A thwarted election

One other obvious reason for China to object to an election among Tibetan exiles: it makes more glaring the failure of China to allow the Tibetans still in Tibet any such say in choosing their own leaders. (Not to mention the contrast with how China selects its own leadership.)

"Every year more join them, mostly by fleeing the Tibet Autonomous Region of China through Nepal." -
Source and specific number, please.

I do not see any reason why Tibetan have to flee to Nepal. It is like Irish or Basque people in Europe fleeing to Ethiopia or India and there fighting for their independence away from United Kingdom or Spain.
If people are rich, few people will abandon their home for fighting for freedom. If they are poor, the first priority is how to feed , educate and raise their children (if married) or how to earn enough money for a future life, not fighting for democracy, which is something so vague in notion and so dirty (can not find a better word, my English is not good) in reality. They would flee their home for money, not for ideology. So the destination is surely not Nepal.
The Tibetan moving to Nepal here, are probably the people moving due to other reasons, like for marriage (ethnic Tibetan are on both sides of border) or for business.
Ethnic Tibetan was, or is, nomad. They live even as remote as Pakistan as I heard, or even here in my country Vietnam (ethnic Ha Nhi and some other people are of Tibetan stock). Their movement from a country to another should not be politicized for China bashing purpose, especially in a professional magazine like The Economist.

I dont understand why is the world suprised by this..

China, a country where its own natives have no freedom, where every suspicous anti established movement is traced by those good men in Politburo, where even student protests are well received like the ones at Tianmen... how can you expect that it will allow democracy to survive in its neighbourhood ??

scuttle the Uighuirs, the tibetans, Taiwanese, Mongolia, Japanese territory, occupy South China sea, promote maoist extremism in India, promote pakistan military and ISI,, uh... did i miss something ?

And even after this... people get surprised on China's new actions... those innocent sweeet politburo souls, can you imagine how hurt would they be feeling

@ Theosophist,

I hope you are not a troll here and will discuss in reasonable way.

At the second paragraph, if you change the name of China by US and change appropriate names, it will be still true, and actually, it will be true for any big power, from Mongolia in ancient history to British Empire and now the US.

US is better then China with regards to paragraph No.1, if you do not count various crime and massacre they done to their own people (native America) and other countries, like My Lai massacre in Vietnam (comparable to Nazi massacre in Lidice village, Czech republic).

EcoNguyen,

There is more to massacre by US(Iraq, AfPak) and also to massacre by China(Cultural Revolution, Great Leap Backward, Mao Made Famines) etc...

And as far as your logic(poor need food and not freedom) is concerned.....may be, its your own logic; Tibetans have their own logic.

@ Gone-with-wind,

I appreciate your being fair about China and US, which nowadays become less common in Economist discussion.
Regarding your opinion on freedom for Tibetan, well you may be right. But the world do no work that way. If every ethnic minorities ask for their independence from country majority, I think all of them have their rationale. And the world will have at least 200 more countries.
In Asia except China: Kashmir (India); at least 15 Russian republics; Aceh province (indonesia); Aborigine republics (Australia); Southern provinces (Thailand) etc.
In America: native republics in almost all countries
in Western Europe: EU will be crowded with at least 20 more countries
In Africa: unimaginable.
And imagine about the world then. I guess after some decades living in independence, the newly-founded countries will once more ask to join their former countries.

@ EcoNguyen
" I do not see any reason why Tibetan have to flee to Nepal."

Dear EcoNguen,

My parents escaped to Nepal and therefore I have more knowledge on why Tibetans flee to Nepal.
When your own parents are being beaten and taken to jail constantly for teaching you, your own language, that too just plain Tibetan, you think twice about living in that country, be it your own.
When, all of a sudden, the chinese police lock up your house and take away your belongings and you can have no say, then you think twice about living in that country, be it your own.
When your grandparents are beaten for just saving a picture of your guru, when you are put in prision for even commenting on the political state of the country, when the chinese police mistreat your cousins, and they die in prison, simply because they were the mayor of a certain town, and when you are electrocuted for talking about the present state of the country, to your relatives in other nations, and when so many unjust things happen in the country and you can say nothing, maybe then you will finally understand why Tibetans flee to Nepal.

