Democratic Conversation

by Mark Beyer 

The airwaves and cyberpages hum with comments on Tibet’s domestic uprising against Chinese rule, repression, and their latest military crackdown against mostly (but not exclusively) peaceful demonstrations. The reporting is dutiful, the commentary sympathetic. But the Tibetans need neither dutiful nor sympathetic words. What they need is action.

But what can The West do? The European Union, the USA, Canada & Mexico, the lesser strength Latin American & African nations, all have economic ties to China because Chinese workers work for very little money. This makes the cost of goods to the world’s richer countries very cheap. Meanwhile, Chinese workers are treated no better than European and American workers of the 1870s when the Industrial Revolution was in its adolescence and government rulers enjoyed the graft that came with keeping workers ignorant, poor, enslaved to meaningless work.

What does China’s socio-political landscape have to do with Tibetan’s rioting? One of many answers to this question is the moral dilemma The West has in its answers to Chinese repression of Tibet. Oddly, some have claimed the world should boycott the Olympics this summer, to be held in Beijing, as punishment for China’s human rights abuses. Apparently, this is about the best any Western leader can put forward.

What should Western Powers do, otherwise? Should they go to war with China to free Tibet? This is a fine idea, but not practical. China has lots of nuclear weapons; even if we won, we’d lose.

Should The West stop buying Chinese products? This could be useful, and effective, however Western citizens (even those yelling the loudest for action) would feel the hurt, because most of what we buy is in fact produced in China. Just look at America’s largest employer, Walmart. Seventy percent of the shelved goods in Walmart are produced in China; if you take that away, Walmart fails, and America sinks even further into its present economic toilet bowl.

Should The West pull out all its money from Chinese banks and business ventures? Another fine idea, but also not practical; in this growing recession—nearing a financial meltdown—further money losses can only be catastrophic to Western economies (see last paragraph).

Umm, I’m about out of ideas here. War and money are the only possible effective penalties any country can place upon another. And since neither is practical or advisable in China’s case, The West can only stand aside to watch while yet another group inside yet another powerful country is beat down, imprisoned, murdered, marginalized.

This is the first shame: we have no ability to punish China because we are in fact party to that oppressive regime’s actions. We benefit every single day from Chinese oppression of its own people—and as we’ve seen in the past weeks, of Tibetans.

The second shame is, unfortunately, far more invasive. We Westerners, by taking the attitude of “looking out for No. 1,” have allowed ourselves to be compromised. We have elected—and re-elect—officials who rig the system to ensure they have the best chance to stay in power for decades; once in power, they tell us what we want to hear, say they are sorry when people lose their jobs, children get sent to illegal wars to die, meanwhile allowing big business to move unfettered through the economic fields upon which we the people are dutifully connected to—but not in partnership with—big business. When The People have money problems, the government throws them a bone—a natural and effective three-steps-forward-two-steps-back policy; when big business has money problems, the government uses The People’s tax dollars to bail them out. This is the very definition of economic oppression.

Those who think now I have mightily strayed from the Tibetan topic must think about this. China has ruled Tibet as its own state and province since its invasion in 1950. Yet we in The West still call that territory Tibet, as though it were still a real country.

Why do we do this?

Perhaps the very idea of Tibet as it once was appeals to us: Shangri-La, a place of peaceful life, simple life, employing a simple and worthwhile government.