Afraid of the Dalai Lama?

Why is China so afraid of Dalai Lama? This frail looking old man whose charming smile and humorous observations on nature, spirituality and peace have inspired millions many, still causes kind of a frenzied chaotic reaction from China whenever this old man comes to the forefront of world news. Dalai Lama's receiving of Congressional Medal of Honor from U.S. Government has sparked similar knee jerk comments filled with fumes from Chinese one party communist leaders. Why is China so afraid of Dailai Lama? Here are a few points that may enlighten this subject on Tibet, the repressed land that China had forcefully occupied many years ago:

"Why is the mighty People's Republic of China so petrified of this 72-year-old Buddhist monk? True, the Dalai Lama is no ordinary scholar and teacher; he is the living symbol of the Buddhist faith. It seems that Beijing's cadres fear his moral authority and do not want the international community to examine their record in Tibet, because they have a lot to hide.

It has been 48 years since the Dalai Lama eluded capture by the People's Liberation Army and escaped to India, whereupon Chairman Mao Zedong began to plunder Tibet's wealth and murdered more than 1 million of its people. In the mid-1990s, the Chinese politburo implemented the "Strike Hard Campaign" that declared Buddhism "a disease to be eradicated." News of major protests in Tibet has not been widely disseminated in recent years, and now the survival of Tibetan civilization has reached a tipping point. In 2000, China launched a vast infrastructure campaign called "Opening and Development of the Western Regions" and embarked on a new phase of subjugation and control. Construction of rail and road links to Tibet, such as the Qingzang railway that opened last year, has accelerated Beijing's surveillance of Tibetans and has advanced the Sinofication of the Himalayan and Turkic peoples who inhabit China's western territories.

Exploiting Tibet's resources for the mainland's industrial base is a strategic and economic priority for China's government, which suppresses manifestations of Tibetan identity or nationalism with blunt force."

There may be other reasons beside the seemingly "obvious" reason of suppression of Tibetan identity.

"China is accustomed to reacting with brutality when its supremacy is threatened, but now the state is imperiled by forces that neither Maoist thought nor martial law can control. Rapid growth has caused calamitous environmental damage that could lead to food shortages and unhygienic living and working conditions, which in turn could lead to epidemics and, eventually, chaos. China's 1.3 billion people need solutions, not ordinances dictated by the Communist Party's Central Committee. But Beijing, unwilling or unable to relinquish one-party rule, clings to an obsolete worldview that demonizes the Dalai Lama instead of engaging the statesman in a meaningful dialogue on Tibet and China's future."

Like its oligarch dominated "democracy" in other parts of our world, Chinese communist dictators exploit Dalai Lama controversy so that their increasingly restless populace can be galvanized for a neatly crafted nationalistic cause. Sometimes, "God" and "God's man" can prove to be handy tool for even the atheistic creed.

Link:
Afraid of the Dalai Lama?