== Note to China: Please Implode = By Mark Morford

[madokie]

Could the Olympics rain down shame on Chinese oppression and Tibet abuses? Let's hope

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/03/21/notes032108.DTL&nl=fix

I hope it all comes crashing down on their heads.

Is that wrong? Is it ill-minded and somehow unfair to wish that the Chinese government's notorious record of human rights abuses and absolutely horrid treatment of Tibet be exposed to the world — and the Chinese people themselves — to the point where it is shamed and humiliated and perhaps even forced by unprecedented international scrutiny to upheave its oppressive ways and improve conditions and even (heaven forfend) honor religious and political freedom within its borders? No, I do not think it is.

Let me admit outright: I am no expert on Chinese-Tibetan relations. I do not know the full histories, the deeper conflicts, the enormous prejudices, the religious oppression that goes back decades and generations.

But I do know something of Tibet, of the Dalai Lama, of his unadorned messages of peace and love. And I know something of Tibetan Buddhism, of China's abduction of the true Panchen Lama, of the brutal oppression and the massacres and the cultural genocide, the forced relocation of Han Chinese into Tibetan holy land, of the Tibetan's peaceful rallies and chanting and nonviolence, all contrasted with images of jackbooted Chinese riot police stomping on the heads of protesters marching in the street. ...

[El Pinko]

1. Hmm, no mention of the fact that the US is bankrolling China's economic growth...

...and by doing so giving tacit consent to their human rights practices in exchange for sweatshop slave-labor-produced cheap plastic crap?

How anyone can write a column this critical of China's human rights record without even mentioning the US's complicity is beyond me...

[DavidDvorkin]

2. Note to Morford: Stop misusing the word "implode"

Too bad he didn't read this.

[Warpy]

3. I think "implode" is correct

when speaking of the government and its economic practices. The best scenario would be to have it all crumple in on itself without damaging anything adjacent to it.

That's not going to happen, of course.

What is more likely is another revolution followed by the nationalization of all the industries they looted from us so that the wealth created there can be more equitably distributed.

Even an implosion, a revolution that doesn't get exported, would hurt us a very great deal. Revolutions export themselves, so implosion, while desirable, is an unrealistic expectation.

However, the use of the word is correct.

[DavidDvorkin]

4. Nope

Empires fall apart. They don't collapse inward.

China is composed of many ethnic areas, and the most likely scenario -- which isn't very likely at this stage and won't be for many decades to come -- is that some of them would break away from the central control. That's not an implosion.

[mdmc]

5. R

peace and low stress