Facts and Figures on Tibet in 1999

The Statistics Bureau of Tibet releases the following facts and figures about the Tibet Autonomous Region in 1999. The gross domestic product (GDP) of Tibet reached 10.335 billion yuan last year, up 9.1 percent over 1998, and surpassing the national average for six consecutive years.

The average per capita income of farmers and herdsmen in Tibet reached 1,250 yuan (151 U.S. dollars) in 1999, an increase of 7.9 percent over 1998.

Some 180,000 people from overseas visited Tibet in 1999, an increase of 12 percent over the previous year, and foreign exchange earned from tourism amounted to 36 million U.S. dollars, up 9 percent.

In 1999, the industrial output value of Tibet rose by an estimated 7.8 percent over 1998, with large increases in the output of gold, cement ,and electricity.

Tibet's tertiary industry is expected to achieve 4.585 billion yuan in added-value in 1999, up 12.7 percent over 1998, thanks to the measures taken to stimulate domestic demand and consumption.

The import and export volume of Tibet is expected to reach 166 million U.S. dollars in 1999, a rise of 51 percent over the previous year, with export volume surging by 87.6 percent.

Last year, Tibet introduced 6.48 million dollars of foreign funds.

Tibet is part of China for more than 700 years

(You may have heard a lot about Chinese invasion of Tibet or sympathetic about Tibet Independent movement in Western media. Do you know that China has 56 nationalities and is never a racist country in history. Do you know that Tibetan immigrated to Tibet several thousand years ago from other part of China? Do you know that when Red Army entered Tibet in 1951, they also recovered other part of China (Chinese army invaded China????). Do you know that before 1951, the feudal lords in Tibet who constituted only five percent of the population possessed 95 percent of the means of production. Do you know that Buddhism was brought into Tibet from China Proper before being developed into the current state? Read the Tibet history before passing your judgment about a nation you have been misled in centuries.)

British and America working hard to separate Tibet from China since 19th century.

During the 19th century, Chinese Qing government control weakened, and prosperity diminished. China suffered massive social strife, economic stagnation, explosive population growth, and Western penetration and influence. Britain's desire to continue its illegal opium trade with China collided with imperial edicts prohibiting the addictive drug, and the First Opium War erupted in 1840. China lost the war; subsequently, Britain and other Western powers, including the United States, forcibly occupied "concessions" and gained special commercial privileges. Hong Kong was ceded to Britain in 1842 under the Treaty of Nanjing, and in 1898, when the Opium Wars finally ended, Britain executed a 99-year lease of the New Territories, significantly expanding the size of the Hong Kong colony.

British aggressors invaded China's Tibet twice in 1888 and 1903. The Tibetan army and civilians rose to resist but were defeated. In the second aggressive war against Tibet, the British army occupied Lhasa, and the 13th Dalai Lama was forced to flee from the city. The invaders compelled the Tibetan local government officials to sign the Lhasa Convention. But because the Ministry of External Affairs of the Qing government believed the Lhasa Convention would do damage to national sovereignty, the high commissioner stationed in Tibet by the Qing government refused to sign it, leaving it ineffectual.

Britain took advantage of the political chaos in China after the collapse of the Qing Dynasty and the new birth of the Republic of China in 1901, and put before the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs a five-point demand, indicating the denial of China's sovereignty over Tibet. Chinese government rejected the brutal demand.

In 1913 the British government inveigled the Tibetan authorities into declaring independence with the supervision and full support by British. Simply the British would like to turn Tibet into British colony like India. Once again British failed.

In the summer of 1942, the Tibetan local government, with the support of the British representative, announced the establishment of a "foreign affairs bureau," and openly carried out "Tibetan independence" activities. These actions were made public and condemned unanimously by the Chinese people. The national government also issued a stern warning. Under this pressure, the Tibetan local government had no choice but to withdraw its decision and reported the change to the national government.

In 1949, America announced in a US newspaper: " The United States is ready to recognize Tibet as an independent and free country."

In 1950, a load of American weaponry was shipped into Tibet through Calcutta in order to help resist the China army entry into Tibet. In the same year, US Secretary of State Dean Acheson openly slandered China's liberation of its own territory of Tibet as "invasion." In the same month the United States prodded some other countries to propose a motion at the United Nations for intervention in China's Tibet. The scheme was unsuccessful in face of the stern stand of the Chinese government and the opposition of some countries.

