Hao Hao ReportThe best China news and blog posts

"The driving force behind Tibetophilia today is not political solidarity with the Tibetans and certainly not any positive argument for full democratic equality, but rather a sense of disgust with Western life. In Rawson’s words, “the West perceives some lack within itself” and seeks to find fulfilment in the ostensibly preserved “pure East.” Ironically, then, Free Tibet activism has a colonial bent to it: wealthy Westerners pursuing emotional occupation.

In this simple world, Tibet is always good and China is always bad. As Donald S. Lopez Jr. argues in Prisoners of Shangri-La: Tibetan Buddhism and the West, many Westerners talk of the Chinese in Tibet as “an undifferentiated mass of godless Communists overrunning a peaceful land devoted only to ethereal pursuits” and come to see Tibetans as “superhuman” and the Chinese as “subhuman.” That demonization fits well with the agenda of many Western governments and media outlets. Hence the adoration heaped on Ms. Fairbrother and her friends, who can congratulate themselves. They are not just idiots. They are useful idiots."

Possibly one of the smartest observations I've ever read on the Tibet situation.