Therefore I think it is very important that magazines like The Economist should bring up matters like this.

Does that mean the next Dalai Lama will be elected?

So true. China likes to depict the Dalai Lama as an archaic serf-owner and a fanatical theocrat. But reality shows that he is much closer to a parliamentary monarch in a democracy than to any of the clichés spun by Chinese propaganda. Tibetans want democracy, they want true autonomy in their homeland within China, they want to preserve their culture and they want an end to Chinese oppression.

Nepal, after having suffered authoritarian regimes for so long should be able to understand much better the Tibetans' plight and not just bend to diplomatic pressure from its neighbors.

@ ihuman

Nice try, but you shouldn't have started with the claim that they were "forbidden to teach your language", considering if you've actually been to Lhasa you'd see Tibetan language used just as often as those in Chinese. Its a rather bad start to establishing credibility for the rest of your claims which were neither provable nor disprovable. Having said that, the brainwashing Tibetans do to their kids in Nepal are very much provable, too bad they don't teach them anything else.

Eitherway, those exiles have a long way to go before they can get even to Iran's level of democracy, at least in Iran the public don't worship the Mulahs as a God.

Why author keep on whining, just send your British empire troupe, toy cannon at doorstep of China, you can negotiate a treaty to liberate Tibet like 150 years ago. If you can't then just shut up!!!

I gotto read about Dalai Lama "government members", here you are:

1)Gyalo Toinzhub, Dalai Lama's second eldest brother, held important posts in military, diplomatic and financial departments

2)Losang Samdain, the third eldest brother, in charge of the health department

3)Jezuin Bai'ma, his younger sister, is the chief of the education department.

4)His brother-in-law was "minister of security" for 18 years after 1968.

And how many more of his relatives and his ex-slave owners officers from Tibet have held important posts in Dalai Lama "government"?

Sound like cronyism to me. A poor so called "exiled government" within other countries having "election", how fair will it be and how effective will it be? Looking at the member of Dalai Lama government, I doubt it and knowing his absolute power (theocratic) and how he treated his own people Dorje followers, banning them praying their God, I damn doubt it.

Election system mean nothing if there are corruption, cronyism and theocratic around.

Nepal should not be dragged through the muck as the Daliac election should cover the whole of Greater Tibet which obviously does not include Nepal but parts of Indian controlled Tibetan territories.

@EcoNguyen:
My dear... i have never, in this discussion or earlier, supported the US policy on external affairs or British imperialism.. and it would also be too early to classify China as a super power ... it is a super power in the making.. unless something unforeseen happens.. so lets not start celebrating as yet.

As a large/dominating power in a region or the world, you have two choices.
You could either go the US/British(old glory days) way of conquering territories for financial gains and give explanations to the world about some illusionary weapons of mass destruction

Or choose to act as a balancing power in conflicts when you can see one country military/economic strength against another sovereign country.

But for the second choice, the super power itself should be one which believes in democracy and freedom.

China fits more in the first category minus giving explanations (in case it becomes a super power)
As a country where its own people cant make choices, express political or cultural views.. how can it provide justice to the world. It will obviously help Kim Jong and his dynasties, Burma Junta, ISI, Iran and everyone else who believes in suppression.

@ iewgnem

Yes my grandparents were forbidden to teach my parents TIbetan language, but educated people escaped Tibet, and started setting up schools outside Tibet.
Also in Lhasa streets, Tibetan language is either rarely or not at all used. Only chinese language is taught in schools. But since there are elderly who do not know Chinese, then maybe Tibetan language is used. To homeschool a kid and teach children Tibetan language, means time in prison and I am serious about this. But people still secretively try teach their children Tibetan language.
Just so you know, my cousin brother, escaped to Nepal ten years back. When we first met, he spoke more Chinese and less Tibetan. But with his dedication to learn TIbetan, he did so in the Tibetan schools in India.
So please let the person whose parents and grandparents, who have actually lived in Tibet, do the talking. THank you.