Former US President George Bush once declared that the coastal areas of China, plus Tibet, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, would split. The US' CIA, with an investment of US$245,000, entrusted the University of Hawaii to research whether the tense situations in ethnic areas in China will lead to a split of the country. The research results disappointed them.

In 1957 the CIA culled six young men from among Tibetans residing abroad and sent them to Guam of the United States to receive training in map-reading, radio transmission, shooting and parachuting. Subsequently, the United States trained 170 "Kamba guerrillas" in batches in Hale Camp, Colorado. The trained "Kamba guerrillas" were airdropped or sneaked into Tibet to execute CIA's plan activities. In May 1958, two agents trained by the Americans in the first batch brought a transceiver to the headquarter, which was set up by the rebel leader Anzhugcang Goinbo Zhaxi in Shannan, to make contact with the CIA. United States air-dropped arms and ammunition, including 20 sub-machine guns, two mortars, 100 rifles, 600 hand-grenades, 600 artillery shells and close to 40,000 bullets, to the rebels in the plateau called Chigu Lama Thang. During the same period, United States clandestinely shipped large amounts of arms and ammunition overland to the rebels entrenched in the Shannan area.

It was obvious that 1959 Tibet rebellion was all planned by American government

Form there on, America has been continuously backing the independent movement of Tibet all along. A movie "Seven Years in Tibet" produced by U.S. fooled the American with distorted historical facts. Funding was poured into foundations in U.S. to continue the anti-Chinese activities.

Millions of files in both Chinese and Tibetan recording historical facts over more than seven centuries are being kept in the archives of Beijing, Nanjing and Lhasa. No government of any country in the world has ever recognized Tibet as an independent state.

British Foreign Secretary Lord Lansdowne, in a formal instruction he sent out in 1904, called Tibet "a province of the Chinese Empire."

In his speech at the Lok Sabba in 1954, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru said, "Over the past several hundred years, as far as I know, at no time has any foreign country denied China's sovereignty over Tibet."

In Lhasa, the capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region, a statue of the Tang Princess Wen Cheng, who married the Tubo tsampo, king of Tibet, in 641, is still enshrined and worshiped in the Potala Palace. The Tang-Tubo Alliance Monument erected in 823 still stands in the square in front of the Jokhang Monastery. The monument inscription reads in part, "The two sovereigns, uncle and nephew, having come to agreement that their territories be united as one, have signed this alliance of great peace to last for eternity! May God and humanity bear witness thereto so that it may be praised from generation to generation."

The following map (From "Historical Atlas" by William R. Shepherd,1923.) had shown Tibet part of Yuan Dynasty. No one can deny that Tibet is always a part of China. Tibet is never an independent country. None of the Chinese government has ever surrendered the sovereignty of Tibet to others.

Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368)

The Yuan emperor established the Xuanzheng Yuan or Ministry for the Spread of Governance to directly handle important military and political affairs of the Tibet region. Choice of its members lay with the emperor and its reports were submitted directly to the monarch.

The central government of the Yuan Dynasty sent officials into Tibet to set up post stations, whose size varied according to the local population, topography and resources. These post stations were linked up in a communication line extending from Tibet up to Dadu (present-day Beijing).

The central government of the Yuan Dynasty also dispatched officials into Tibet to conduct censuses, establish the number of corvee laborers in areas under various wanhu offices and decide the number of corvee laborers, provisions and animal transport the areas along the post route had to supply. Such censuses were conducted three times in Tibet, in 1268, 1287 and 1334..

Ming Dynasty (1368-1644)

In 1368 the Ming Dynasty replaced the Yuan Dynasty in China, and inherited the right to rule Tibet.

The central government of the Ming Dynasty retained most of the titles and ranks of official positions instituted during the Yuan Dynasty. In the central and eastern parts of present-day Tibet, the Dbus-Gtsang Itinerant High Commander and the Mdo-khams Itinerant High Commander were set up respectively. Equivalent to provincial-level military organs, they operated under the Shaanxi Itinerant High Commander and, at the same time, handled civil administration. In Ngari in west Tibet, the E-Li-Si Army-Civilian Marshal Office was instituted. Leading officials of these organs were all appointed by the central government.

