent the views of others even if we don't necessarily agree with them. -- ran (talk) 04:05, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

:) Me 04:50, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I concur, however, I assert that one should clarify the 'some Tibetans find it offensive' to mean mostly Tibetans living outside of China. Tibetans living within China typically speak Chinese, and know enough not to make that connection. Moreover, it is also a recorded fact that nationalities in the PRC had successfully changed their name in the past - the Daur, Salar and Blang nationalities, for instance, had their original Chinese names changed to reflect more closely the name they used for themselves. It therefore seems inconceivable to suggest that this is done as a deliberate insult. I agree that this point of view should be kept, however, I merely suggest that it be properly annotated.

I don't think it is easy to judge what Tibetans living in China think of the name "Zang", unless we have a Tibetan participant here who lives / has lived in Tibet and can enlighten us on the subject. (What one side considers to be "normal", another considers "insulting". See Shina (word), Seoul, and Xinjiang for other examples.) The Daur / Salar / Blang thing is a good point though. -- ran (talk) 18:57, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I have a Tibetan friend who escaped from Chinese Tibet 2 years ago ans also speaks chinese. Will you take his word to what the meaning of the Chinese name means to the Tibetans living in china? Me 04:50, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

While I take your point that without the actual input of a Tibetan currently residing in the PRC it is difficult to say one way or another (and, indeed, one can imagine there being some credibility issues even were such a person to surface), I cannot agree that to be the case. Seoul's Chinese name may indeed be interpreted in an offensinve manner, Xinjiang's meaning likewise, and Shina had been so strongly associated with Japanese imperialism in China that it, like the once-noble swastika, is rightly considered offensive. One cannot make that case for Xizang on linguistic grounds since intepreting it in the way suggested would require actual distortion of the Chinese language, not mere interpretation, and if one were to make the case on association grounds, then it does not seem to be because of the 'Western Storehouse' connotation. The point I wish to make is that that interpretation of the Chinese term for Tibet is, unlike for instance Xinjiang, completely linguistically wrong. The most one can do is to intepret it as 'to hide in the West'.

According to my 新现代汉语词典:

藏 zàng 〈名〉1) 收藏财物的府库 (storing place; depository)〈竖头须，守藏者也。——《国语》〉。

The dictionary gives the definitions by date, so this is the earliest attested sense of the character, even though it is now obsolete. And so although it's likely that 西藏 has nothing to do with storehouses, you don't have to twist the language to make the alternate argument. -- ran (talk) 22:05, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

You are quite correct. I corroborate this information from the Xiandai Hanyu Cidian, third edition, publisher the Commercial press of Hong Kong; and the Cihai, second edition, publisher Zhonghua Shuju. ｀藏物之所曰藏。《列子 》《黄帝》：“俄而范氏之藏大火”＇ I apologised to have stated otherwise.

This is something that needs to be cut or shortened. The article itself is too long and the chinese name is written in a distractive way. I propose to cut the chinese name paragraph and rewrite it more clearly and to the point. Me 04:44, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

The article says that is too long. Don't you think some things need to be cut? How is your interpretation of the chinese name related to the historical Tibet? What is your motivation here? Me 13:18, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Historical Maps

There are in the book "Dragon in the Land of Snow" by Tsering Shakya which has a series of interesting and probably extremely relevant maps showing the extent of Lhasa's authority in the the last century, from the collpase of the Qing to the Nationalists (and the reconquest of parts of Tibet into the Sikang province), if anyone can verify their accuracy or upload them it may prove illuminating.

We can't upload maps that are copyrighted, but it would be great to incorporate the info, especially since it's so hard to come by. -- ran (talk) 04:01, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I should be glad to once I have some independent confirmation of their accuracy. I do not wish to seem to undermine Tibetan legitimacy by suggesting that Lhasa's authority was limited without adequate evidence.

As long as you attribute your info to its source, that probably wouldn't be a problem. -- ran (talk) 18:57, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Very good, I should be glad to upload some maps with the indicated information in a week's time.

Before you do, you should check who produced the maps and when. If they were produced in the early 20th century then we may be OK on copyright, but if they're more recent then they are almost certain to be under copyright. This page has a rather unfortunate history of copyrighted maps being added and then removed again, which we don't want to continue. Mark¹ 10:24, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Re: Evaluation of PRC rule

The section sited, and I quote:

"...does note that according to Chinese census there was a population of 2.8 million in 1953, but only 2.5 million in 1964 in Tibet proper."

Query: To what does this Tibet Proper refer? To the best of my knowledge the 1953 census report furnished by the Dalai Lama's office on the population of the TAR cited something in the region of 1.3 millions, thus I think perhaps it may be that by Tibet proper one refers to all 'ethinically cultural' areas of Tibet, or ethnic Tibetans. Than one must further query did this include the non-Tibetans dwelling in Tibet? In the absence of a detailed source it is difficult to say one way or another.

Correspondingly, one should perhaps mention the 7.5 million ethnic Han in Tibet claim made by various people in the interest of NPOV.

I don't know where those stats came from, since no sources were provided by whoever added them. But I do believe that the 6 million / 7.5 million thing is mentioned somewhere in the article already. -- ran (talk) 18:57, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

You are indeed correct, I appear to have overlooked that in the demographics section. That piece of statistic as provided by the Tibetan government-in-exile does seem somewhat suspect - census is difficult to conduct at the best of times, and one wonders how a body with only the smallest presence in the area can so ready provide such a piece of statistic. Moreover, at far as I am aware, no methodology was provided, and it would mean a combined population of some thirteen and a half millions, excluding, of course, the various non-Han and non-Tibetan peoples residing therein.

I agree, but since they say it and it's widely reported, Wikipedia's job is to report it -- together, too, of course, with the PRC's census numbers. A lot of people would also consider the PRC's censuses to be inaccurate -- which they probably are, considering how hard it is to count unregistered migrant workers. -- ran (talk) 22:08, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

More Re: Evaluation of PRC rule

This seems decidedly POV: the inability and failure of the Dalai Lama to prevent wholesale Westernization among his followers has made many to question who really destroyed Tibetan culture. -- Xianxxx 08:20, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Removed. It was added by a twit who turns up every so often; I thought we'd weeded all his stuff out. Mark¹ 13:31, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

The Guge

Should not the Guge be mentioned in the history of Tibet?

Of course. But since the history section right now is pretty long, you might want to add it to the article History of Tibet. -- ran (talk) 22:08, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Links

Sorry, this was my first time using the editing capabilities of Wikipedia, and I haven't quite worked out how to use the talk pages yet.

Very briefly (lengthier explanations follow) my suggestions (my edits were deleted):

1. The Australian Tibet Council should go back in (I might have accidentally deleted it), but under the Anti-Chinese Policy section (see their 'about' page)
2. Tibet Information Network link should be deleted (outdated, TIN doesn't exist anymore)
3. Categorizations generally should be rethought.

The separations into "pro" and "anti" Chinese policy versus "apolitical" are not so clear cut. The Australian Tibet Council definitely leans to the anti-Chinese policy side of things, whether or not they are involved in other "apolitical" work. Certainly organizations that are committed to doing aide work (or work like THDL), regardless of either side of the issue, and specifically refuse to take sides or get involved in the various debates can be counted as "apolitical". However the waters get murkier outside of those organizations.

I put Michael Parenti's article in an "other" category because his sources on which he bases the most sensationalist part of his debunking on, seem biased; Gelder and Gelder and Anna Louise Strong both had very strong ties to the CCP at the time of writing their books, and that was -as far as I can tell - the lens through which they looked at Tibet. As well, his section on the occupation is biased. For instance, Tibetans who were against China were not all against Communism and weren't all elites, as his article might lead one to assume. For instance, there were Tibetan Communists (among the aristocracy no less) who wanted to transform Tibet into a communist nation-state of their own, not to be ruled over by China. (I have to dig into my sources - not available at the moment - for a reference on them). And Parenti's section on Elites, Emigres and the CIA selects out the Dalai Lama's actions connected to the far right, totally ignoring his actions, support and relationships with those of more 'liberal' mindsets making him seem like a despot aligned only with the likes of Pinochet, not the Desmond Tutus etc of the world. Although he makes a case for a more complex reading of Tibetan history, his own reading is far from complex. "Shangri-la" versions of pre-'peaceful liberation' Tibet should be debunked, (and the perfect saintly image of the Dalai Lama, too) in favor of more complex examinations of the Tibet. Thus, the basic argument of Parenti's article is balanced - that one can say Feudal Tibet is bad without saying Chinese Rule is good. However, I argue he leans heavily towards the side of sensationalism in order to make his points. It is political - leaning towards a debunking of both systems of authority, whether or not that is correct, it definitely isn't without politics.

To further my point, Tibet Information Network (which no longer exists and should be deleted) is in the anti-Chinese Policy category. That choice is just as much a matter of POV as Michael Parenti's article being "apolitical". It was an organization centered around gathering independent information that could be either politically charged or apolitical, but would be disseminated in as 'apolitical' fashion as possible. So, like Parenti's article, it could or could not be considered 'apolitical'.

With these disparities in mind my suggestions are:

1. make another category or change Apolitical (perhaps Neutral or Other is better, or even Neutral Aide Organizations and Miscellaneous)
2. do away with categorizations (probably the worst idea)
3. Make altogether new categorizations. Ngotsa 06:37, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Ok, I have re-added the link that I deleted. Sorry about that! --Khoikhoi 06:48, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

I just want to give some facts about Tibet. How can I do it?

I think this article didn't give enough information about the facts about Tibet. I just want to add more information from other resouce other than the Chinese government or the Free Tibet orgs. Can you tell me what should I do? I just improve this article.

Find some facts which are not in the article. Find a reliable source for those facts. Then add them to the article along with a reference to the source. (But only if they are undisputed facts. If they are disputed, then you should say whose opinion they are). For the avoidance of doubt, Mr Yee's homepage is probably not a reliable source. Also, please sign your comment here with four tildes, so that we know who said what. Mark¹ 15:35, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Yeah,it's really hard to find this kind of articles. No artcles mention the background of Tibet before the invation of China except the Chinese government's. I'm sure nobody would trust the Chinese government. Though I know some of the background for I grow up in the Tibetan area and looks like the Tibetan people, but I can't use my experiences as evidences. One thing which I must mention is that the slaves did exist and were badly treated, but that was because the slaves were regarded as personal belongings. I think the Chinese government don't have rights to free the slaves, for the slaves belong to the slave-owners. The hardest job is to find articles about the backgrounds of Tibet, it's impossible for the two sides won't tell the whole truth. And no neutral articles could be found. A interesting thing is that if you search for the whole map of the Republic of China(published in Taiwan), you may find that the area of Tibet is in the map of ROC. Shinbu

The serf system and the ROC's claim on Tibet are both mentioned in the article. And please don't edit my signature. Mark¹ 14:06, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Epic of King Gesar

The article claims that the Epic of King Gesar is the longest epic poem in the word, a claim also made by the Kyrgyz about the Manas epic, at 500,000 lines long. Gesar is counted by verses, Manas is counted by lines, any idea for standards to compare apples-to-apples? Chris 04:03, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Neutrality of this Article is Disputed

Having spent the last ten years studying Tibetan language, culture, and history, I was shocked to read this one-sided apology for Chinese rule of Tibet in Wikipedia. There is an different perspective regarding the legal status of Tibet which is in no way adequately represented by the authors of the article. It would seem the authors would rather argue whether a million Tibetans were killed in the Cultural Revolution, or merely several hundred thousand, than look at more than one perspective.