Welcome back, Theosophist,

I think you have agreed with me that any country becoming a big power will behave in a way that other smaller countries feel being bullied, nothwithstanding in the past, present and future or democracy or authoritarian. I also remind that the US also supported, or are supporting a lot of repressive regimes, like South Vietnam Ngo Dinh Diem, South Korean Sung-man Rhee, Cuba Batista, Chilean Pinochea, Philippines Marcos etc. They were no less repressive and brutal than so-called repressive regimes China suporting now.
About a superpower must believe in democracy and freedom, I am not so sure. While I agree that in theory, democracy are better than dictatorship, it is also true for communism in theory. But in reality, both communism and democracy have been abused to the benefit of the rulers, who ever they are, red communist or liberal democracist. Therefore, we have witnessed the unrest in Eastern bloc, and now in Western countries, and the future, who know, may be even Japan.
The society is always in revolution, and I believe that no fixed model, whether communism or democracy will be final destination for any country. What is really true today may not be true after one or two generation and the society, if want to exist and grow, will have to adjust.

(continued)
After 20 years from the fall of communism, if looking back, we still found many huge achievement. At least, the former communist countries guaranteed universal education, the real education, not only in statistics. In some case, they forced people to study. That is not freedom, but it may be better for the student and for the country in the long run. In addition, those countries did better than liberal countries in preventing religious radicals.
You can find many other positive things about socialism and communism, but I still believe that no fixed model will be absolutely true and last forever.

@EcoNguyen
Yes i agree that super powers show off their strength on weaker nations but i have no where supported their act.
I also agree that communism or for that matter any form of governance is completely wrong. It has its own advantages. But if you ask me to choose between a democratic slow growth vis a vis a suppresive regime's high growth, i will definitely be more happy with a slower growth.
And i therefore would not support the Chinese model. People are going to be disatisfied where ever they are and in whatever governance model they live in, but they should atleast be allowed to express their views which is missing in China.
I therefore believe China should stop forcing itself too hard on these territories, its time they develop a little more foresight that you cannot force men for a very long time. There would definitely be a backlash which would not be worth justifying todays actions.

..
@ ihuman

China provides FREE 9-year education for all Tibetan children and makes the study of the Tibetan language a compulsary subject in all Tibetan schools

Prof HILLMAN of the Australian National University reported that it is in Dramsala that the Tibetan Govt in exile DO NOT teach the Tibetan language making the young Tibetans in India not knowing their language

Under pressure, it is only very recent that they start to teach the Tibetan language in DARAMSALA

"ihuman wrote: Oct 6th 2010 7:38 GMT @ iewgnem

Yes my grandparents were forbidden to teach my parents TIbetan language, but educated people escaped Tibet, and started setting up schools outside Tibet.
Also in Lhasa streets, Tibetan language is either rarely or not at all used. Only chinese language is taught in schools. But since there are elderly who do not know Chinese, then maybe Tibetan language is used. To homeschool a kid and teach children Tibetan language, means time in prison and I am serious about this. But people still secretively try teach their children Tibetan language.
Just so you know, my cousin brother, escaped to Nepal ten years back. When we first met, he spoke more Chinese and less Tibetan. But with his dedication to learn TIbetan, he did so in the Tibetan schools in India.
So please let the person whose parents and grandparents, who have actually lived in Tibet, do the talking. THank you"

Sorry to tell you this,ihuman. I travelled through Tibet for couple weeks back in 2007. I personally saw the Tibetan language T.V. channel in local stores and Tibetan folks had no problem watching it. In fact, I think the T.V. channel is boardcast from Lhasa 24 hrs. a day.
I actually watched an arguement on the street between two Tibetan men in a traffic fight. The two tricycles bumped each other because one of them was going the opposite way. A police came around and started yelling at them in Tibetan. The police himself was an ethic Tibetan.
There are actually elementary and high schools that are teaching classes in Tibetan, althrough these schools are minorities. I believe the reason is that learning Mandarin will get you better jobs in the government and big companies, as knowing Tibetan only will land you labour / low pay jobs.
So I think you have been fed with only one side of the stories.