Web Letters: Youth Protests Outshine Olympic Torch

The Tibet brouhaha was being deliberately manipulated by a public relations outfit in New York or London or Paris, with the sole purpose of embarrassing the Chinese on their coming-out party that is this summer's Beijing Olympic Games.

Tibet has been a part of China since ancient days. Historical records have shown that Tibet had been under the central government of China for more than 700 years since the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368). Less than six decades ago, China emerged from a century of colonialist oppression and humiliation at the hands of the very same colonialists that are currently behind the anti-China campaign of disinformation.

Tibet became (de facto) independent in 1911 after the Manchu dynasty fell. But this independence was never accepted by either the Chinese governments that succeeded the Manchu or by Britain, India and the United States, the democracies with whom Tibet had the closest ties.

For political and economic self-interest, these democracies instead continued to accept Chinese suzerainty over Tibet. Consequently, when Mao Zedong sent his army to incorporate Tibet into the People's Republic of China in 1950, Britain, India and the United States not only did not assist Tibet but also blocked Tibet's appeal for help to the United Nations.

The international community now is being barraged with a deliberate and sustained campaign of disinformation about what is going on with Tibet, as once again Washington is providing financial, political, diplomatic and propaganda support to a blatantly racist demonization effort, ostensibly due to "concerns" for "human rights."

It's outrageous that nobody is mentioning that one-fourth of US territory was forcibly taken from Mexico merely a hundred years ago, and that millions Native Americans were genocided by European settlers before that.

We hear that Tibetans suffer cultural genocide. But we do not hear those terms applied to Spanish and French policies toward the Basque minority. We do not hear those terms applied to the US annexation of the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1898. Now, the very same colonialists (after those redneck cowboys finished off millions of Native Americans) jump up and down and scream for Tibetans. How ridiculous!

And what about Palestinians? Anybody?

Tuan Zhang

Seattle, WA