A significant majority of the Tibetan people do not consider themselves to be legal subjects of Chinese rule. Even a glance at the history of China in Tibet over the last 50 years will show that the Chinese do not treat the Tibetans as citizens, but rather as a conquered people. If Tibetan cultural, linguistic, and religious heritage constitutes part of the Chinese nation, why make a brutal, concerted effort to stamp it out that lasts to this day? Why do an increasing number of Tibetan students not know their own language? Why is it a crime to own an image of the 14th Dalai Lama?

This is apparent to anyone who has any first-hand contact with the Tibetan people. Of course, in a nation where criticism of Chinese rule will send you to labor camps for decades, as in the case of Palden Gyatso, author of "Autobiography of a Tibetan Monk", there is a conspicuous shortage of articles written by Tibetans in Tibet arguing this point of view. It takes an act of willful ignorance to accept the derth of such materials as evidence of Tibetan acquiescence to Chinese rule.

The legal arguments regarding the status of Tibet are as byzantine as they are irrelevant. No historical authority gives a state the right to altogether ignore the most basic human rights of its citizenry, whatever treaty was or was not signed in centuries past. It is a shameful act of moral obfuscation to argue, as this article consistently does, that on the basis of such documents the Chinese have the right to govern the Tibetan territory as they will with impunity. The very idea is preposterous. When the Chinese begin torturing and murdering Tibetan citizens for the crime of speaking their language, or when they destroy 6,000 Tibetan monasteries in an all-out attempt to destroy the life of their culture, the Tibetans have the right to self-determination.

The basic fact is that the Tibetan people, prior to the brutal Chinese invasion and occupation, regarded the Dalai Lama as their ruler, and the Gelukpa administration in Lhasa as its legitimate bureaucracy. Whether or not one regards the Gelukpa government as legitimate or benevolent, it was regarded by the Tibetans as legitimate. To treat these facts as irrelevant in preference for legal arguments situated in a legal context that had no relevance to the Tibetan legal system pre-1949 is simply a justification, not a convincing argument.

In my opinion this article should be entirely re-written from a more balanced perspective, and until it is, I will dispute its neutrality. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.141.103.67 (talk • contribs) 08:22, 3 January 2006

I think I can't agree with you for this article is not and can never be an one-side article, it has and should have the opinions from both sides. The truth is left for us to identify. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shinbu (talk • contribs) 17:37, 3 January 2006

I removed the POV tag. The neutrality of 71.141.103.67's wording is itself disputed,

e.g., "brutal Chinese invasion and occupation"

FYI, after Qing China collapsed the Kashag government in Lhasa was still willing to accept its legal subordination to China, read Articles 1 & 2 of the Simla Agreement of 1914. Successive Chinese regimes, including both ROC[6] (1912-) and PRC (1949-), claims rights over the territory and such claims are based on Succession of states theory. And factually the Tibetans (or Tibetan Buddhists) is/was are/were not the only party/ethnic group which suffered human rights violations and even, during the Cultural Revolution, cultural genocide. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.79.167.54 (talk • contribs) 06:58, 6 January 2006

The Cultural Revolution was an example of the entire PRC (Tibet included) inflicting cultural genocide upon its entire self (Tibet included). -- ran (talk) 01:24, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I re-added the POV tag, and I really hope this doesn't become a game.

The fact that my disputation of the neutrality of this article itself has a point-of-view does not mean that the article is free from staunch bais. The more familiar you are with the dispute between the Tibetan and the Chinese intrepretations of the legal status of the so-called TAR, the more you will see that this ostensibly-objective and sterile article is clearly written from the point of view of the Chinese. For example, the Tibetans have never regarded the drawing of lots as necessary for the determining the succession of the Panchen Lama. The Chinese have used that technique as an attempt to validate their selection and to invalidate the Dalai Lama's candidate Panchen Chokyi Nyima. This article presents the issue of the golden lots uncritically, as though this were a universally-accepted token supporting China's candidate.

The Tibetan Government-in-Exile has consistently made this case, as did the Tenth Panchen Lama himself:

"The fiction of the golden urn bestowing legitimacy on the reincarnations has been put to rest by the late Panchen Lama himself who has been quoted in the official Chinese Publications, China Reconstructs of January 1988 as saying, 'According to Tibetan history, the confirmation of either the Dalai or the Panchen Lama must be mutually recognized.'" from http://www.tibet.com/PL/nov29c.html

It is profoundly disturbing to me that Ran should quibble over the wording I have used to describe the Cultural Revolution. If you can point to a single credible source indicating that it was in fact the Tibetans themselves who willingly destroyed almost all of the 6,000 monasteries that stood in their country pre-1959, then I will grant you that this was a cultural genocide that the Tibetans perpetrated 'upon themselves'. On its face, this claim is disingenuous and disturbing.

Furthermore, I reiterate my forceful argument that whatever dusty treaties may or may not have been signed centuries ago, the Tibetan people have a moral right to attempt to preserve their culture, language, identity, ecology, government, beliefs, and very lives from the onslaught of the Han, who clearly do not regard the Tibetans as 'the same people'. These rights, incidentally, are guaranteed by the United Nations Universal Decleration of Human Rights.

The bottom line is that I do not claim that this disputation is neutral. I claim only to represent a common point of view that is not represented by this piece, which reads as an apology of the Chinese invasion. Of course, it serves such a case to ignore, distort, or minimize the appalling consequences of the invasion and its toll in human lives.

I dont think it is convining when people's POV on Wikipedia were based on those well-known propaganda sites from both sides like Tibet.com or those of CCP/Xinhua whose credibility is doubted.

Nevertheless, the golden urn system itself has long became part of Tibet's tradition, it is an historical fact that since the year of 1793(when the instructions of selecting both DL/PL was promulgated via Imperial ordinance) the government in Beijing traditionally has had the final say on the legitimacy of DL and PL (Melvyn C. Goldstein, 'A History of Modern Tibet', p44).

According to Charles Bell's 'Tibet Past and Present' and 'Portrait of the Dalai Lama' the 13th Dalai Lama himself clearly recognized that his ruling power was bestowed by no one but the Guangxu Emperor. Instances existed when Beijing exercises it sovereign rights over the local Tibetan leaders including DLs by, not only appointing, punishing (and even deposing) them(1706, 1904, 1910).

Okay, even when those treaties and the golden urn were non-existent, Tibet's locality historically still acknowledged Beijing's 'final say', for example when the earliest British mission arrived at Tibet in the 1760s, the Lhasa leadership clearly told them that their "country were subject of the Emperor of China" and 'all contacts had to be through Beijing' (A.T. Grunfeld, 'The Making of Modern Tibet').

The British Mission released the report in 1775 stating: "The Emperor of China is acknowledged as the sovereign of the country; the appointment to the first offices in the States is made by his order, and in all measures of consequence reference is first had to the Court of Peking"(C.R. Markham, 'Narratives of the Mission of George Bogle to Tibet and of the Journey of Thomas Menning to Lhasa') Kindly note that at that moment there were no treaties, no golden urn, no imperial ordinance.

For a genuine NPOV the importance of both treaties and traditions should be respected and treated with equal footing--219.79.30.35 07:14, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

[7]

This is from Tibet.ca.

Doje returned to Ganden in 1966. Fired up by Mao Tsetung's call to destroy feudalism during the Cultural Revolution (1966 to 1976), he and other teen-aged Tibetan Red Guards tore apart Ganden's 15th-century stone walls and torched its Buddhist libraries. By the time he and his comrades left, Ganden looked as though it had been the target of saturation bombing.

As he stoops to pour cups of salty yak-butter tea for unexpected visitors, Doje's eyes fill with tears. "At the time, I didn't care what I was doing," he says. "Now that I'm older, I feel bad."

...

Doje, a slight and apologetic man in a battered fedora and ragged running shoes, elicits no sympathy from others. "We have a saying," says Nyachur, a burly Tibetan driver. "The villages below Ganden destroyed the monastery, so fate decrees they will be forever poor."

...

During the Cultural Revolution, Drepung Monastery became a granary and other monasteries were razed. But it was the Tibetan Red Guards, such as Doje, who did most of the damage, just as Chinese Red Guards smashed their own ancient monuments inland. "The same people who destroyed the monasteries are walking around today with their prayer wheels, talking about independence," says a young Tibetan official.

You can also take a look at the following section from The Dragon in the Land of Snows by Tsering Shakya. It goes into quite a bit of detail about various Red Guard factions in Tibet during the start of the Cultural Revolution.

-- ran (talk) 23:08, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I re-added the neutrality disputation. Let's not keep playing this game, shall we?

I'll just quote three of the criteria Wikipedia offers for validly contesting the neutrality of an article:

1. While each fact mentioned in the article might be presented fairly, the very selection (and omission) of facts can make an article biased.
2. Some viewpoints, although not presented as facts, can be given undue attention and space compared to others (see Wikipedia:NPOV tutorial#Space and balance).
3. The text and manner of writing can insinuate that one viewpoint is more correct than another.

I am not saying that there are not two perspectives to this issue. On the contrary, I am saying that there are at least two points of view, and that the view asserted by the PRC and persons sympathetic to their position is the only one represented by the article. You are simply making my point for me.

If you look at material produced by scholars less sympathetic to the PRC version of history, you find a very different story. Consider High Richardson and David Snellgrove, for example, who write in A Cultural History of Tibet:

"Like all unwanted occupying powers, the Chinese were driven to ever sterner and more cruel repressions. Their real enemies, as they have surely discovered by now, are not the nobles and the rich prelates, whom they castigated as the oppressors fo the Tibetan people...Their real enemies are the ordinary Tibetan people, who have little to lose by their lives, and these are so imbued and conditioned by their own special forms of culture, thatn for them change is impossible." (pg. 267)

and

"Since 1959 the Chinese rulers have completely destroyed the main springs of Tibetan civilization. They attacked first the religious and aristocratic social order with a fury unequalled by Cromwell's henchmen in England, and their subsequent devestating onslaught against the material and religious well-being of ordinary Tibetan farmers, herdsmen and traders may perhaps be compared in methods and results with Cromwell's invasion of Ireland." (pg. 268)

I could easily produce a laundry list of comparable citations to that effect from scholarly sources, as I'm sure you well know. Ultimately, the bottom line is that I am exercising a legitimate right to dispuate the neutrality of this article as provided for by the Wikipedia standards. I am not asking you to agree with my point of view - that's why it is called a disputation. But you are claiming that the mere fact of calling the article's neutrality itself into question shows that I am biased, and therefore unable to make such a disputation. As if the sources you are citing do not take a side on this affair! Or you, yourself, are simply speaking 'history'.

You are welcome to disagree and argue that the article is written from a NPOV, but you do not have the authority to negate my disputation. The whole point of the tag is to indicate that there is significant disagreement among Wikipedia users, and that is clearly what is occurring here. If you keep removing my disputation tag, I will simply keep reposting it. I would prefer that we not to sink to such a juvenile level.

I have found you the source (two, in fact) you wanted. If you have concerns about them, perhaps you could be more specific?

Also, I didn't remove and I have never removed your NPOV tag. You might want to check the history of the article before leveling such puzzling accusations against me. -- ran (talk) 13:45, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

My mistake - I apologize. I incorrectly assumed that whoever keeps removing the tag would explain their reasons.

