A news website created by Tibetan exiles in India, Phayul, has featured an article on a bill (H.R. 6948) introduced in the House of Representatives by United States Congressman Scott Perry (R-PA) that promotes Tibetan separation from China.
The bill would “authorize the President to recognize the Tibet Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China as a separate, independent country, and for other purposes.”
Other purposes? That the US was running geopolitical intrigues in Asia (and throughout the world) is well known. That the US CIA was running schemes in Xinjiang and Tibet was written about by Thomas Laird in his Into Tibet: The CIA’s First Atomic Spy and His Secret Expedition to Lhasa.
It is farcical for Americans to push for purported liberation of lands for other peoples. Why? Because if one grouping of people is entitled to country status in a delimited territory, then that same principle must apply to all peoples in similar circumstances. The US would have to recognize Palestinian statehood in historical Palestine. The same would apply to the Kurds, the Kashmiris, the Basques in France and Spain, the Catalans in Spain, etc. National liberation can not be seriously considered as just a pick-and-choose principle among peoples seeking liberation in a homeland.
Even worse, not only is it farcical, it is hypocritical for Americans. If Americans (and let’s be specific to certain Americans because here we are mainly discussing Americans derived from European migrants) are to be regarded as earnest and sincere in advocating the liberation of peoples elsewhere, then one should first look in one’s own backyard before calling for an overhaul of a neighbor’s backyard. To express fidelity with H.R. 6948, the US would have to turn over Puerto Rico to Puerto Ricans, Guam to the Chamorros, the Chagos archipelago to the Chagossians (yes, Britain lays claim, but the Chagossians were expelled at the request of the US military), and others.
The fact is that the entirety of the US landmass is a landmass stolen from the Original Peoples. [1] The occupation continues to this very day.
Nonetheless, that the US would endorse and practice the subjugation of a people would not mitigate China’s alleged subjugation of Tibetans nor usurping control over the Tibetan plateau. Given the CIA’s penchant for instigating coups and installing governments kindly disposed to the US, and given US manipulation of the Tibetan opposition to gain influence into Tibet, and given the key role that the “Roof of the World” has for the security of the Chinese state and its peoples, encompassing Tibet under the wing of the Chinese dragon is understandable. And contrary to propaganda that alleges China has been oppressing Tibetans, debasing their culture, language, and religion, China has been a boon for the Tibetan economy and ways of life. Newsweek even saw fit to chime in a 2012 headline that “China Is Good for Tibet.”
Now suppose what the American reaction would be if the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress were to promote a law whereby the government of China would recognize the colonized state of Hawai’i as a separate, independent country, and for other purposes.
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Kim Petersen is a former co-editor of the Dissident Voice newsletter. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Twitter: @kimpetersen.
Note
1. See e.g., Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, review and David E. Stannard, American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World.