The Dalai Lama and the Bainqen Lama are the two leading incarnation hierarchies of the Gelug Sect of Tibetan Buddhism. The Gelug Sect rose during the Ming Dynasty, and the 3rd Dalai Lama was the abbot of one of the sect's monasteries. The central government of the Ming Dynasty showed him special favor by allowing him to pay tribute. In 1587 he was granted the title of Dorjichang or Vajradhara Dalai Lama.

Any official of the Tibetan local government who offended the law was punished by the central government.

Qing Dynasty (1644-1911)

When the Qing Dynasty replaced the Ming Dynasty in 1644, it further strengthened administration over Tibet.

In 1653 and 1713, the Qing emperors granted honorific titles to the 5th Dalai Lama and the 5th Bainqen Lama, henceforth officially establishing the titles of the Dalai Lama and the Bainqen Erdeni and their political and religious status in Tibet.

The Qing emperor made a young Living Buddha of the Xikang area the 7th Dalai Lama and had him escorted into Tibet, and appointed four Tibetan officials renowned for meritorious service "Galoins" to handle Tibet's political affairs.

In order to perfect Tibet's administrative organizations, the Qing Dynasty on many occasions enacted "regulations" to rectify and reform old systems and establish new ones. The Authorized Regulations for the Better Governing of Tibet, promulgated in 1793, had 29 articles. Their major purport was:

The Qing government holds the power to confirm the reincarnation of all deceased high Living Buddhas of Tibet including the Dalai Lama and the Bainqen Erdeni.

The high commissioners will supervise the handling of Tibetan affairs on behalf of the central government, enjoying the equal standing with the Dalai Lama and the Bainqen Erdeni. All the Galoins and those below them are subordinates.

In 1913, the British government forced the Beijing government to participate in a tripartite conference of China, Britain and Tibet, namely the Simla Conference held at the behest of the British government.

On July 3, 1914, the Chinese government representative Chen Yifan upon instruction refused to sign the Simla Convention. In his statement, Chen said, "Government of China refuses to recognize any agreement which His Majesty's Government and Tibet might conclude independently either now or in the future." The Chinese government also sent a note to the British government, reiterating its position.

In the summer of 1942, the Tibetan local government, with the support of the British representative, announced the establishment of a "foreign affairs bureau," and openly carried out "Tibetan independence" activities. These actions, as soon as they were made public, were condemned unanimously by the Chinese people. The national government also issued a stern warning. Under this pressure, the Tibetan local government had no choice but to withdraw its decision and reported the change to the national government

People's Republic of China (1949 - now)

After a long civil war and the World War II, Chinese people finally established Peoples' Republic of China on October 1, 1949. All foreign powers had been driven out of China. PRC continued in recovering the rest of Mainland China and its army entered Tibet in 1951.

Tibet is one of the Autonomies in China. So far no country in this world ever raised doubt in China 's sovereignty right over Tibet. Any claim of Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1959 is nonsense. There are no historical evidences or legal positions that China has lost its sovereignty over Tibet. "Invasion" has no meaning to a country exercising its sovereignty right on its own land.

Before 1951, Tibet was under a feudal serfdom characterized by the dictatorship of upper-class monks and nobles. The feudal lords who constituted only five percent of the population possessed 95 percent of the means of production. Tibet serfs were even more miserable than the black slaves in the United States before the civil war. Tibet was at that time not peaceful at all because the struggles between the slaves and their lords were very fierce.

Before 1951, there were no other religions allowed in Tibet. There were evidences that missioners were killed in Tibet in the past.

Tibetans now enjoy their freedom of religions and are liberated from the feudal serfdom system. They live in a much better society than before.

It is obvious that British and America support to Tibet independent movement is not for freedom or human right. It is purely a political game. It shows again and again their ambitious in taking over China and their continuous anti-Chinese sentiment, which has been exercised for a few hundred years.

 By Bevin Chu, December 3, 1999

(Selected from Antiwar.com)

 HISTORY ACCORDING TO HOLLYWOOD 

Humanitarian Interventionists and Benevolent Global Hegemonists, most of whom lack even a rudimentary understanding of China's long and complex history, share a particularly nasty trait. Many of these Globocops imagine because they have downloaded a few pages of separatist propaganda from tibet.org, and shed a tear or two while watching "Seven Years in Tibet," that qualifies them as China experts. They believe this qualifies them to pass judgment about whether China "deserves" to remain intact or be forcibly Balkanized by the World's Only Remaining Superpower. Their attitude rivals that of the most contemptible 19th century imperialists.