Continued disputed status

I just want to state my opinion: Recall that the Communists do not treat anyone who does not hold a government-appointed role as a human. Their forced abortion upon Chinese women brusquely reminds us of their attempt to control everything. I also want you to realize that not all Chinese people are Communist, and that there is absolutely no justification of you writing “brutal Chinese invasion”, “Chinese rule”, or anything of the sort. People are constantly fighting for Tibetan rights and complain about the 1.8 million plus causalities of the Communist takeover. But what about the mainland Chinese inhabitants? Are they not humans as well? Do they not deserve the same humanity as the Tibetans do? The media has stereotyped all Chinese people to be Communist-lovers whose thoughts revolve around anti-Tibetan, anti-democratic thoughts. Are you one to believe that? Over 40 million Chinese people died in this so-called culture revolution, but the media has neglected to point this out in the hope that it will dehumanize the Chinese. From what I just read, I believe that have succeeded.01:32, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

I would like to support the placement of the POV tag from the opposite perspective. Communists are demonised in the brainwashed West, and many westerners support Tibet's separatism in a way which is both naive and altogether hypocritical - i.e., they fail to see the connection with similar separatist movements nearer home - and ignorant - they choose to ignore the atavistic, dire restrictions imposed on people's lives and human rights by traditional religious tyranny - one of the same historical problems, arguably, as in Western domination of subject nations. This, is, of course, reflected in the article's bias, including this page. It has taken me well over a month and an acrimonious revert war [[8]] with an administrator (I am a newbie) to simply remove a POV caption from the picture of Tibet's ancient, symbolic flag, which attributed its banning by the CCP purely to separatism(!). Are all communists Chinese, oppressive and non-Tibetan? Because that is the sort of partisan nonsense implied by these repetitive, propagandistic, one-sided rants, which, left unchallenged, amount to nothing less than brainwashing by an unholy alliance of capitalism, 'separatism' and a 'religion' more honoured by the simpering admiration of outsiders than by the (e.g., enforced celibate) observance. Etaonsh 07:43, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

It's true that communism is often demonised in the West, as are fascism and the Spanish Inquisition. Therefore, we must be careful in how we deal with these subjects in order to try to avoid as much bias as possible. I'm interested to see what exact changes you want to make. As it stands, this article only mentions communism or a communist party twice. Anyway, please go ahead and make changes that you think are needful, and we'll see what other editors think about it.

I agree that Western Free Tibet supporters are frequently fairly naive and hypocritical, which I do find bemusing. This is, nevertheless, an ad hom, and it's not fair to lump an entire tendency together like that. Personally, I support all independence movements. - Nat Krause^(Talk!) 20:33, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

The 'exact change I want to make,' as stated already, is to support my ostensible adversary in placing the 'Neutrality Disputed' tag, and to extend it to the entire article, thus encompassing e.g., the use of the word 'subjugation' here [[9]], and 'rebellion' (as opposed to 'insurrection') here [[10]].

I already took care not to state or imply that 'all Western Free Tibet supporters are naive/hypocritical,' but, to me, such a tendency needs identifying, having attended such a talk at my local astrology association, where a similar 'Free Wales' talk would undoubtedly be regarded as unacceptably political/marginal. You have to either accept that or not.

I agree that 'communism or a communist party' are mentioned only twice in the article, but an implied anti-communism is found in the failure to explain communism's conflict with old Tibet in terms of modernisation and egalitarianism. Etaonsh 23:22, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, this is a problem, then. The purpose of the "NPOV dispute" tag is to serve as a temporary measure while editors sort out conflicting versions. If you don't have any proposed changes beyond the dispute tag, then there is no active dispute, in which case we can't put the tag on the article. So, you will have to come up with suggestions for some kind of material changes to repair the bias that you see in the article.

If only there were a Free Wales group in my local community. That sounds like a gas. A pity. As for your observations about Free Tibet activism, I accept them as your opinion; however, being that this is a matter of interpretation and opinion, it will be tricky to find a good way to incorporate it into an encyclopaedia. Certainly, the Tibet article is not the right place for it. - Nat Krause^(Talk!) 23:13, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

I accept the point in your first paragraph, and was addressing it with alterations to my preceding contribution while you were writing that (we 'crossed in the post'); specifically: 'the use of the word 'subjugation' here [[11]], and 'rebellion' (as opposed to 'insurrection') here [[12]].

I believe there is an unspoken 'Free Wales' group in most English-speaking communities, but one which wouldn't readily agree to being represented by any particular organisation - another plausible reason for questioning the Free Tibet agenda. My comments on the latter movement were intended as a factual representation of undeniable and, as yet, undenied shortcomings, not as a POV stance. For all you know, I could be attempting to stimulate Free Tibet - my own POV on the matter is neither stated nor implied. Etaonsh 23:34, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure what's wrong with "subjugation", as this seems like a fairly straightforward way to describe the process by which a person is maded a subject of a monarchy, and, moreover, the sentence in question is explicitly giving Tibet independista POV. Nevertheless, I have changed it to "incorporated into the Qing Dynasty". As for rebellion/insurrection, what's the basis for this? Those words seem to be basically synonyms, but "insurrection" has a negative connotation and seems like distinctly more loaded a word; i.e., "rebellion" is closer to neutral.

Also, I didn't mean to refer to your opinions about whether Tibet should be independent, more autonomous, etc., but your opinions about the qualities of the people in the Free Tibet movement (which I'm not disputing). - Nat Krause^(Talk!) 04:18, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

I think 'subjugation' has unmistakeable connotations of being placed under a yoke, like an animal, of authority ('My employer = my subjugator?'{!}), so I like your edit. The issue is not whether 'the sentence in question is explicitly giving Tibet independista POV' or otherwise, but whether it's impartial.

I beg to differ regarding 'rebellion' versus 'insurrection.' The latter sounds like a technical, impartial term to describe the process of the overthrow of authority, whereas 'rebellion' has strong connotations of grass roots origin and credibility of sentiment, which would be incorrect if, as one side in the argument apears to maintain, the insurrection is fostered cynically by external enemies.

I haven't got any 'opinions' about 'the qualities of the people in the Free Tibet movement': I'm just highlighting a process whereby human beings are more gullible and vulnerable to being recruited into causes in proportion to the latters' physical (and psychological) distance from home. Etaonsh 07:53, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

I thought "insurrection" had positive connotations because it suggests fighting against oppression, whereas "rebellion" has negative connotations as unorganised, mob-based upheaval. Maybe it's just me :S but clearly there's a wide divergence of experiences with these words - as with uprising, upheaval, revolt, etc. --Sumple (Talk) 11:13, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

On the contrary, 'insurrections' are put down, but 'rebellions' happen for a reason, namely native discontent, which can't easily be argued with, even where the 'rebellion' is unsuccessful.

It could well be 'just you,' with a virtual face like that! Etaonsh 11:38, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

What's the reason that you suggest "insurrection", Etaonsh? "Rebellion" is certainly the more common word, and it seems to be about the closest to neutral. - Nat Krause^(Talk!) 08:33, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

I think what the PRC is suggesting is that 'rebellion' is misleading, that rebellion was a cover for, or stirred up by, outside CIA involvement/interference. Whether rebellion or 'Trojan Horse,' 'insurrection' is more neutral (I think I also already added, above, that it sounded more like a technical description of the act, whereas 'rebellion' borders on implying home-grown validity, from a native rebel perspective). Etaonsh 15:20, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, the PRC might well suggest that, but they hardly constitute a credible source on this topic, and, that being the case, there's a limit to how much we ought to let that influence wording and such. - Nat Krause^(Talk!) 18:13, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Any Tibetans in this list of "credible" writers for Wikipedia? What a freaking joke!

A genocide?

Chinese official figures for Tibet in 1953 were 2.8 million, in 1964 the estimate was 2.5 million (and the Chinese would hardly be the one's to exaggerate the disparities in Tibet). Even if we take the official Chinese line that 90,000 Tibetans fled into exile, this would amount to 7% of the population killed (200,000 if there was zero population growth). This would be greater (proportionately) than the maximum amount of Bengali deaths, around 4%, during the Bangladesh Liberation War, frequently refered to as a genocide. Should this be incorporated somehow? CJK 18:03, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Not if this is your original research. People die and fail to have children for many reasons, of which genocide is one of the less common. Mark¹ 18:48, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

So, henry flower is mark, and also markalexander? So I can create multiple accounts and post? Is that OK on wikpedia? Jeez Luiz! Me 21:29, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

One at a time please. It's okay to start a new account and use that one instead, if you tell everyone that's what you're doing.—Nat Krause^(Talk!) 22:18, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Please teach me more about my spouse's country, I really like to learn from a traveling western tourist like you rather than a Tibetan person. That makes sence! It is the Wikipedia logic. A very serious place to get info. I am so glad I found Ran and you to teach me about Tibet! You both should get PhD in Tibetan History, Language and Culture!Me 05:28, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

OK. Then what other events may have caused this? Disease? Thats about the only reason apart from the exodus. All I'm saying is that if this is what the Chinese admit themselves, then it's at least notable. CJK 19:39, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

I: "Yes, you can start another account." My Tibet: "Don't try to teach me about my spouse's country!" Good point. You know, you can't cite your wife in an encyclopedia article, anyway. I would have thought that was obvious.—Nat Krause^(Talk!) 05:47, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

There was the Great Leap Forward, which killed 30 million people in China between 1958 and 1963. Also, genocide and ethnic cleansing refer to acts that are specifically aimed at removing one ethnic group with respect to other ethnic groups. As I've already explained before in Talk:Ethnic cleansing, this did not happen in Tibet even if we take all of the allegations and casualty figures to be true. -- ran (talk) 19:48, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

No genocide in Tibet, ah, Ran? :) Me 21:28, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I see where you're coming from. But I believe that the tremendous loss of life resulting from Chinese rule, a greater proportion than in China itself, ought to be mentioned. CJK 20:37, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

What tremendous loss of life? We haven't established that there was one. Mark¹ 21:33, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

I am not following. What more proof do you want? 200,000 people don't just disappear into thin air. CJK 21:35, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Maybe old people died of natural causes and were not replaced because the birthrate was lower. Maybe people followed the DL to India. Maybe they moved to China proper. Maybe the Chinese didn't find them for the census because they were nomads. Maybe they hid in the hills because they didn't want the Chinese to count them. Maybe they died because of famine, maybe their heads were cut off by Chairman Mao's army. Maybe some of each. I don't know, but neither do you. Mark¹ 21:46, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Is there any proof of this? CJK 21:53, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Proof of what? There's proof that the Chinese counted 2,753,081 Tibetans in TAR in 1953 and that they counted 2,501,174 Tibetans in 1964. I'm sure there are various sources discussing reasons for the difference, but none of us have gone looking for them. Mark¹ 22:01, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Then please tell me why can't it be mentioned. CJK 22:03, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

The 1953 and 1964 census figures can certainly be mentioned. Explanations for the difference found in respectable sources can be mentioned. Other speculation cannot. Mark¹ 22:06, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

So you're saying its OK to put all that in if it is sourced? CJK 22:09, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Anything relevant and sourced from respectable sources, yes. Mark¹ 22:11, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually... according to this white paper the official PRC figures are 1 million for 1953 and 1,251,000 for 1964. (These are of course for TAR only -- or, in the case of the 1953 figure, the Dalai Lama's zone of control which is the same as the TAR today.) -- ran (talk) 19:00, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Hmm... can someone figure out where the 2.8 million and 2.5 million figures came from? -- ran (talk) 19:23, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh nevermind... I've found it. The figures refer to all ethnic Tibetans within the PRC (not just TAR, but also Amdo and Kham):

• 2,753,081 (1953 census)
• 2,501,174 (1964)
• 3,847,875 (1980)
• 4,593,072 (1990)

Source: [13] -- ran (talk) 19:33, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Good job! Keep up the good work, no genocide, just some dead people and the PRC sources. And what good, legit sources they are. Such good quality plastic junk made in china these days. Walmart is the museum of the chinese art. I love those cheap plastic things that break after one week. It is all worth it! And Ran is not expressing a chinese nationalistic POV at all! He has Tibetan sources.No, wait! He does not! Who do we believe? The chinese government or the thousands of people crossing the border? Is there a genocide? Is Tibet chinese? Is Palestine Jewish? Me 05:28, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Genocide defined

Genocide, according to Ward Churchill, writing in A Little Matter of Genocide, does not require killing, only the intent to destroy a culture. Fred Bauder 19:14, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

The current Wikipedia article of Genocide reads:

Genocide is defined by the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) article 2 as any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: "Killing members of the group; Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."

