Editor’s note: This comment was submitted from an IP address located in San Jose, CA.

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You seem to be confusing a deep-seated sense of cultural pride and cohesion (in theHan culture) with love of the Communist Party…
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I didn’t mean (or say) that they are attached to the party. I said that many Chinese people have an emotional attachment to the CCP’s policies on Tibet. As you say, this arises from a deep cultural pride and cohesion. Those things can be positive, but what sometimes gets expressed on these forums and elsewhere is something quite disturbing: a refusal to look critically at what the CCP says and does about Tibet, along with angry assertions that what the Han do is always right and for the benefit of minorities.

Take a look at the responses on this forum thread: http://www.anti-cnn.com/forum/en/thread-7-1-1.html

Here’s a typical example:
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BadASS: Actually, i don’t care what those stupid westerners say, coz I know their ingrained bias cannot be removed even if they know the truth in Tibet, in their eyes, everything helping to ruin China, Chinese’s reputation should be warmly welcome,and yes, that’s just they always do. So some of you enchanted Chinese people, wake up, don’t care what those westerners say.
After all, they hate communism, afraid of a powerful and prosperous China. Although we have made so many achievements in almost every respects in constructing our nation, we still get reproof, abuse, disparaged in those so called “DEMOCRATICc” nations
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You see this person is unable to engage with the idea that Tibetans might want different things from what the Han have decided to let them have. He immediately jumps to an angry nationalism that thinks that any criticism of Chinese govt policy is some sort of attack on his beloved motherland.

So for me the question is: how can we have a debate involving critical analysis of Chinese govt policies, if you get a reaction like this when you make any critical comments on the policies?

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The Chinese people… can see that the intense focus on human rights in Tibet in the West is driven by more than an interest in human rights, even if they aren’t sure whatthat “more” is. The result, then, is that the term “human rights” – whichis extremely new to the Chinese vocabulary–quickly becomes associated with political manipulation. This certainly undermines the human rights cause in China. Of course, the Chinese government further exploits this association for their own purposes, but they can only do so because others leave the door open for them to do so.
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You and I agree that something is blocking the debate: emotions are clouding reason. We both want to break through that blockade. But what you are saying doesn’t seem very plausible. If Tibet supporters confessed that they are in love with Buddhism and a romantic idea of Tibet, would people like “BadASS” suddenly open up and be willing to admit that Tibet has a more complex history that “always part of China”, or that Tibetans deserve greater freedom of expression? I find that hard to believe.
I have also noticed that Chinese nationalists are not any more receptive to Amnesty International (which criticises U.S. and European countries when they violate human rights) than to anyone else.
I wish I knew the answer to this problem.

Interesting comment, but I would contest some points.

First, the idea that the post tries to approach is whether liking Tibetan independence for one reason (a simple feeling of connection to the culture, say) can’t be damaging when it’s masked behind the idea of caring about human rights. Not to say that people that feel a connection to Tibetan culture don’t also care about human rights, I’m sure they do, but just that it isn’t their primary interest, and might not be much of an interest at all if they didn’t already feel a connection to the culture. The question the post wants to raise then, is this: Is this trend damaging to the cause of human rights in general, and in China in particular? There are good points, raised above, that suggest it might be.

Second, I would question whether Chinese people really have an “emotional attachment” to the Chinese Communist Party. You seem to be confusing a deep-seated sense of cultural pride and cohesion (in the Han culture) with love of the Communist Party. This is common among Westerners I’ve met, but problematic. From personal, albeit anecdotal, experience, the majority of people I’ve talked to in China are at best apathetic to the Communist Party’s rule, if not privately very critical of it. Very few Chinese in the mainland, however, seem anything but proud and deeply culturally entrenched in Han thought and history, which the Communist Party often exploits (as it has with the Olympics) to boost its image and power.

Coming back to the original point, the question that remains is whether or not the use of human rights as a front issue by Tibetan independence advocates hasn’t helped the Tibetan cause’s profile, but at the expense of undermining the potency of the human rights dialogue in China. The Chinese people, I hope I don’t need to remind anybody, aren’t stupid. They, perhaps even more clearly than Westerners (because it puts their cultural dominance of the region at stake) can see that the intense focus on human rights in Tibet in the West is driven by more than an interest in human rights, even if they aren’t sure what that “more” is. The result, then, is that the term “human rights”–which is extremely new to the Chinese vocabulary–quickly becomes associated with “political manipulation”. This certainly undermines the human rights cause in China. Of course, the Chinese government further exploits this association for their own purposes, but they can only do so because others leave the door open for them to do so.

Here is part of my reply, which I also posted there:

You are right that Westerners may not realize they have an irrational emotional attachment to Tibetan independence. But at least they are attached to a harmless, even beneficial, idea, of giving more freedom and rights to someone (Tibetans in this case).