I have seen Mel Gibson's "Braveheart" once in the theater and several times on cable, and I never cease to be deeply moved by what screenwriting teachers term "a good story, well told." The same holds true of Neil Jordan's political biography "Michael Collins," about the famous, or infamous Irish revolutionary of the same name.

I do not however assume merely because I have enjoyed a well scripted and well produced two hours of entertainment that I have necessarily learned anything substantive about English, Scottish or Irish history. I retain enough presence of mind to recall Hollywood's record of playing fast and loose with historical facts, motivated by either commercial considerations or the filmmakers' political biases.

I certainly do not leave the theater convinced of either the rightness or wrongness of Scottish secession. Instead I remain scrupulously neutral. The issue of Scottish secession is one for the English and the Scots to settle between themselves. Why should I, who am neither an Englishman nor a Scots, behave like a damned busybody and stick my nose into something which is none of my business?

Now if only the Globocops would have the decency to do likewise after watching "Kundun" or "The Wind Horse."

CHINA'S WEST IS NOT THE AMERICAN WEST 

One especially disturbing aspect of the Tibet crusade in America is that Hollywood, academia, New Agers and the Washington establishment have drawn patently misleading parallels with American history. These comparisons of European immigrants to Han Chinese, and American Indians to Tibetan Chinese, have led to a grotesque collective misunderstanding.  

This dangerously egocentric, even narcissistic way of experiencing the world may get America into deep foreign policy hot water. In fact, it has. When such historically irrelevant parallels are drawn what non-Chinese get is worse than ignorance. What non-Chinese get is the illusion of understanding.

Unfortunately most of what is readily available in English on the web regarding contemporary Tibet is predictable PC orthodoxy. The few rebuttals which are available in English are summarily dismissed by the intellectual orthodoxy as not credible simply because they are posted by Chinese or ethnic Chinese sources and do not support the "correct" conclusions.

Tibet is a region of China. It has been since the 13th century. Obviously one needs to refer to Chinese history and Chinese historians to learn about it. Most of that data is obviously going to be in Chinese. Yet it is only virulently anti-China Tibetan secessionist propaganda written in English which is automatically accorded the status of unassailable truth. The China bashers' attitude reeks of colonialist arrogance.

Far better to not know anything, and retain the humility that accompanies such ignorance, than to imagine that one knows all one needs to know to pass moral judgment and demand military intervention. As the old saw goes, "the problem isn't what people don't know, it's what they know that just ain't so."

TIBETAN CHINESE ARE NOT AMERICAN INDIANS 

For example, projection of "collective guilt" over the mistreatment of American Indians is with little doubt the psychological root of most pro- Dalai activism. Unfortunately the pro-Dalai faction has confused its own internal psychology with a foreign nation's history. Just because they feel "liberal guilt" about America's Indian minority does not mean that China's history actually conforms to their internal guilt and historical misunderstanding. This is why so many western sympathizers of Tibetan independence are taken aback, stunned even, when they discover that most Tienanmen pro-democracy leaders do NOT support, and in fact vehemently oppose Tibetan and Taiwan independence. The sympathizers' projection has been so extensive that they are trapped in a "virtual reality" of their own making. 

The relationship between majority Han-Chinese and minority Tibetan-Chinese does NOT historically parallel that of European-Americans and Native Americans. The territory of modern China includes Tibet not because "the Han-Chinese conquered Tibetan-Chinese" the way European-Americans conquered American Indians and Hawaiians. (E.g., "Dances with Wolves").  

Instead both Tibetans and Hans were conquered by the Mongols under the leadership of Genghis Khan and grandson Kublai Khan in the 13th century. When the Mongol or Yuan Dynasty collapsed a century later, it was supplanted by a Han-Chinese dominated Ming Dynasty, which inherited jurisdiction over the Mongol empire, including the Tibetan region. This is how Tibet, and of course Mongolia, became part of China.