If you disagree with this definition, then I suggest taking the matter up at Talk:Genocide.

Also, the definition that you propose would include all policies that coerce or encourage Cultural assimilation. For example, the Stolen Generation would be genocide under the definition that you propose.

-- ran (talk) 19:23, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Exactly, the Stolen Generation is an excellent example. Ward Churchill's talk on his book at City Lights Bookstore focused on Indian boarding schools. Fred Bauder 20:00, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh wait -- I missed the last line of the definition as given by Genocide: "forcibly transferring children of the group to another group". The Stolen Generation would fit this definition.

The question is: is there such a policy in Tibet? -- ran (talk) 20:25, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Are really asking a question? Oh, I see, another game. Me 05:32, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Usually you don't give millions of dollars to build infrastructure and preserve local cultural relics for a people you want to destroy. Even the Tibetans in exile seem hesitant to use the term "genocide" outright, preferring "cultural genocide" to refer to what they see as a premeditated attempt at population transfer of Han migrants to Tibet. The problem with that is that those Han migrants are not permanent residents of Tibet for the most part and they don't enjoy the benefits of the social programs in minority areas. The Chinese under Mao certainly made some really bad political decisions that cost the lives of many people in China and Tibet as well, but it certainly doesnt seem to me that it was a premeditated attempt to eradicate or completely assimilate Tibetan culture and ethnicity to the point that it dissappears from the face of the Earth. (--itsalljustaride)

The justification of the use of the term genocide while debating upon the Communists (realize: all Chinese people are not communist, China is not communist, but the government is) and Tibet clash is still being argued upon since genocide implies the deliberate and organized decimation of a group of people. The Communist, in an attempt to take over China, killed anyone who was in their way. The Tibetan casualties pale in comparison to the casualties of those in the rest of China (40 million). Cheau The GOD 00:10, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, no genocide, Tibetans are making it all up and crossing the border because they need to get away from all the fun in Tibet. Please share your enlightening thouths with your Tibetan friends, in the rare case you have such friends... Me 05:41, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Talk:Lhasa

We need a third (and fourth, and fifth) opinion here at Talk:Lhasa. User:Lapsed Pacifist is clearly having trouble understanding the standards we follow here at Wikipedia. -- ran (talk) 14:18, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

No, just your interpretation of them, Ran.

Lapsed Pacifist 17:42, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Please, everybody avoid personal comments (even "subtle" ones). Wikipedia should be about the articles, not about the contributors. -- Writtenonsand 18:43, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

The issue has not been resolved. We need more input, so any comments on the issue would be greatly appreciated. -- ran (talk) 17:23, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Lhasa as highest capital

On 5 February Khoikhoi removed the sentence "Before 1950, it was the highest national capital in the world" with the comment "this is disputed".

Well lots of things are disputed, but I should think that this one would be relatively easy to verify.

Anybody have an hard info on this? -- Writtenonsand 18:44, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

See Talk:Lhasa#PRC statistics on why I removed it. --Khoikhoi 19:22, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't see the reason there. Can you please give me the quick version? -- Writtenonsand 04:11, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

It was further down below:

By omission? The article states clearly that Lhasa is the traditional capital of Tibet, which is true, and can be intrepreted according to either POV. It stops short of staying that Lhasa is the national capital of Tibet, but that is because this is controversial. Omission here is how this article steers clear of the controversy and avoids taking sides. Your inadequate attempt at NPOV (a poor veil for your POV pushing) destroys this neutrality.

You're trying to introduce Lhasa into a ranking of national capitals. This would be like trying to introduce national rankings of area, population, etc. into Tibet, or Xinjiang, or Chechnya, or Kosovo, etc. This is very POV, and such rankings do not exist in those articles.

Please also explain why my analogy is "spurious". There are many people in Northern Ireland who do not wish to join the Republic of Ireland, and also many that do. Putting one prominently and the other as an afterthought in parentheses is not NPOV.

Unless, of course, you have a double standard, where putting POV you support in parentheses is "spurious", while putting POV you oppose in parentheses is "perfectly fine".

-- ran (talk) July 8, 2005 22:27 (UTC)

--Khoikhoi 04:26, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Oh Yes! Was Lhasa a capital or center of Tibet? Our very neutral chinese friend RAN has commented once again! Thank you, Ran! The truth acording to Ran: Lhasa was not capital of Tibet before 1950! Atay tuned for more from Neutral Guy Ran! Me 05:49, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

So your dispute with the statement "it was the highest national capital in the world" is that as you understand the matter it was not a national capital? -- Writtenonsand 04:33, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Would you be able to rephrase that? Sorry. --Khoikhoi 04:41, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Sorry. The original sentence was: "Before 1950, it was the highest national capital in the world". You commented: "this is disputed".

I'm trying to figure out what is disputed. Apparently we aren't discussing the altitude (That datum is not in dispute.) (And I assume would be easy to verify or disprove.)

What is in dispute is the characterization of Lhasa as a "national capital". Are we on the same page here, or am I misunderstanding?  :-) -- Writtenonsand 00:08, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

The dispute is weather Tibet lost its independence about a thousand years ago (Chinese POV) or about 50 years ago. (Tibetan POV) --Khoikhoi 00:57, 8 February 2006 (UTC

Gotcha. -- Writtenonsand 02:13, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

If I am not misguided, none of any major countries in the world recognized Tibet as an independent state after the fall of Qing Dynasty despite Tibet government's numerous attempts on this. So the dispute only arise when some Tibet Independence supportors want to describe things in a subjective point of view. -- G.S.K.Lee 17:45, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

However much many of us are in favor of Tibetan independence, in such a touchy, disputed article we need to take especial care. "National capital" implies a de jure nation-state, and if no country recognized independent Tibet, then there wasn't a recognized national capital either. RGTraynor 21:43, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

This comes from a Tibetan person, not the local zoo: the chinese view is subjective yet you are letting it be on this article. The Tibetans have always considered their country to be theirs, not chinese. What makes you think the chinese view is objective and the Tibetans in Tibet and in exile are subjective? My questions are still not answered here. I know why. Time to let some other people aware of this article and it's adminds. Me 05:57, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Inner Mongolia to Southern Mongolia

Someone has started a poll to rename Inner Mongolia to Southern Mongolia. If you're interested in the topic, please come to Talk:Inner Mongolia to express your views. -- ran (talk) 21:41, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

How does this relate to Talk:Tibet?

Ran correctly assumes that a portion of those interested in Tibet are also interested in other Chinese border areas. Fred Bauder 15:15, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

He is interested in keeping imaginary motherland china whole. He is a chinese nationalist. He is also interested in Taiwan. He has a POV on all the issues in regards to what is china and what is an independent nation. I have a lot more to say about this but Ran will ban me and what will I do??? :) Me 06:02, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

China inherited Yuan dynasty???

Chinese claim that the Mongol Empire is part of their history because they were occupied by them. It is interesting that Kublai Khan asked his followers whether he should kill the Chinese or not. But the followers opposed to him saying “Then we can’t collect taxes from them”. How would it be possible to think Yuan Dynasty as China’s history? It should be Mongol's history. This extreme expansionism is much like United States saying “Canada is our land because we were occupied by British and British controlled Canada.” How absurd would it sound? But this is the actual claim which China is making. Because Chinese were occupied by them, it's their history. Since China occupied Tibet, it's their land.....what kind of argument is that??? I live in Canada so I have lot of Chinese friends. But it's sometimes very annoying to see recently immigrated Chineses' narrow view. I guess there are lots of people who know the truth and opposes to Chinese government's policy, but if the government even forbids to have Dalai Lama's picture, how would they ever know the truth?

Yes, China does inherit the Mongol Yuan Dynasty. People always assume that Chinese are different than Mongolians. The truth is that the term "Chinese" is just like "American". "Chinese" consists of more than 1 race, which is dominated by Han Chinese. Mongolian race is therefore Chinese, since they are one of the recognized ethnicities in China. So any Mongolian history that pertains to China in general is a Chinese history. In other words, China does inherit the Yuan dynasty. --Heilme 08:39, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Han people were originally nomad civilization from up north like the Mongolians, they conquered the south and adopted their culture and languages, exactly the same story which happened to Mongolians and later the Manchu people. Any hordes from the steppe who conquered the south were eventually conquered by their culture.:

It's natural for people wanting to move to warmer and more fertile lands, and it's natural for poeple to adopt local cultures and learn their way of lifes.:

That's why Han ethnicity itself is very diverse, every town in China has their unique culture, food and literature. This is the fundamental reason why Chinese people treats minorities e.g Tibetians so well. There are even Jews, muslims and other european colonies in China since long long ago living harmoniously in this nation.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.223.225.189 (talk • contribs) .

