Free Tibet, Not By Decency But By Greed
At the end of a rather forceful editorial on China and Tibet, Jay Ambrose flubs the finish.
Various commentators have suggested what that compromise might be. You can keep Tibet as part of China, while simultaneously granting it extensive leeway in managing its own internal affairs, much as you have done in Hong Kong.
In Hong Kong, your motive for granting a high degree of autonomy was making money. In Tibet, the motive would be decency, a respect for the rights of other people, but in making the move, you would begin to win respect yourself.
I wonder what Mr. Ambrose has seen that makes him think the ChiComs are the least bit interested in decency? If the tyrants in Beijing were decent, they wouldn’t have recently affirmed their horrific one child policy for the next ten years. If they respected the rights of others, then places called “house churches” wouldn’t be illegal and the only legal Bibles wouldn’t be the ones that are government-approved. If they cared about winning respect, they wouldn’t be holding dissidents in prison.
We do know they care a great deal about money and nothing at all about the rights of other people. That’s why their companies routinely violate copyrights and conterfeit everything from clothing to movies. That’s why their factories are as dedicated to consumer safety as Amy Winehouse is to AA meetings.
Playing to the ChiCom’s sense of decency is like playing to a Pit Bull’s knowledge of higher mathematics. We do know they like money because a fast-moving economy keeps the people from pondering what miserable lives they’d be leading if it weren’t for the few extra bucks they were making. The second that economy slows down and the people who want jobs can’t get them and the people of China start noticing that they could have much better if only those bastards in Beijing weren’t in the way, well, that is the ChiCom’s worst nightmare. We need to be hitting them as hard as we can right in the wallets and we need to keep it up until the cracks that are there get wider and wider. If we really want a free Tibet, we need to make sure that they have some room to push back.
An Olympic disruption is a really good place to start.
(via Instapundit)
Other Posts of Interest:
- China Cracks Down Harder. So Where Are George Bush and John McCain?
- Will Sarkozy Lead an Olympic Boycott? Let’s Hope!
- Why I’m Not Worried About China
Category: No More Tyrants, The World At Large