Those who insist on "victim-victimizer" dichotomies might be tempted on leap to yet another equally simplistic conclusion, that "both Tibetans and Hans were victims of Mongol aggression." This ignores the fact that both "victims" and "victimizers" subsequently intermarried extensively, not under duress, but of their own volition, rendering the issue of victimization moot and irrelevant. The bottom line is that Tibet was not "invaded" or "annexed" by China in 1959. Because by then the Tibetan region had been part of China for seven centuries, five centuries longer than these United States of America have even been in existence. One does not "invade" or "annex" what is already one's own territory. Beijing dispatched troops to prevent secession by the serf-owing elite which objected to the abolition of slavery, not to implement annexation. Hardly the same thing.

One can argue the merits or demerits of secession, but that is another issue entirely. Rather than debate the issue honestly however, the Dalai Lama and his Hollywood camp followers prefer to lie about history. They are counting on popular ignorance of the details about exotic and distant Cathay and Shangri-la, calculating that the general public will believe whatever is fed them if it is presented in a convenient and satisfying Manichean "good versus evil" framework.

REDS, NOT RED HERRINGS 

The false equation of Tibetan-Chinese with American Indian has predictably led to the false attribution of racist motivations to Beijing's abolition of serfdom and crushing of Tibetan secession. Beijing's Tibet policies are being falsely equated with everything from Nazi genocide of Jews to Nato's allegations of Serbian "ethnic cleansing." 

If one is determined to force the Chinese experience into an American mold, one could perhaps equate the militarily powerful Mongols with one of the aggressive, nomadic tribes such as the Comanche, and Tibetans and Hans with less aggressive, agrarian tribes such as the Hopi or Navahoe. The point is that all of China's major ethnic subcultures are native Chinese, including so-called Hans.

Now that communism is dead, sympathizers of the Dalai Lama, many of whom were sympathizers of Mao Zedong, seem to have forgotten what communism was all about. Communism was a political ideology obsessed with economic equality. Communism adjudged who was good and who was bad on the basis of its fatally flawed economic theory. To communist true believers the relevant question was to which economic class do you belong. Are you a capitalist victimizer or a proletarian victim? Ethnicity to communism was always irrelevant.

The Chinese Communists were no exception. They committed their atrocities because they were fanatical radical egalitarians, "coercive egalitarians." The Lamaist theocracy was targeted because it engaged in the economic exploitation of Tibet's serfs.

When Red Guards vandalized monasteries in Tibet they were doing precisely the same thing to Zen Buddhist monasteries, Taoist monasteries, Christian churches, Jewish synagogues all over the rest of China. They were not doing anything so narrowly parochial as singling out the Tibetan subculture for "cultural genocide." Rather they were motivated by disgust for what they perceived as vestiges of unjust economic systems throughout China.

The Dalai Lama's allegation that Chinese Communist violence against Tibet's serf-owning elite was racially motivated ethnic cleansing is a red herring. Chinese Communists were evil because they were coercive egalitarians. Chinese Communists were never racist.

In fact if the Chinese Communists had really been racially motivated, they could have deliberately and cynically left Tibet's Ancient Regime in place.

Traditional Tibet's theocracy imposed a policy of "er xuan yi" (from two choose one) and "san xuan ER" (from three choose two) on the Tibetan people. They dragooned enormous numbers of hapless Tibetan boys into the priesthood , where they would remain celibate for life. This draconian policy resulted in an alarming decline in Tibet's population in recent centuries.

Adherence to a religious practice of strict celibacy led to the eventual extinction of the Shaker sect in America. Chinese Communist Party failure to intervene in China's Tibetan region would have, by default, abetted a similar process of Tibetan self-extinction. CCP intervention has instead led to a population increase. Beijing emerges an unlikely hero in this respect. Yet Beijing is ritually and reflexively accused by self-styled do-gooders of "genocide," both "cultural" and racial. Ironies abound.

GENGHIS KHAN AND WILLIAM OF NORMANDY 

The fifty-six officially acknowledged ethnic groups in China, including but not limited to Tibetan-Chinese, Moslem-Chinese, Mongolian-Chinese, Manchurian-Chinese, and Han-Chinese, would be more instructively compared with certain ethnic groups in the west and not others. The relationship between Mongolian-Chinese and Han-Chinese, and Manchurian-Chinese and Han-Chinese in particular, parallels that between English of Norman descent and English of Saxon descent following the Norman Conquest.