You may wish to read up on the subject of begging the question, as you seem to have assumed your most relevant point—Chinese people treats minorities e.g Tibetians so well. - Nat Krause^(Talk!) 22:18, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

It depends on how Kubilai Khan, the first Emperor of Yuan, classified his State. First of all, I'd like to know when, where and in what background did Kubilai Khan make such statement (about killing the Chinese. All Chinese? Han Chinese or non-Han Chinese? I would appreciate if you can cite any authoritative source) as many of his top officials were indeed Han Chinese and non-Han Chinese who contributed lot to the building of the Yuan Empire, it seemed quite impossible if Khubilai himself has ever said that or if there is any willingness to materialize this genocide plan:

"Khubilai recognized that he had to win over the Confucian Chinese in order to govern the country. One step he took to gain such support was his shift of the capital to North China....Khubilai wanted Ta-tu (Yuan's capital in present-day Beijing) to symbolize his efforts to reach out and appeal to the traditional Chinese scholars and Confucians"[M. Rossabi, 'Khubilai Khan: His Life and Time', pp131-132]

It is worth noting that the symbolicism of adopting the dynastic title "Yuan" was so great that by doing so (in 1271, several years before Sung collapsed) and carring out Sinification, Khubilai could claim legitimacy of the Chinese Imperial lineage (since Xia) and that of the title[s] "Emperor Of China", the Mandate of Heaven. [ibid; Herbert Franke, 'The Legitimation of of the Yuan Dynasty', 1978] Additionally, Khubilai also adopted the Han-Chinese bureaucratic system replacing the Mongol Khanate and its traditional Khurultai (old system of selecting Great Khans). Transforming their traditional khanate into a Han-Styled Chinese state, the Mongol court:

"continued the administrative structure of the Tang and Sung, particularly the Six fold division under the Six Ministries at the Capital. During the thirteen hundred years from the early Tang to 1906, this basic structure remained the same. The Yuan also continued a threefold division of central government among civil administrative, military, and supervisory(censorial) branches"[J.K. Fairbank, 'China: Tradition and Transformation', p167]

Please kindly note that in Yuan China's administraive division, there were totally 11 provinces under Beijing, including Mongolia itself (namely Lingbei Province). The later Manchu-Qing Dynasty had similarities while their "Chinese Empire" also comprising China Proper["Inner China"], and the Manchu-Tibeto-Mongol-Xinjiang Borderlands ["Outer China"]. Furthermore, the U.S./Canada/Britain case is different, for example The British monarchs, ruling the 13 colonies, never americanized their home nations, neither moving their political heartland from England to the "Dictrict of Columbia" nor adopting any American(ized) Federal System in the British Isles. A prominent Canadian Tibetologist, writing in 2000, summarized the complicated Tibeto-Han-Mongol-Manchu relationships:

"Tibet's status has been intertwined with China since the 7th century through marriages, wars, and treaties. Mongol conquests in the 13th century made Tibet part of a Mongol-ruled Chinese state, while four centuries later the ethnic Manchu Qing dynasty further incorporated Tibet into China. In 1912 the 13th Dalai Lama's unilaterally declared independence but two years later signed a treaty granting Chinese "suzerainty" over both "Inner Tibet" and "Outer Tibet," exercising direct rule over the former while the latter remained autonomous...." [A.T. Grunfeld, 'Reassessing Tibet Policy']

I think that the viewpoint of your Chinese friends is quite understandable --MainBody 09:29, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

The Chinese did inherit from the Yuan Dynasty. Kublai Khan made himself part of Chinese history by adopting almost every custom identified with the Chinese, even using the concept of the Mandate of Heaven (thus making himself a 'successor' of the past Chinese dynasties). Yuan Dynasty should not be counted as solely a part of Mongol history - The Mongol empire was split into four Khanates, with the Yuan Dynasty governing China, so the Yuan Dynasty is actually a representative of China, not merely an occupied area. Moreover, the Mongols did not take much interest into preserving their identity ("and their attention was never concerned with the rest of Mongol domains", quote from article Yuan Dynasty) and mostly merged with the Han Chinese.

As for the problem with Tibet, it has been a part of China in the Han Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty as well, so whether China inherits from Yuan or not is not the main point (just as PRC would not claim sovereignty areas like parts of Eastern Russia that once belonged to the Yuan Dynasty, but would claim sovereignty over Taiwan, which China Proper is significantly related with, not only in the Yuan Dynasty but also in other dynasties). Aranherunar 08:03, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

'Tibetan flag banned as symbol of separatism'?

When we look at the banned Tibetan flag, it is clearly as replete with ancient religious symbolism as that of Taiwan. To reduce the banning of the flag to an anti-separatist move is as much an over-simplification of the situation as the more general refusal to admit to the modernising element in the Chinese government's suppression of restrictive religious traditions. Any kind of 'blind-spot,' in this sensitive situation, undermines the ongoing struggle against oppression, from whatever direction. Etaonsh 18:09, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Tibet is not a country but rather part of the Republic of China. When mainland China was still under the rule of KMT and Gen. Chiang Kai-Shek, Tibet maintained full autonomy. Tibet would not be likely to regain autonomy while under the Communist regime, but when the Commie regime topples, Tibet will be autonomous again. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.199.81.64 (talk • contribs)

The future of Tibet is for Tibetans, not for anonymous McCarthyist prophets who don't sign their name to things. Tibet's degree of autonomy from China has fluctuated repeatedly through history, the competence of the Chinese government of the time clearly being a factor. Etaonsh 05:46, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Administrator Henry^Flower /Mark^{your words} has, once again, reverted the relevant caption to its current status, again without discussion. Could we have references, please, to support the current caption's implied suggestion that the Tibetan flag is banned purely 'as a symbol of separatism'? Etaonsh 08:56, 9 May 2006 (UTC) Etaonsh 09:26, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Proposed Tibetan naming conventions

Please note that discussions are currently underway regarded naming conventions for Tibet-related articles. The main issue involved is how Tibetan words should be romanised, which means it could ultimately influence the style of every article where Tibetan names or words are used. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Tibetan) and Wikipedia_talk:Naming conventions (Tibetan). - Nat Krause^(Talk!) 22:10, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Tibetan Exile Kloine

What is it? It's mentioned in the Ü-Tsang page, and from the context, seems to be a language or dialect of some sort. Can any Tibetan native / expert give an answer? And also hopefully add the explanation to the U Tsang page. Thanks --Sumple (Talk) 09:39, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

All is revealed at koine. :) Henry^Flower 14:30, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Right. Tibetan Exile Koiné would be a lingua franca form of Tibetan used among Tibetan exiles. However, I don't know if this is really the appropriate name for this thing, because it does not seem to be used outside of Wikipedia. - Nat Krause^(Talk!) 23:16, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

'Since 1979, there has been economic reform, but no political reform, like the rest of the PRC'?

Again, this seems POV and insinuative. The massive economic change (not necessarily 'reform') has arguably been forced on China by the changing world zeitgeist, and would surely not have been possible without major political change ('reform' is again POV). The statement above is clearly, in any case, a sweeping generalisation about a very large country. Etaonsh 07:46, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Yep. It's a generalisation and poorly phrased. Something like "significant economic reform but limited political change" would be better. --Sumple (Talk) 10:12, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

From a strictly communist perspective, the introduction of capitalist norms and its consequences, such as unemployment, is not a 'reform' but a relapse in the face of external pressure. Arguably this is also the case from many perspectives, and no recorded political position, as far as I'm aware, fully supports unbridled capitalism. Etaonsh 16:20, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Right. Except the PRC government calls it reform and that's how it is referred to in western media as well. "Strictly communist perspective" is POV. --Sumple (Talk) 02:41, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

In an impartial setting one doesn't necessarily heed the blandishments of the Chinese government. 'As well'? Arguably the western media is 'the tail wagging the dog' - in China as in the West. That's why we need Wikipedian impartiality.

"Strictly communist perspective" is indeed POV, but it's also a POV, and one which shouldn't be invalidated in the interests of western media, compromised government or the political inclinations of individual editors.

The PRC's abandonment of strict state-controlled communism is, from any perspective, a climbdown. To refer to it as 'reform' is no less POV than to call it a relapse. Etaonsh 07:56, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

I understand what Etaonsh is getting at, I think. The wording seems to want to imply that economic policy has improved in Tibet while the political situation hasn't. It would be better to say something to the effect that: "As in the rest of China, there have been major economic changes in the last 25 years. The political situation remains about the same as it ever was."

No. For a ruling communist party to permit widespread capitalism and unemployment clearly represents a major change in its politics. You seem to be reflecting an influential and widespread point of view that the change is not enough, or that other, unspecified major changes should have taken place (also). Etaonsh 22:29, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, that's not my point. You are employing a slightly unusual use of the word "politics" which includes a country's economic system. I have no strong feelings about whether that usage is correct or not. What the article means to say is that there have been a lot of economic changes but there have not been other sorts of political changes—it is talking about not just the quantity of the changes ("enough" or "not enough"), but which things have changed and which haven't. - Nat Krause^(Talk!) 22:38, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

I submit that to term China's economic policy changes as "climbdown" rather than "reform" amounts to a neologism and as such should not be in a Wikipedia article. --Sumple (Talk) 23:49, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

I repudiate Nat's point that I am employing an unusual use of the word "politics." Political policy is to a large extent enacted via economic policy, and this has clearly changed in modern Chinese history in a way that could be described as a major volte-face, and this owing to the revision in underlying political assumptions. The change is not limited to the economic sphere either, the Chinese people enjoying new freedoms of speech, assembly and dress. 'Climbdown' is not a neologism - see [[14]]. Etaonsh 07:13, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Clearly, China proper is a freer place in terms of speech, assembly, and dress than it was thirty years ago. Are you arguing that the same is true in Tibet? - Nat Krause^(Talk!) 07:24, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

I was arguing that the sentence I quote in the header is POV. Great economic and political changes have indeed taken place in both China and Tibet, and while new freedoms have emerged, old ones have been lost, so 'freer place' is POV. Etaonsh 08:05, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Which freedoms have been lost in terms of speech, assembly, and dress? - Nat Krause^(Talk!) 08:21, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

I wasn't arguing that freedoms have been lost in those particular terms, altho arguably they have, e.g., the freedom to dress in a standard attire which neither advertises one's sex or status nor exposes one to 'competitive dressing.' There has clearly been a loss of freedom of speech in this period, even in the English-speaking world, as one appears to have to go to some lengths here to establish the obvious fact that a movement towards Western-style capitalism is only 'reform' to those who necessarily see that as the way forward (arguably 50% or less of the political spectrum). Etaonsh 08:55, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

I've gone through the article and removed all instances of the word "reform" on the grounds that it could be prejudicial in implying that the reform is a change for the better. The article doesn't actually use the expression "freer place", so whether that it is POV or not doesn't doesn't really matter. - Nat Krause^(Talk!) 18:05, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. But how many innocent schoolchildren have been brainwashed into the Murdoch mindset in the meantime? Etaonsh 20:49, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

I've never seen such an anti-China communist. Not passing judgement either way. Just pointing it out. --Sumple (Talk) 04:11, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Tibet's militaristic past

An important piece of Tibet's history is left out - that of their militaristic past. "Arms and Armor From Tibet at the Metropolitan Museum" - an article from the New York Times. Many people think (or would like to think) that Tibet always was a peaceful place inhabited by Bhuddist monks and isolated from wars, but that is not entirely true, as the article points out. Also, it is important to mention their powerful military when talking about the ancient Tibetan empire.--Ryz05 _t 17:36, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Having fought wars and having produced lots of weapons doesn't necessarily make a people militaristic... Look at Ryukyu - there are lots of their swords and armour in lots of museums. Yet when the Japs invaded they fell like a paper screen. I don't think anyone would call Ryukyu "militaristic". --Sumple (Talk) 04:10, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I thought Tibet had once invaded China proper some time ago (not exactly sure)? --Heilme 02:57, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh yeah, that's true. Tang dynasty of China, I think. --Sumple (Talk) 05:19, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Graphic at the top

I can't make heads or tails of this graphic. How do the colors match up with the six bullet points? Aplomado ^talk 00:10, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Look across each row. For example, red, orange and yellow are claimed by exile groups, etc. -- ran (talk) 13:57, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Personal opinions

Ran: Wikipedia is not a political discussion forum. It is unlikely that I can change your political opinions on a Wikipedia Talk page, and since I haven't expressed my personal political opinions, your rebuttals aren't exactly changing mine. Let us focus on the articles at hand. -- ran (talk) 22:24, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

