In accordance with this logic, only when Tibetans are denied a modern civilization and kept captive in a primitive society with no access to electricity and machines, can their culture be preserved. The UN Declaration on the Right to Development, however, states that "the right to development is an inalienable human right." I wonder if the United States really respects Tibetan people's human rights when it attempts to deprive these people of their right to development.

Double-talk

The Dalai Lama has also used a catch-22 to work for him. In an interview with The New York Times in 1993, he expressed worries over the population problem and proposed birth control as a solution. On the other hand, he accuses the Chinese Government of carrying out "genocide" by allowing each urban Tibetan couple to have two children. The fact is that a Han couple, living in either Tibet or other Chinese regions, is allowed to have only a single child. The Chinese Government doesn't implement family planning among Tibetan farmers and herds people and provides them with free medical services. As a result, Tibet's population of farmers and herds people has grown rapidly, with increasing demand for meat food ensuing. Since the area of Tibet's pastures do not grow, to breed more cattle and sheep on them inevitably leads to overgrazing and causes severe desertification and deterioration of the pastures. Tibetan farmers and herds people's preference of grass roots as fuel also aggravates the situation. I have seen vendors of grass roots in Lhasa. But this has become an excuse for the Dalai Lama to criticize the Chinese Government for destroying Tibet's ecosystem. If the Chinese Government had required Tibetan farmers and herds people to practice family planning, I believe the Dalai Lama would have used it to make up another story about "ethnic genocide."

The Dalai Lama has always said that the right to national self-determination is a basic human right. When asked to comment on aboriginal inhabitants' "independence" bid during a visit to Hawaii, the Dalai Lama, for fears of offending his patrons on the U.S. mainland, declined to clarify his stand, saying that he was unfamiliar with the situation.

The Tibet card

The reason why Western powers have energetically played the Tibet card is that they do not want to see a prosperous and strong China. They therefore spare no effort to break up China. This is neither an ideological nor a cultural conflict. It is a new Cold War that was launched by white Western chauvinists to restrain China's development. In order to serve the needs of the new Cold War, mainstream Western media have released a large number of distorted reports on the Tibet issue. Many white Westerners have accepted the groundless accusations against China for the same reason.

Western hegemonists have paid close attention to China's 6 million Tibetans and 6 million Uygurs. But it's a daydream that they can dust the eyes of the 12 million Tibetans and Uygurs and drive them to engage in secessionist efforts and subvert the Communist Party of China-led Chinese Government. Western media have wantonly accused the Chinese Government of instigating nationalism. During the March 14 riots in Lhasa this year, 17 innocent Han people, including a baby, were burnt to death by "Tibet independence" mobs. How would European and American people react if tragedies of this kind happened in their countries? Their support of the Dalai Lama's "Tibet independence" bid and their connivance at "Tibet independence" mobs' violent crimes of beating, smashing, looting, burning and killing have fully exposed the false nature of "freedom," "democracy" and "human rights" that they advocate.