What made me think of this was a corny old Hollywood movie which I had seen before, but which just ran again on cable here in Taipei - "The Black Rose, " 1950, starring Tyrone Power, Jack Hawkins and Michael Rennie.

The hero, Walter of Gurney (Tyrone Power) is the illegitimate son of a Saxon Lord denied his inheritance and birthright by the Norman King Edward (Michael Rennie.) Embittered, Gurney abandons England, which he feels is no longer his country and journeys to the middle-east, joining Kublai Khan's army which is about to invade China. He meets the title character "The Black Rose" who is not a flower, but a woman named Maryam, a teenager played by an 18 year old actress who didn't look a day over 13. Tyrone Power and sidekick Jack Hawkins rescue her from life as a concubine in Kublai Khan's harem. She falls in love with the hero and a typically chauvinistic 1950's type relationship follows in which he treats her like a mere "wench."

At the beginning of the film the Tyrone Power character vows undying enmity for intolerable Saxon victimization under Norman rule. By the end of the film however he is reconciled to a future in which Saxons and Normans live together in peace. What is intriguing to me is how the events in Britain and China occurred at very nearly the same time, the 12th century, making the Marco Polo-ish linkage chronologically consistent and unintentionally underscoring the parallelism, at least for me.

The aspect of the film that intrigued me was not the pyscho-sexual "Lolita" subplot, but the Norman-ruled Britain parallel to Mongol-ruled China. Let me stress that the historical parallel with China was not something the filmmakers intended, but merely a connection I made in my own mind.

Both settings are virtually clichés in swashbuckler action adventure movies. Just as "The Black Rose" and countless Robin Hood related tales center on the conflict between Norman conquerors and Saxon conquered, so countless Taiwan and Hongkong swordfight swashbucklers set in the Southern Sung dynasty and late Ming dynasty deal with Mongol and Manchu conquerors and Han conquered.

Just as these once powerful animosities are "ancient history" in modern Britain, so they are in modern China. Is there any Anglo-Saxon Englishman alive today who actually nurses animosity toward "Normans" for the Battle of Hastings? Is there any "Han" Chinese (good luck finding a "pure" Han Chinese by the way) alive today who actually nurses animosity toward "Mongols" or "Manchus" for the fall of the Sung and Ming dynasties?

Remember the British commander during the Gulf War? He was Sir General Peter de la Billiere. Remember the writer/director of the Emmy award winning British mini-series "Prime Suspect"? She was Lynda LaPlante. Do westerners agitating for Tibetan/Uyghur/Mongolian independence realize why these prominent British subjects have French names?

Remember the pajamas clad student leader of the Tienanmen protest movement who demanded and got a conference with Li Peng? He was Wu ER Kai Xi, a Uyghur. Do westerners agitating for Tibetan/Uyghur/Mongolian independence realize why he and millions of Chinese have Tibetan, Uyghur, Mongolian names ?

Americans and Europeans who know nothing of Chinese history, yet shrilly demand that Tibet, Xinjiang, or Mongolia be carved out of China, do not realize how crazy and laughable their demands are. Imagine modern day Chinese wringing their hands and criticizing Britain for imposing the Anglo- Saxon tongue on Englishmen of Norman-descent, characterizing that as "cultural genocide?" Should Englishmen with Norman surnames secede from England? Crazy? Laughable? You bet. If only they knew how crazy and laughable.

The animosities between Normans and Saxons were quite powerful at the time, as they were between Mongol and Han and Manchu and Han. Yet Normans and Saxons did not form separate kingdoms, nor did Mongol, Manchu and Han. If putting behind historical grievances and intermarrying was possible and desirable for Normans and Saxons in Britain, why do western acolytes of the Dalai Lama deem the identical process of reconciliation and integration undesirable for Hans and Tibetans in China? Their sanctimony is both historically ignorant and morally inconsistent. If their folly weren't so widespread, and hence, destructive, it wouldn't even deserve the time and effort needed to rebut it.

AMERICA WAS NOT THE WORLD'S ONLY MELTING POT 

Modern China looks ethnically homogeneous not because of "Aryan racial purity," but because of millennia of what Ku Klux Klansmen and neo-Nazis denounce as "mongrelization of the races." China ranks among the most "mongrelized" nations in the world. Even China's so-called "Han" majority is in fact comprised of numerous Asiatic tribes which began intermarrying as early as the Shang dynasty.