Ran, I am afraid but if you are really in Canada, you have expressed quite the pro-communist china political point of view. First off lets all agree you are chinese. Secondly lets agree you consider Tibetans to be part of your homeland, and I don't mean Canada. Third let me say this. My spouse is Tibetan. Lets assume you know your sources and your motivations. Lets make this a fare neutral article that will be viewed by millions of students across the world. Not just chinese government officials. You are responsible for the edits you make. I see your tendencies. I am aware and willing to use this website as a stage for exposing the lies of the chinese people supporting the invasion of Tibet. Including but not limited to pictures of chinese citizens of Tibetan origin (your words, not mine, to me Tibetans are Tibetans), even videos. You can not provide better prove than a crying nun that was raped by a chinese prison guard. Enough is enough, buddy. I understand you love china but stop defending the communist regime that has caused so much pain and death! Stand up like a man and say I will not take it anymore! I want change! I want to be free of communist oppression! The problem is you are not oppressed. You live in Canada. So why all the effort to justify china's disgrace? Why all the lies? I do not dislike chinese people in general. In fact I met so many great chinese Buddhists at our Buddhist center which is Tibetan, praying for us and wishing us independence. I am not Tibetan but my spouse is so that is why I say us. So my point is: what makes a chinese immigrant knowing the free world to defend such a horrible regime as the current chinese government's? Where is your heart and how about all prevailing Karma? Free Tibet 07:48, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not the place where Tibetan separatists can have the sole right to make edits based on their view. That will undermine the credibility and NPOV-standpoint of Wikipedia. NPOV = free of emotion. Heilme 08:52, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

True tibet: please try not to second-guess my political views for me. I do not understand how you arrived at the conclusion that I allegedly consider Tibet to be a part of my "homeland" or that I'm allegedly trying to defend the communist regime, nor do I think that your broad conjectures about my supposed political views or motives are relevant to the discussion at hand. Please discuss the article in question. -- ran (talk) 13:54, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Note that Tsering Shakya, a Tibetan exile historian, agrees that Tibetan Red Guards participated in destroying religious institutions and such.—Nat Krause^(Talk!) 00:59, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but you have to consider that in the light of the fact that Chinese revolutionaries, notably Sun Yat Sen, first performed similar acts in their own country as part of their modernising, revolutionary, anti-imperialist, nationalist agenda - they saw religion as holding their country back (and this was prior even to Communist take-over). Those who equate this iconoclasm solely with the oppression of Tibet are causing trouble for their own political ends. Etaonsh 22:00, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

The person that gave that intrview can say anything. How do you know it's true? My spouse questioned that. I am saying why are you removing the part where he regrets it?? Because of your political motivation! That's why.Me 23:29, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I have never been called a separatist. I will make sure all Tibetan communities are aware of this website and I will do my best to warn students not to use this site when they work on their school projects on Tibet. Communist China's days are numbered and when that happens it will follow USSR's path. Then you guys will rewrite your little article. For now I am out to work on the future. You keep on supporting the communist chinese regime and their criminal efforts to cover the evidence. 128.104.48.103 04:16, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Please help us by informing as many Tibetan communities and students about Wikipedia as you can. We are always short of contributors and we welcome publicity. In particular, anyone who understands and agrees with Wikipedia's policies, such as the neutral point-of-view policy, is welcome to join our community regardless of their opinions. More contributors bring more perspectives, and Wikipedia has thrived and continues to thrive on the diversity of our contributors' backgrounds and perspectives. Please help us out, and thanks in advance! -- ran (talk) 06:40, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

No Tibetan person in exile will agree with the lies on wikipedia. So the article is not neutral. It is one sided and specifically sided with communist china. Why don't you ask some of your Tibetan contributors? Oh, thats right! You don't have any!

Students, make sure you use reliable source for your school projects! Do not assume this article is written by real historians. Have in mind that the Chinese Government can access this site and post anything as matter of fact. The truth is it is very dificult to get the real picure of the situation in Tibet due to the Communist regime and monitoring activities of the curent people in power in Tibet. Just be wise and don't be naive and do not believe everything you read on the internet. Me 20:19, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Why is the link to the Tibetan Association in Wisconsin removed? Me 20:19, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Wow, you need to calm down here... I'll help take a look at the article, because you asked for some help on the Good Article disputes page. I've got a few comments, both about the article, and this discussion. For one thing, if you are going to be productive on Wikipedia, you need to have a better understanding of our basic principles, namely, assume good faith. We are all here to help Wikipedia get better, and what you see as a conspiracy is most likely just well-intentioned individuals accidentally exposing a personal bias (which we all have). The solution to this is to work with people, and bring sources and references to the table. Your comments are borderline racism, and are really quite inappropriate. How do you expect to improve things with an attitude like that?

It got your attention, didn't it? Tibet is a very personal issue for me, as I have stated before my spouse is Tibetan. If I know I have fair play on Wikipedia I will play by the rules. If I get intimidated and talked down I will post in CAP. Lets play by the rules. Let me prove my points, let me dig out some facts and redo this article to be more truthful to the real situation. As is now it paints a very bogus picture of Tibet and the whole Chinese invasion. Me 20:19, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

About the article, my biggest concern right now is a lack of references. Generally, the best solution to POV disputes is to add more references. If references disagree, then have both references, and note that there is a dispute. Right now, the POV disputes are 'person vs. person', which is why I'm seeing this sort of heated posting. If each person brings reliable references to the table, then the disputes become 'reference vs. reference', which means we don't need to take things so personally.

Regarding the disputed Good Article status, I think it should stay listed for now, but the lack of references issue needs to be resolved. I'll check back a few times, and help some if I can, otherwise this article will get moved to the Unreferenced GA category, which is like 'delisted', except it specifies that lack of references are the biggest issue. Phidauex 21:47, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Hello, where are you? So you see this article that shows as #3 in the major search engines search word "tibet" is still so poorly moderated and most of its info is plain not true! Who can help this issue? Do I need to raise some hell here to get some attention again?? Me 01:21, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

That's all very well, but the article in its current form is nonetheless party-line Beijing Communist, i.e. Tibet was incorporated into China by the Mongols in the 13th century and has been an undisputed part of China ever since. This is an absurd interpretation no serious historian believes. I've tried introducing some balence into the History of Tibet article without much success.Kauffner 13:04, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

So why are you not successful?? Who is changing the balance and what is his motivation? I am new here... Me 20:23, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I would make a change and an anonymous user would retailate by deleting it or adding pro-Beijing material, often in italics. That article is still more balenced than this one. Judging from the language, I suspect he's a Chinese mainlander living abroad.Kauffner 04:39, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Kauffner, first of all let me express my deepest respect for even trying to show the truth about Tibet and its suffering. I agree with you that some people here are trying to invade wikipedia. The fact is this article is never going to look objective and should have the dispute flag on the top of it. Why is that removed? These people removing, editing and calling me separatist and dharamsala propagandist are truly sad souls, a true embarrassment for the chinese people! The Tibetan people are crossing the Nepalese border every day, running away from the current situation in Tibet. For a Tibetan to marry or date chinese person is considered taboo even in the west. I am sure it happens but it is rare. This shows a conflict of interest. What makes these "editors" think that such an article can exists and not be questioned? Can we try to at least leave the dispute flag on it! I will support any other actions we can take to show the people visiting wikipedia that this article is questioned by many if not all Tibetan refugees and their friends and families! Me 17:50, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

The article in its current form does not present that view as fact. Please read more carefully: On the other hand, the PRC and Republic of China claim to rule Tibet legitimately, by claiming that Tibet has been an indivisible part of China de jure since the Yuan Dynasty 700 years ago, comparable to other states such as the Kingdom of Dali and the Tangut Empire that were also incorporated into the Middle Kingdom at the time and have remained in China ever since. In addition, the Chinese nationalist view is presented after the Tibetan nationalist view in the Status section.

-- ran (talk) 17:58, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

The article states as a fact that Tibet was incorporated into the Yuan dynasty, i.e. the Chinese part of the Mongol Empire. This is an expression of the CCP doctrine that "Mongols are Chinese," so China, the Yuan dynasty, the Mongol Empire, and anything the Mongols ever ruled can be conflated. Tibet and China were separate units within the Mongol Empire. The claim that Tibet was part of China at this time is rarely found in non-Communist literature (even the KMT didn't claim this). Yet the article implies that the idea is universally accepted, even by Tibetan nationalists. Walt van Praag (the Dalai Lama's lawyer) wrote a book arguing that Tibet was continuously independent at least until 1951, so the section you're calling the "Tibetan nationalist view" is highly misleading. Kauffner 04:39, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Fussbudget. Since the 1270s Khubilai Khan had regarded his Empire, coming with dynastic title "Yuan", as the legitimate Chinese state. It's quite similar to the Manchu-Qing Empire who referred itself to as China internationally. Take note that during the Yuan dynasty, Tibet and even the Mongolia homeland were ruled from Dadu/Beijing city instead of Khara Khorum.

And FYI, "Mongols being Chinese" is hardly CCP's invention. Empress Dowager's abdication statement and the earliest ROC constitutional documents published in the 1910/20s already listed Mongols (and, of course, Tibetans) among the (five) Chinese ethnic groups. Technically you can be a Chinese without being a Han.

Never heard of "Five-Race Harmony"? :-) - 219.79.228.11 09:30, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Iran and Russia were also ruled by the Mongols and, by this logic, were part of China. It would be like Spain claiming France on the grounds that both countries were part of the Roman Empire. The Empress Dowager didn't abdicate. You're thinking of Henry Puyi. I suspect the abdication statement refers to current inhabitants of China as opposed to people who lived 700 years earlier. Be that as it may, the abdication statement is something Yuan Shikai drew up can't be said to reflect anyone's views other than his. Yet the article presents "incorporation into the Yuan dynasty" as the Tibetan nationalist view.Kauffner 17:19, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

No, Iran and Russia were parts of the Ilkhanate and the Golden Horde, respectively, which were components of the Mongol Empire separate from the Yuan Dynasty, so that analogy does not work. As for Puyi's 1912 abdication, it does actually mention Tibet as part of the Qing Dynasty's bequeathal to the Republic of China. (And it was the Empress Dowager Longyu who signed the abdication on behalf of Puyi.)

As for the Yuan Dynasty, the PRC view, at least, is that Tibet was administered by the Imperial Tutor, an office directly appointed by the Yuan Emperor. [15] What is the TI view? What was the relationship between Tibet, the Yuan Dynasty, and the Mongol Empire? -- ran (talk) 04:13, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Kauffner: Please go ahead and make additional changes as you see necessary on this article and History of Tibet. I will try to follow the proceedings and bit more closely and try to help implement neutrality.—Nat Krause^(Talk!) 20:03, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Also, I agree with Ran below to the effect that "My Tibet" needs to mellow out.—Nat Krause^(Talk!) 20:03, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Krause, I am married to a Tibetan and know a lot of Tibetans who read this article and disagree, what is your problem?? Telling me to mellow out? Thats for the good monks. Have you lost a country to a dictatorship before? You are barking at the wrong tree. Ran is a chinese nationalist. I am willing to go to war for Tibet so I don't need your pacifist idea. I practice Tibetan Buddhism but I do believe the communist chinese need to be stopped for the greater good. I am an active type of Buddhist. Many monks tried o fight with weapons against the chinese invasion. I am also informing the Tibetan Youth Congress of Wikipedia's lies. Me 23:26, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

This is completely insane -- I'm not a Chinese nationalist. If you want to wage war, Wikipedia is not the place to do it! -- ran (talk) 23:45, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Kauffner, China was not simply an occupied part of the immense Mongol Empire, it was its "capital". The Yuan Dynasty demonstrated this point even further by adopting Chinese customs, using Chinese titles, adhering Chinese systems -- everything. The Mongols became part of the culture of Chinese.

