Monday, December 08, 2008

You'd think the Dalai Lama took out a subprime mortgage

Over the weekend, the Chinese Communist Party faced an ever-increasing wave of taxicab driver strikes (Epoch Times), a growing wave of foreign bans on their exports (Epoch Times), and another food poison scandal (Epoch Times), on top of the economic slowdown (Time and London Telegraph).

How did the cadres respond? With more repression (BBC and Epoch Times) and fiery criticism of the Dalai Lama. They even called Tibet's spiritual leader "a wolf in monk's clothing and a devil with a human face" (BBC). It's as if he took out a huge subprime loan and then defaulted on it just to cripple the Chinese economy.

Of course, he did no such thing. Nor did he move away from his previous rejection of Tibetan independence. He did make it very clear he prefers a Tibet free from the CCP (Agence France Presse via Yahoo):
When China becomes more democratic, with freedom of speech, with rule of law and
particularly with freedom of the press, . . . once China becomes an open, modern society, then the Tibet issue, I think within a few days, can be solved.

Those are a few days the cadres hope never to see, which at least in part is why the crackdown on Tibet has escalated - again (Radio Free Asia via Epoch Times).

The cadres have been using radical nationalism for years to buttress their regime. Their Korean colony has become so good at this that it can dominate talks on its nuclear ambitions (BBC and CNN) while publicly slamming the one nation that has refused to play its game (Japan - BBC). The "bilateral" talks with South Korea provide more evidence that this nonsense actually works (One Free Korea and Washington Times).

Unfortunately for Beijing, it is the regime's very willingness to prop up Kim Jong-il and his cohorts that allow them this leeway. The Beijing cadres have no such backup. In time, the Chinese people will rise up and take their country back. How much blood and treasure is lost in the interim remains to be seen.

No comments: