By William Tucker
Two Tibetan monks have set themselves on fire, a practice known as ‘self-immolation,’ to protest Chinese policies over the past two days. These two acts take the number of self-immolations by Tibetan monks to 15 over the last year. As is typically the case, larger protests break out shortly after these acts occur. In this most recent case, Beijing has agreed to allow the protests to take place – something China doesn’t like to do. While the protesting of an occupied people is expected there is much more going on here than a few angry monks. These self-immolations are a microcosm of a much larger Chinese problem.
For those that have followed In Homeland Security since I began writing, you may have noticed that I have a very different view of China. Many observers expect that China will be the worlds next superpower, while I take the opposite view. To explain this we can start with Chinese geography. Over half of modern China is not historically Chinese. The regions of Tibet, East Turkistan, and Inner Mongolia were all part of other nations, or independent in their own right. This changed once the Communist revolution took hold, and by 1950, Beijing was in control. China invaded these regions as a way to create a buffer from other regional powers followed by a voluntary isolation. This made China poor, but it was secure. What followed this land seizure was not just an expansion of political boundaries, but also the accumulation of non-ethnic Chinese populations.
China is comprised primarily of Han Chinese. As a way to dilute the concentration of the non-Chinese population, Beijing began moving ethnic Han into these captured regions as a way of mitigating the minority populations as a political force. The results of this policy have been mixed to say the least. It is within this context that these self-immolations take place. Minority populations have seen what little political clout they once had severely eroded. Further compounding matters is the growing unemployment in China. China’s massive underclass can quickly become an existential threat to the ruling party in Beijing, and this growing unemployment followed by minority dissent is compounding matters far quicker than most realize. With many companies beginning to diversify away from China because of rising labor rates, the problem is likely to get worse in the near term. Unlike many western nations, Chinese economics is based upon maintaining employment at the expense of capital. The logic is simple, a working population is not a protesting population.
All of this isn’t to say that China is on the verge of collapse, but merely exposes the fake façade of Chinese power. While this doesn’t explain everything, it should help to clarify my position on China a bit.
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