And again, I have to say, Tibet is not just like any other part of the Yuan Dynasty. It has a long history of connection with China Proper, to the extent of coming under Chinese rule in the Han Dynasty, and later the Tang Dynasty. The reason the article only mentioned the Yuan is that ever since Yuan, the succeeding dynasties (Ming and Qing) have governed over Tibet as well (again, not like other territories that the Yuan Dynasty had. The Ming and Qing did not govern the north-most parts of Mongolia, since the Mongolian forces were still there).

To use this "logic" to claim that France is part of Spain simply shows your shortsightedness. One obvious flaw is that the areas of France were never called part of Spain, while the areas of Tibet are called part of China (not only in the Yuan Dynasty, but in the Ming and Qing as well). Aranherunar 08:33, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

More references

For such a controversial issue, this article lacks an appropriate number of references. As Phidauex mentioned, the current NPOV dispute could be resolved by citing more, and more reputable, sources. Neutrality is also hampered by statements in the "Evaluation of PRC rule" section; some of the prose is rather unencyclopedic, and several contestable statements are not derived from sources. When writing statements to the effect of "the PRC claims x; Tibet claims y; this analyst claims z," it is nessecary to provide an inline citation after the statement. For reference, see the Hugo Chávez article. -- WGee 19:07, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Ran, the ref you are using to show that the tibetan guy joined the red guards is his own story, in it he says he felt really bad after he joined these red guards, I talked to several Tibetans and my spouse's witness who said that these young Tibetans trully and deeply regreted joining this campaign. Do not remove that explanation and do not play games with me. Do not tell me you don't have a political agenda. If something is true do not remove it!! If you need to add that the communist party later changed their mind and claim they denounced it that is something you can add yourself. It is clear here what you are trying to do being a chinese person. But Wikipedia is not a place to push your views on us and make the tibetans look bad, because that is what you and your buddy from hong kong (who refuses to create an account) are trying to do. Mark my word, if this article does not show that is disputed I will go all the way to the owner of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales with this with a petition signed by all 500 Tibetans living in Wisconsin. Me 15:29, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

And there were Han Chinese Red Guards who smashed in temples in China proper, and they felt bad too. And so? Does the entire Cultural Revolution article mention how bad Red Guards felt afterwards? If it does not, does that make Han Chinese people look bad? Things happened in the past and the history article is supposed to explain that, nothing more. You are not here to pause at every sentence that might possibly make the Tibetan people look bad in some far-fetched way, and sugarcoat it as much as you can even if it's an unsourced overgeneralization that completely breaks the prose. You're here as an editor of Wikipedia, who's supposed to follow NPOV.

I've been asked this question by someone from the Chinese Wikipedia before. A lot of us can get emotional about certain issues. What do we do then -- how do we follow NPOV? And I said: just imagine that you are someone from 1,000 years in the future. Imagine that all of this is history, that none of these things matter to you personally. Imagine that you're talking about this in the same way you're sitting in a comfy history classroom of the 21st century and talking about the comings and goings of the Assyrian and Persian and Roman Empires. Don't get emotionally involved, even if you ARE emotionally involved in these issues in real life. That's how you should edit controversial articles. And that's what all of us -- me, Khoikhoi, nearly everyone here -- has been trying to do. Yes, it pisses off people. We have all pissed off a lot of people from all sides, people who believe that Wikipedia should look like the propaganda site of their choice. We have pissed off the Chinese government -- did you know that Wikipedia cannot be accessed from Mainland China at all? But what can we do about that? This is Wikipedia and this is how Wikipedia works. We're not going to change Wikipedia's NPOV policy for the Chinese government and we sure as heck are not going to change it to suit your POV.

Both Khoikhoi and I have taken enough abuse from you, abuse that we do not deserve. We do not like being accused of believing in horrible things that we do not believe in and doing horrible things that we would never do, simply because you have made your hare-brained conclusions from our NPOV edits. Most of all, I am tired of answering your abuse with various ways of explaining the NPOV policy to you and hoping that you might understand. We will continue to edit as before, and if you push POV we will revert it. But if you agree to edit in the same way we do, to follow NPOV, then we will welcome you as a member of our community the same way we have welcomed many others regardless of their views. -- ran (talk) 19:39, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Simply put your edits are not NPOV based. How can I be NPOV when the admin is chinese and has POV? I will dig out more of your POV edits and contribs. And yes, I am suppose to make sure if a person 1000 years from now reads this article knows the truth. All I want is the truth. You have to explain why these tibetans destroyed religious objects. Now the way the article says it is better, AFTER I ADDED THE REFERENCE. Don't you think? I will dig out more. I want this article free of chinese POV. You want it free of Tibetan "separatist" POV so hopefully we will balance it out. Me 14:59, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

And to suit my POV the article has to look like it was written ONLY by a Tibetan person which I know is not gonna happen. So I will push for NPOV. But the conflict here is your NPOV and my NPOV are different! Me 15:02, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I do not want the article to be "free of Tibetan separatist POV". That would be completely against NPOV -- and where did you get this idea anyway? Have you noticed that in all of the sections where the Dharamsala and Beijing opinions and given in parallel -- "status", "evaluation of PRC rule", "demographics", and "external links", the Dharamsala view is given first and is often longer? That there are so many more pro-independence links than pro-PRC links? If a real Chinese nationalist came, the sort that you imagine me to be, the sort you hate, I imagine he / she would be furious and would be deleting half the article by now. Perhaps you shouldn't be doing the same thing? -- ran (talk) 18:00, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Central Asia

WikiProject Central Asia has finally been created! If you're interested, please consider joining us. Aelfthrytha 21:56, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

POV

OK, I am done getting my POV removed. For the 100th time! This article (as well as the TAR article) is disputed! Why are you removing the tag? Me 17:45, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not the one removing the tag, but if you do have a POV question you wish to raise I would suggest pointing out specific points that you disagree with, rather than categorically reverting an entire day's worth of edits by multiple users, as you recently did. -- ran (talk) 19:17, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

• 1. If you are going to say something so negative about Tibetans "Young Tibetans caught up in the ideological fervour joined in the campaign" you will have to add that later they regreted it publically. Just like it states in the reference being used for this. Me 19:36, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
  • That section is about history. Take a look at articles on history -- they generally talk about various things happening first, and if there's anything on present-day opinions it tends to go into a separate section. See Cultural Revolution as an example -- it goes on and on about all the things the Red Guards did, caught up in ideological fervour, yet doesn't say how they "felt bad in retrospect" interspersed at every opportunity. Only at the end does it talk about present-day opinions. Is that supposed to make Chinese people look bad too -- talking about how fervent they are without mentioning how bad they felt afterwards at the same time? -- ran (talk) 19:52, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Why do you want to even have that posted? Out of milion probably 2 or 3 young teenagers did that. Why does that deserve a place in this article? What is your inner motivation, Ran? Also lets check when this person we are using as a reference regreted it Me 20:50, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Please see this source, especially the section entitled "Destruction of the temples". Frankly I don't see why you're getting so worked up -- doesn't it show even more how evil the communists were, how they brainwashed everyone into doing horrible things? -- ran (talk) 21:06, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Frankly, I do not see why you want that part in there. Can you answer a simple question?? And no, they way you wrote that it does not seem pro-tibet or neutral at all. It shows that chinese communists were bad but still tyhey were supported by tibetans. That is NOT TRUE! Some(very few) Tibetan teenagers were tricked into doing that and later they regreted it. They you have this posted is simply not true or not complete and OUT OFR CONTEXT!!!! Please take a writing class at your locar college or if you can not afford it read some self study books on how to write an article. You are lacking in many basic ways. Me 05:18, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

• 2. Name

There is no need for the article on historical Tibet to be going on and on about the chinese name. This is not an article for the chinese characters. It is distracting and not related to the name, rather it is there to show (again) how Tibet is really chinese. I am disputing that HUGE chinese name chapter and want it cut and made simple. Me 19:42, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

This article is not the TAR article, dear Ran. You can't simply flood the "Tibet" article with bunch of chinese stuff. I mean look how much it talks about the chinese name! Why do you need to have all this info there?? You are simply vandalizing the Tibet article with your pro chinese ideas. Me 19:38, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

So, talking about the origins of the Chinese names for Tibet, is considered "pro-Chinese vandalism"? -- ran (talk) 19:42, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes. It should be as big as the English and the Tibetan paragraph.Me 20:48, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Then expand the English and Tibetan paragraphs. -- ran (talk) 21:06, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. For us to try to closely balance the lengths of different paragraphs in attempt to get them to line up exactly with how important we think the subject is ... that way lies madness.—Nat Krause^(Talk!) 21:09, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

dear ran, I must say, you either have some sort of addiction to wikipedia and sleep with your computer on your chest or you are simply extreme in your political nationalistic views. We, the regular people, have jobs and kids to take care of and can not possibly expand meaningless articles forever. Plus I was trained in my Gimnazia that a good piece of writing does not need to be long to get it's point across. Me 23:12, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Argh... this must be the one millionth time I'm saying this, but I'm not a Chinese nationalist, I do not agree with or work for the Chinese government or any other political organization, as a Wikipedian I oppose any kind of nationalist pushing POV's into Wikipedia whether they be Chinese, Japanese, Taiwanese, Mongolian, Tibetan, Uyghur, Korean, or whatever else they might be, and if you blank entire sections like you did, it is the job of an admin to block you. -- ran (talk) 01:31, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

You continue to play your little games with me. How low. I am not blanking anything! ARE YOU BLIND? I am editing your anrelated blah blah about the chinese characters in the chinese name for tibet. What is the relevance? STOP PLAYING GAMES! I am not a fool, I will watch you and hold you accountable for your actions, you are being a vandal and you should stop before I contact the owner! I am not sure if you are mentally challanged because you seem like it. If you are stop typing and tell your legal guardian to correct the situation. You are being childish, my friend. Stop posting biast stuff and stop deleting my contribs! Me 04:38, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

You did chop out a large portion of the section in question. That's what Ran is referring to.—Nat Krause^(Talk!) 04:54, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I know what I did. Wikipedia does not messure in size rather in content. His rambling is nonrelevant and distracting. It is good enough to say when they first used the chinese word and what they mean by it. krause, have in mind who you are talking to and look in your heart, wikipedia is #3 in rating when the word "tibet" is searched. I don't want you on my side but please do not second guess what I am doing in terms of Tibet. I am married to a Tibetan National in Exile. Get it? All my links have been deleted so sorry for that, by same old same old pro communist china random editors. Me 05:26, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, so you have been married. Does that make you superman? No, sorry, Wikipedia does not 'messure' in marriage rather in content. Aranherunar 14:18, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I am still married! :) Being married to a Tibetan person who's parents walked 30 days to cross the Himalayas after the Chinese invaded? What does that make me? How about having kids and naming them after their Tibetan grandmother who, like many other Tibetan refugees in India died of TB at the young age of 34? Or how about our precious Geshe-La who died in the US and could never return to his Tibet to die there? Because that was his wish but being a Tibetan refugee he had to get visa for his own contry! Yeah, that means nothing to you. But it means the world to me. Also I have heard some lamas can fly like Superman. Me 01:20, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Nathula

Could someone help check the Tibetan spelling of Nathula? I removed an extra "a" because I think it's not needed if there's already a "la" there, but I'm not entirely sure. Thanks in advance. -- ran (talk) 05:36, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, there should be one "a". It's la (per [16]) in Wylie romanisation, which is lossless.—Nat Krause^(Talk!) 05:45, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Tibetan script should be used in first paragraph