Jews who emigrated to Kaifeng one thousand years ago are so thoroughly assimilated they are indistinguishable from "native" Chinese. Jews in Europe and even America remain physically distinct due to incomplete assimilation.

TIBET IS PART OF CHINA, GET OVER IT 

Tenzing Gyatso, aka the Dalai Lama, rather than rejecting his identity as a Tibetan-Chinese and demanding Tibetan racial purity along the lines of his Nazi mentor, SS Captain Heinrich Harrer, should instruct his band of reactionary theocrats huddled in Dharamsala to forsake their quixotic dream of "restoring" a "Shangri-La" that never existed, return to Lhasa, and shoulder to shoulder with fellow Chinese, help illiterate serfs they once exploited become the Andy Groves and Bill Gates of the 21st century.

China Threat theorists, meanwhile, should get over their obsession with "dividing and conquering" China. Their insistence on seeing the Chinese people not as fellow human beings, but as an insidious "Yellow Peril" to be exterminated, merely reveals their own paranoia and racial bigotry.

Introduction: 

William (as invaders go) was a bit of a lad quite accomplished in warfare, conquest and other kingly activities. He came from France (Normandy) and was a Norman but rather confusingly the term Norman means "men from the North" and they were originally Scandinavian. The irony here is that when he stomped all over England he was at least in part in conflict with earlier Scandinavian invaders such as the Vikings. It's a funny old world! 

Bill was not altogether a nice guy. After he had invaded England he got a bit miffed when the North refused to accept his dominion. Being a touch peeved he sent forth an army to subdue the rebels with instructions to "lay waste" the land from roughly York to Newcastle. Farms were to be burnt and everyone killed, man, woman and child. They did a pretty good job the legacy of which shaped the region for centuries to come (but hey this is just a personal observation). by name WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR, or THE BASTARD, or WILLIAM OF NORMANDY, French GUILLAUME LE CONQUÉRANT, or LE BÂTARD, or GUILLAUME DE NORMANDIE (b. c. 1028 , Falaise, Normandy-d. Sept. 9, 1087, Rouen), duke of Normandy (as William II) from 1035 and king of England from 1066, one of the greatest soldiers and rulers of the Middle Ages. He made himself the mightiest feudal lord in France and then changed the course of England's history by his conquest of that country. William the Conqueror Effects of the Conquest

The effects of the Conquest were numerous and ran deep. One of the most immediate and most serious was the almost complete transfer of power at the top of society from Saxon to Norman hands.

William consistently sought ways and excuses to remove Saxons from power, but the Saxons themselves were most obliging. Many went into exile. Many were killed in the invasion and later rebellions. Many more were simply dispossessed. By 1086, 80% of the fiefs were in Norman hands (some held by Flemings and Bretons). William brought with him the centralizing tendencies and techniques he had followed in Normandy. William as king held one-fifth of all land in England; this was a far greater estate than held by any French king. A quarter was held by the Church. Half the fiefs belonged to Norman lords, but their holdings were scattered rather than concentrated, so they could never become rivals to royal power. William was quite careful about this - he did not want to create another Earl of Wessex to rival the king.

One element in William's control of England was a military innovation he brought with him from France: stone castles. England had few, if any, stone castles before the Conqueror. After him, the landscape was transformed: 84 built by 1100. These castles were always given to Norman lords and many were built in areas prone to rebellion. The castles were all but impregnable and served as Norman anchors in a Saxon sea.

A long-term change was the change of language. The Normans spoke French, and French now became the language of government and the nobility. It remained so until the 15th c. Henry II, Richard the Lionhearted, even Edward Longshanks, all spoke French. Language was a barrier and a divide between the Norman lords and their Saxon subjects.

The Robin Hood legend has strong echoes of the division. Remember, all the bad guys in the legend are Normans, while all the good guys are Saxons. Never mind that the ultimate hero is Richard Lion-Heart, whose father was born in Anjou; the legend is filled with anachronisms, like any good legend. But the antagonism between Norman and Saxon in the Robin Hood stories reflected a real one that lasted long after the death of the Conqueror.

Overview of Tibet

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