this post was submitted on 09 May 2024
159 points (93.4% liked)

Memes

4381 readers
129 users here now

Good memes, bad memes, unite towards a united front.

founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] cfgaussian@lemmygrad.ml 43 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I want to correct a few misconceptions that are evident in your comment:

I'm not convinced the Tibetan people supported the invasion.

It wasn't an invasion, it was a liberation, and a peaceful one at that until reactionary forces, fearing the loss of their privileges if the serfs should be liberated, started a brutal armed insurrection.

The vast majority of the people of Tibet at that time were serfs and lived in miserable, inhumane slave-like conditions. Are you arguing that slaves would prefer to continue to be enslaved?

justified by "slavery existed in Tibet"

That was indeed not the primary reason why the PLA first entered Tibet. It was rather to preserve the territorial integrity and safeguard the sovereignty of China, of which Tibet was and is recognized as an integral part.

by that logic any country with slavery [...] deserves to be invaded

Tibet was not and is not a country. For a period of a few decades during which China was in chaos and turmoil following the fall of the Qing dynasty, the local government of Tibet had merely ceased to answer to the central government of China, but the region never formally declared Independence and never ceased to legally be a part of China.

Pro-independence forces fomented and backed by western imperialists who had already once invaded Tibet were however attempting to break Tibet away from China just like they are trying to do with Taiwan today. This created an urgent necessity for the PLA to intervene to protect Tibet and secure its borders.

I don't think the motivation was to free the slaves.

Whether or not this was the primary motivation, this was still one of the main goals that the CPC openly declared needed to be accomplished sooner or later, as it was evident that the system of feudal-theocratic serfdom was halting virtually all social and economic progress in Tibet. The CPC emphasised the need for democratic reform as soon as the people of Tibet were ready to make that step.

All of this is explained in greater detail in the documentary which i linked in my other comment.

[–] ComradeSalad@lemmygrad.ml 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I did want to tack on, but the annexation of Tibet was absolutely not peaceful. After initial negotiations failed, the campaign opened with the Battle of Chamdo and resulted in several thousand casualties, the majority of which were on the Tibetian side. It was only after this that the PLA requested the Tibetan capitulation, to which the Dalia Lama agreed, and Tibet entered annexation negotiations.