Why the discussion of which Chinese characters are to be used to write the Chinese name for Tibet, when there the Tibetan characters are not present. Why not have Cyrillic and Devanagari script versions, too? I know, I know "because it's part of China". Ffffft. So what? Tibet has its own language and script; the Chinese characters are of secondary importance. That's right - secondary importance, that's what I said. I see why this page has a POV tag and I haven't even gotten past the first paragraph yet.Skookum1 07:38, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

What do you mean? There are Tibetan characters right at the beginning: "Tibet (older spelling Thibet; Tibetan: བོད་, Bod, pronounced pö in Lhasa dialect;"—Nat Krause^(Talk!) 08:19, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Am I missing some kind of UniCode thing in my system then? Because all I see are four question marks - ????.Skookum1 13:23, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

You're missing a font that can display Tibetan letters. -- ran (talk) 17:14, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that seems to be the problem. I see those question marks as the Tibetan characters for Bod. You can set up a nice unicode font for Tibetan pretty easily on Windows. Tisé is good for input, too.—Nat Krause^(Talk!) 17:16, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Tisé?Skookum1 17:20, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Here's Tise, it's a utility that can be used to input Tibetan. -- ran (talk) 17:43, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

If you just want to see the letters, you can use Arial Unicode MS, which does have the problem of displaying the vowel marks incorrectly (but at least you can see what the letters are). A font that can display the vowels correctly would be Tibetan Machine Uni available here. (I've had some problems with it in IE though.) -- ran (talk) 17:24, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you all; I'm only learning; and promise to be less paranoid in the future; I'm a survivor of the propaganda wars in talk.politics.tibet from a decade ago and admit to having knee-jerk reactions when confronted with apparent (if only apparent) discriminatory content; but I can see from the page overleaf that the views are relatively balanced and well-laid-out despite the POV tag; relative to talk.politics.tibet anything is refreshing, of course; haven't explored the subpages as yet.Skookum1 22:57, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

The POV tags are there because the whole article smells of chinese nationalism. But read on and let us know! The Tibetan script is there however Ran refuses to cut his huge paragraph on the Chinese name. This article is already too big, full of streching the Chinese parts because more Chinese editors are working here than Tibetans. As a matter of fact 0 Tibetans are editing here! Why is that? Also check ran contribs. to the Taiwan article and how he thinks Taiwan is part of PRC. Taiwan is a strong supporter of HH the Dalai Lama and his exile gov. Me 01:27, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Don't drag Taiwan into this. I certainly do not think that Taiwan is a part of the PRC or that it is feasible to reunite Taiwan with mainland China anytime in the foreseeable future. Like I have said again and again, please do not assign views to me that I do not hold. And please read all of the posts I've addressed to you regarding Wikipedia's NPOV policy. -- ran (talk) 01:48, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Regarding my analogy of the Tibetan and Taiwanese passports: the post I made does not indicate any opinion I have on the validity of Taiwanese and Tibetan passports. It was an analogy stating that getting a passport stamped by a country does not mean diplomatic recognition by that country. The Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan is not recognized by most Western countries -- this is a fact. I was making an analogy from that fact. Whether this fact is desirable or undesirable has nothing to do with my analogy. -- ran (talk) 17:47, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Ran, no matter how you twist it and turn it your opinion is not quite in the middle. Maybe we should write two articles on Tibet and be done with it. One should be called TAR and be written by Ran and other chinese with knowledge on the chinese history and using chinese references, communist or not, and the other article should stick to the article Tibet which will mostly follow the Tibetan historians and Tibetan views, and talk about the current situation in Tibet from a Tibetan point of view. We clearly have at least two points of view going on in the article. Chinese and Tibetan talking about Tibet. How can that be neutral? I am just brainstorming. Me 20:33, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

... First of all, go back and read my comments about Taiwan again, my comments about Tibetan and Taiwanese passports DID NOT indicate any kind of bias or opinion on this matter. As I said it is fact that ROC passports are stamped by countries that do not recognize the ROC diplomatically, it was not an expression of opinion on whether countries SHOULD recognize the ROC. When I state a fact that people don't like, it does not mean I support the continuation of this fact. Secondly, no, we are not going to have two articles. The point of Wikipedia's NPOV policy is to have one single article where all the different views live together. Different views will live together here, at Tibet, and different views will also live together at the article Tibet Autonomous Region. -- ran (talk) 21:35, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Off topic, guys! --Sumple (Talk) 01:34, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

What's this? Tibet and Taiwan are parts of China which is controlled by the PRC. Happy?!? Heilme 10:34, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

1951 or 1959

On the issue of whether the Dalai Lama's government ruled until 1951 or 1959: Tibet proper was split in 1951 with western Kham coming under the "Chamdo Military Commission." In 1951-59, the Kashag had authority only in U-Tsang (and not much authority there after 1955 -- Beijing often violated the 17-point agreement.) Isn't the real issue the word "invasion"? But surely it is TGIE's view that Tibet was invaded (or do I need to find references for this?)Kauffner 04:10, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Even if you point out the book and buy it for Ran and the other chinese nationalists here you will still not be able to change the article. It is way beyond POV. It is like it was written from the PRC with the communist regime's books being cited as good neutral source! Ha! According to the chinese guys like Ran, Tibet was always chinese, the Tibetans just didn't know it! :) Me 06:09, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Tibet "proper" was "split" before 1951, during the Republic of China era. Incidentally, did anyone notice that Amdo was vandalised by "Amdo Inc", some little company? I've restored it. --Sumple (Talk) 01:40, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

The KMT had a province called Sikang covering the same area as Kham, which I suspect is what you are thinking of. But it existed only on Chinese maps -- a fictional province. When it was first created in the 1920s, the Chinese didn't control any of it. After fighting in 1933, the Chinese gained control of a few towns.Kauffner 11:26, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Hmm I thought Qinghai (Amdo) was created as a province in 1928. And yes, Xikang was (partially) controlled by Chinese warlords from the mid 30s up until 1950. --Sumple (Talk) 12:33, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Neither did ROC control many other parts of China while the country was torned by civil war. Kindly note that the province of Xikang existed on non-Chinese maps published in 1933 and 1942 - 219.79.29.79 03:43, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

But this is quite relevant to the history Xikang as an administrative unit: it was created by the ROC during a time when they did not control the area. A more important point with regard to Tibet is that the government in Lhasa has never controlled the entire Tibetan cultural area. Much of Kham and Amdo—even where it was ruled by Tibetans—was divided into numerous chieftaincies and petty kingdoms. Therefore, before 1951, Tibet had always been split, if we use "Tibet" in the sense that the government-in-exile does (viz the entire Tibetan cultural region).—Nat Krause^(Talk!) 03:57, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

User:My Tibet be warned

A noted vandal, My Tibet (signature: Me), claims that he somehow knows the 'truth' behind Tibet. This is plain and absolute vandalism (or utter ignorance from a 13-year-old-kid), and it is easy to see from his edits that he know nearly nothing about the history of Tibet, nor of its culture, and has absolutely no source to support any of his claims (though he claimed he had 'every book written on Tibet', he had failed to provide any of them so far). Please revert his edits without any further query when you see them (unless he does provide source, which is unlikely). Aranherunar 14:11, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

"Please revert his edits without any further query when you see them" ?? "Utter ignorance from a 13-year-old-kid" ? This is a personal attack according to wikipedia and a very mean one. But it did make me laugh. And I forgive you. I wish I was 13! Could I have kids if I was 13? It looks like you and others here do not want to even listen to the Tibetan side at all! This proves my point all along that this article is not neutral and is written in a way that shows one side of the story. POV. I can provide plenty of sources, for example "Tibet, A Political History" by Tsepon W.D. Shakabpa. My spouse (Tibetan person!) told me it is regarded as the true history of Tibet by the Tibetan people. Will you take that book as a reference? I could go over each line on this article and compare it to Mr. Shakabpa's book. Me 16:26, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Try to follow the procedures at Wikipedia:Citing sources, and cite your sources when you add facts to articles. If you are using Wikipedia:Reliable sources, there shouldn't be any problem. heqs 16:33, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Others have tried. We keep getting their games. They ( the admin Ran, and others like this aranherunar) keep saying these are not reliable sources. However their sources are mostly from the current government in china and other communist material. They don't have one single Tibetan person contributing to the article Tibet! What does that tell you? I will take a look at these Wikipedia:Citing sources but I also want to remove some of this chinese nationalistic stuff. I simply don't have the time to play games. Help is needed. I will need to invite some more people to at least witness this joke. Me 17:41, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

User:My Tibet is not a vandal & it is not helpful to call him such. He is a zealous partisan for Tibetan independence who does not understand the ethos of NPOV. Yes, his fervently-held beliefs have caused him to carry out wholesale deletions of others' work, much as the Red Guard destroyed those things that they found offensive, but it is not quite correct to call either of them simple vandals. My advice to you, User:My Tibet, is to consider the example of the present Dalai Lama. He could be leading his own campaign of destruction and many would find him justified. But he is not. Instead, he is open to discussion and new ideas, he advocates cooperation, and he expresses no hate for the Han Chinese. Please consider if you can be more like him and less like the Red Guard here on Wikipedia. The world will be a better place. Tashi dalek. --technopilgrim 00:04, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Tashi Delek to you, too. And thanks... I guess?! I am not a vandal, nor will I ever destroy anything religious or cultural like the Red Guards did. I will destroy political things especially if basic freedoms are in danger. And I have met many witnesses claiming these freedoms are gone in Tibet. Three of my close Tibetan friends escaped to Nepal in their 20s and made their way to WI. They told me Tibetans still have a strong sence of self and do not get mixed with the chinese in families. Although I do support interacial marriages in the west where we enjoy democracy I think in terms of Tibet it is important to avoid it as much as possible. Many Tibetans including my spouse have told me that they would never marry a chinese person. So what does that tell you, the regular chinese person? Also I was told that Tibetans in Tibet dislike (not to say hate) the chinese. How does that make the chinese feel? I am part of the WI Tibetan Association and I can tell you we are dedicated to preserve the Tibetan life and come back some day even if it is in our next life or the one after that! We have many chinese friends who support the independence of Tibet. Why is that? So you see, it is not a matter of nations or races, rather it is a matter of politics. While the top fat politicians laugh at us and watch us fight, we, the regular people, Tibetan, Chinese, Mongol, scramble around trying to find happiness...My own native country has claims for some neighboring nations but I personally think if they don't want to be part of us better let them be. And that is why I was shocked to see this in Wikipedia. Me 01:01, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, my Tibet, don't be shocked, Wikipedia is exactly this kind of thing. I'm afraid you don't understand the editing policies of Wikipedia. If you don't like it, you can leave, but be sure not to break your promise of telling the students of Tibet about Wikipedia. We need more factual data from Tibet. Aranherunar 03:18, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the next Panchen Lama according to HH Dalai Lama of Tibet

Back to editing. There is a statement that needs a chinese reference. Gedhun Choekyi Nyima and his family have gone missing. The article mentions the chinese gov. says they are under a hidden identity for protection and privacy. I am planning on removing that unless someone provides the reference to that statement. Tsering! Me 00:55, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Added. In case you're wondering, the referenced site, Xizang-Zhiye, is a Chinese-language news-site run by the Central Tibetan Administration in Dharamsala. They have an English version too. -- ran (talk) 01:57, 12 July 2006 (UTC)