The Maverick Tribe

Christopher Hitchens rightly recognizes the shameful role China plays in abetting the vilest regimes throughout the world, with Burma's being merely one of a long list.  Over to Hitch:

Is there an initiative to save the un-massacred remains of the people of Darfur? It will be met by a Chinese veto. Does anyone care about Robert Mugabe treating his desperate population as if it belonged to him personally? China is always ready to help him out. Are the North Koreans starved and isolated so that a demented playboy can posture with nuclear weapons? Beijing will give the demented playboy a guarantee. How long can Southeast Asia bear the shame and misery of the Burmese junta? As long as the embrace of China persists. The identity of Tibet is being obliterated by the deliberate importation of Chinese settlers. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a man who claims even to know and determine the sex lives of his serfs (by the way, the very essence of totalitarianism), is armed and financed by China.

And I agree that it's time to start talking about a boycott of the Beijing Olympics.

From Britain's The Daily Mail:

"The military regime won and a new generation has been violently repressed and violently denied democracy. The people in the street were young people, monks and civilians who were not participating during the 1988 revolt.

"Now the military has cracked down the revolt, and the result may very well be that the regime will enjoy another 20 years of silence, ruling by fear."

Is there anything that can be done to prevent this?

As tensions escalate in this forgotten country, I can't not take a minute to voice my support for the grassroots uprising against the military junta in Burma.  Props to President Bush for underlining his support for democracy in this little backwater nation in his speech to the UN.  Leavening democracy in Burma and exerting greater international pressure on their current brutal regime (as well as their low-key supporter, China) would have been a much more manageable project than our disastrous mission in Iraq.

Those of us who warned - before the invasion of Iraq - that it may not ready for democracy were called racists by some of the wars supporters.

Well, anyway.

We were right, Iraq was not ready for Jeffersonian democracy, but in Burma we find a country that is.

What can you do?  Sign an online petition here.

So it looks like the Chinese government feels it needs to put its stamp of approval on the next Dalai Lama.  The current Dalai Lama (who has been in exile from his home country since 1951) will eventually pass on, and, according to Tibetan Buddhist belief, will be reincarnated as another Tibetan child.  So Beijing, not satisfied with conquering Tibet, imposing authoritarian rule over it, destroying Tibetan cultural artifacts, displacing thousands of the agrarian people from their homeland, and remaking Llasa into yet another Han Chinese outpost, needs to have a hand in the identification of the next Dalai Lama.

I am simply flabbergasted at this kind of sinister heavy-handedness.  Remember, this is a Communist regime, with a notorious tradition of official atheism.  To put things into perspective, imagine reading the following headlines in your newspaper tomorrow:

"American churches required to adhere to new version of Bible written by Larry Flynt"

"Cast of Seinfeld chosen as delegates to Iraqi Constitutional convention"

"Jenna Bush to design new line of burqas for Afgan women"

"Madison Avenue firm in bid to improve, modernize Ganesh brand"

You get the picture.

You have to wonder why we're spilling blood and treasure by the truckload trying to bring freedom, democracy, and happiness to that hornet's nest we call the Middle East.  Couldn't we use our enormous international leverage and military might to bring autonomy and freedom to the heroically patient, peaceful people of Tibet?  Seems like a lower hanging fruit to me.  Just a thought.