Editorial represents the opinion of a media as a whole rather than the personal opinion of any individual. Therefore, wise editors of decent media such as (The Freeman) shall exercise enough prudence and scrutiny to make sure that its opinion is based on history and hard facts.
I have to point out that it is totally wrong to say that China annexed Tibet 40 years ago. As a matter of fact, Tibet was officially incorporated into the territory of China in the middle of the 13th century when the Mongolians established the Yuan Dynasty. Since then, it has been the privilege of the Central Government of China to finalize the process of reincarnation of Dalai Lama and the title of Dalai Lama was conferred by the Central Government starting from the Yuan Dynasty. That is why the word Dalai, which means ocean, is from Mongol vocabulary rather than Mandarin or Tibetan.
Over the past centuries, Chinese sovereignty over Tibet has never been challenged until the end of the Qing Dynasty when China was extremely weak and was invaded by many western countries. Since the end of the 19th century, some western countries, which I don’t like to name, had spared no effort to cut Tibet out of China. The issue of so-called “Tibet independence” is the pure result of western imperialist’s invasion of China. Obviously, the off-springs of the colonialists’ wish to carry on their ancestors’ despicable cause of splitting China as they see the Beijing Olympic Games as the last chance for so-called “Tibet independence.”
When the Europeans landed on the American continent, Indians with huge population were still living happily on their own land. Today, two centuries after the European adventurers were being saved by the Indians, the Indians are on the brink of extinction in terms of both culture and population. Let’s have a look at Tibet: The past five years saw the income of farmers and herdsmen increasing by 83.3 percent. In 2006 there were more than 1,000 schools; with 500,000 students who are learning the Tibetan language together with Mandarin and English. In this Autonomous Region, where 92 percent of the population is Tibetan, there are 1,780 temples, or one for every 1,600 people. In comparison, where there is one church for every 3,125 people in England.
In this world, no country can boast of perfection as far as human rights are concerned. China is far from perfect and it is trying to address the many problems that do exist. Over the past 30 years since China adopted reform and opening up policy, we have achieved a lot in improving the life of the Chinese people. With less than 10 percent of arable land of the world, China is feeding more than 20 percent of the world population. As stipulated by the UN Convention on Human Rights, subsistence is a fundamental human right. As a responsible member of the international community, China is making comprehensive efforts to cope with climate change. In 2007 alone, 2.27 billion trees were planted in China.
Ji Hao Jun
Embassy of the People’s Republic of China