Many Chinese people seem to have a much more worrying emotional attachment: to the power-hungry and repressive policies of the Chinese Communist party, which rationalizes the _denial_ of freedom and rights. They are not any more receptive to Amnesty International (which as you say shows an even handed approach) than to anyone else. It seems to me that that their emotional identification with their government is the major barrier to mutual understanding and to progress on human rights in China.

That said, I will defend the position that being more interested in Tibet than in Xinjiang is reasonable. First, Tibet is more culturally unique than Xinjiang. There are a lot of Turkish regions in the world, including several sovereign states. There are an even larger number of predominantly Muslim regions and states. Xinjiang has no special significance to Islam. On the other hand, the Tibetan parts of China constitute 95% of the world’s Tibet regions and the area around Lhasa and Shigatse are the Tibetan heartland. There are Tibetan Buddhist regions outside of Tibet (Mongolia, Bhutan, Kalmykia in Russia, and scattered other Himalayan enclaves — that’s an almost comprehensive list), but Tibet itself is clearly the center of that religion. None of this means that there is anything bad about Xinjiang — that Xinjiang is undeserving — but it means that saving Tibet is more urgent and naturally more interesting.

Secondly (this is a point that I don’t recall being raised before), there are a lot more Chinese people living in Xinjiang already than in Tibet (I’m talking about the TAR now, although the same is true of some other Tibetan regions inside China). That means that Chinese control of Xinjiang is sort of a fait accompli, and fighting over it has an element of spilled-milk-crying. There are two solutions to this problem: the first would be to ethnically cleanse large numbers of Chinese people from Xinjiang. I am obviously not in favour of that. The second would be redraw the borders of Xinjiang to separate most of the Chinese-oriented cities from the predominantly Uighur hinterland. That sounds like a fine idea to me, but it makes the whole situation more complicated and a lot harder to reach an agreement on.

Third, the Uighur separatist movement is linked to international Islamic religious resistance movements, and an independent or autonomous East Turkestan might have a radical Islamic influence, perhaps even a controlling one. An independent or autonomous Tibet might have a similar Tibetan Buddhist influence (although it is worth pointing out that no Tibetan leader says that the goal is theocracy; they avow a taste for democracy. I would assume the same is true for most of the Uighur leaders). However, many people feel that radical Islam is a dangerous trend which threatens world security. A Tibetan Buddhist theocracy might be harmful to its own citizens, but I don’t think anyone has suggested that it is an international threat. The most prestigious Tibetan Buddhist leader is a man who talks about peace constantly.

Fourth, I take a personal interest in Tibet because I like Tibet. I have no particular feelings one way or the other about the Uighurs. Now, it seems to me that part of the reason that I like Tibet is that I have the sense that Tibetans tend to be favourably inclined toward Americans, which is to say that they are likely to be friendly to me. Is there something to be ashamed of in being more concerned with the travails of one’s friends than with those of strangers, or in being partial to those who are expected to be friendly above those who are neutral?

This is not to say that I like one or the other because I want them to harm to someone else — I think that would be dishonorable. Besides, if I regarded China as an enemy and wanted a tool to use against them, I would bet on the Uighurs as more likely than Tibetans to be consistently hostile to China.

As well as being cool as described above, these campaigns are accepted and often promoted by Western establishment. How much strife is there in the western home over Free Tibet as there might be over Central America or Africa. Governments of these countries have traditionally been in the pockets of Neo-colonials – transnational companies and western governments, and pointing this out brings one into conflict with parents and establishment to a certain extent. It is much easier to have a go at the Chinese and Burmese, no conflict there.

Whilst I sympathise with the plights of the oppressed in these countries, so many of the world’s problems have been caused by the expansionism of western interests – government and business. Surely western people should work on solving these problems however hard they may be.

Free Tibet may be cool but it is also easy, and serves those very damaging western interests as well.

What particular aspects of the “free Tibet” identity so appeal to today’s youths, though? Is it the desire to rebel against perceived oppression/injustice? The mysticism that hangs around the religion? The aesthetics of the Tibetan culture itself? Or something more sinister that people won’t acknowledge, like a desire to submit to a popular authority for guidance?

Honestly, in the my less level-headed teenage years I was drawn to the idea of the free Tibet movement briefly, until I actually met some of the organizers, who just struck me as extremists. The attraction to the idea of putting a Tibetan flag bumper sticker on my car has never returned, but a curiosity of why it seemed so intriguing in the first place remains. I’ve never been able to pin down exactly why I was drawn to it suddenly.

Any other ideas? Maybe from somebody who has been/is a member of the Tibetan independence movement?