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Security The Internet

Cyber Attacks against Tibetan Communities 193

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the that's-right-all-the-tea dept.
UnderAttack writes "The SANS Internet Storm Center reports about an increasing number of sophisticated and targeted cyber attacks against Tibetan NGOs. These attacks appear to be related to attacks against other anti-chinese groups like Falun Gong. 'There is lots of media coverage on the protests in Tibet. Something that lies under the surface, and rarely gets a blip in the press, are the various targeted cyber attacks that have been taking place against these various communities recently. These attacks are not limited to various Tibetan NGOs and support groups. They have been reported dating back to 2002, and even somewhat before that, and have affected several other communities, including Falun Gong and the Uyghurs.'"
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Cyber Attacks against Tibetan Communities More

Cyber Attacks against Tibetan Communities

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  • govt-sponsored (Score:4, Insightful)

    by KiloByte ( 825081 ) on Saturday March 22, 2008 @05:30AM (#22827934)
    And since guys doing such things for fun are nearly entirely pro-Tibet, who is left as the only interested party?

    • Re:govt-sponsored (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mrbluze ( 1034940 ) on Saturday March 22, 2008 @05:42AM (#22827970) Journal

      And since guys doing such things for fun are nearly entirely pro-Tibet, who is left as the only interested party?

      Possibly you're right. But I wouldn't be surprised if something much worse than cyber-attacks is awaiting the freedom-seeking Tibetans.. err, 'Terrorists', after the Olympic Games are finished.

      The Chinese government is red-faced on this and it hasn't even begun to wreak its vengeance.

      • Re:govt-sponsored (Score:5, Informative)

        by KiloByte ( 825081 ) on Saturday March 22, 2008 @06:30AM (#22828124)

        Possibly you're right. But I wouldn't be surprised if something much worse than [...]
        You have a strange way of saying "I could bet my life that".

        In my dad's school, one of the kids started laughing when the grave news of Stalin's death were announced. The next day, his whole family went missing.
        The China is still in the phase of jailing folks over what their kid said...

      • Re:govt-sponsored (Score:5, Insightful)

        by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) * on Saturday March 22, 2008 @07:13AM (#22828244) Journal
        I don't know why the international community isn't using the Olympics to put pressure on China regarding Tibet.

        A threat of a boycott would do wonders for China's behavior. We dropped out of the 1980 Olympics in Moscow for the same reasons, and the Soviet Union fell in the next decade (not that they were directly related).

        But it seems most of the world's leaders are so busy sucking at the teat of China's huge market and cheap labor and doesn't want to scotch a sweet economic deal. Or I guess I should say the people the world's leaders work for are the ones who won't allow a boycott.

        I know I won't watch the Olympics this year. Not One Bit.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Anonymous Coward
          This came up recently in German media, and the response of both government and NOC officials was that if we were to boycott olympics on political reasons, calling for a boycott *now* would be double-measured. A spokesman said (and I'm forced to agree, though I don't quite like it) that if one were to call for a boycott on the grounds of China violating human rights, one should consider that there have been thousands of the usual executions and imprisonments since the games were awarded to China, and no one

          • Re:govt-sponsored (Score:4, Insightful)

            by h4rm0ny ( 722443 ) on Saturday March 22, 2008 @08:35AM (#22828524) Journal

            That's a terrible excuse from the German official. It's exactly saying "I didn't speak out about one thing someone did wrong, so I'm not going to speak out about something else." And if somehow people did say "why didn't you protest against native chinese human rights violations" (not that anyone who cares about this actually would object to at least doing something rather than nothing), it would at least be someone asking about native chinese rights violations which is more publicity than they normally get in the West.

            Even as ways of rationalising a lack of conscience for the sake of self-interest, it's got to be one of the worst I've ever heard.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Curtman ( 556920 )

              Even as ways of rationalising a lack of conscience for the sake of self-interest, it's got to be one of the worst I've ever heard.

              You might remember some events [wikipedia.org] in Germany's past that sound much worse than this one.

          • I do, however, hope that western athletes will use the Olympics as a forum discussing this, e.g. publicly asking why there are no teams representing Tibet and Taiwan.

            Idealistic, and unrealistic. Olympic athletes are interested in careers, sponsorship endorsements etc... and NOT politics.

            I remember when Canadian Olympians were invited by the Japanese government to go to schools in Japan. There was an incredible lack of enthusiasm. These athletes would rather be training than wasting their time on politics; much less a political stance that most countries, businesses, and people could really care less about. Money talks, and there is not a lot of money for supporting an

            • Idealistic, and unrealistic. Olympic athletes are interested in careers, sponsorship endorsements etc... and NOT politics.

              Since when where athletes too greedy to think for themselves? If athletes don't speak out, it will because of some threat over their career,

              • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

                by unlametheweak ( 1102159 )

                Since when where athletes too greedy to think for themselves? If athletes don't speak out, it will because of some threat over their career,

                I'm sure athletes can and do think for themselves. The point being that athletes (and lets face it people in general are more concerned about their own issues than some foreign policy stance). As for any threats to their career; yes, (I am being presumptuous here; meaning I cannot speak for ALL Olympians or their ideals and goals, but...) if an athlete thinks a company would be less likely to sponsor an athlete who speaks out on political issues, then that athlete would be less likely to cause controversy.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Gerzel ( 240421 )
            "Really a difficult situation. Boycotts, just like strikes, are always unjust as they mostly hit the wrong guys. I do, however, hope that western athletes will use the olympics as a forum discussing this, e.g. publicly asking why there are no teams representing Tibet and Taiwan."

            The response of any Chinese official, and possibly many Chinese people in general, would simply be that there is a team that represents them, the Chinese team.

          • if one were to call for a boycott on the grounds of China violating human rights, one should consider that there have been thousands of the usual executions and imprisonments since the games were awarded to China, and no one called for a boycott then. So, doing it now would put the human rights of the Tibetans above those of native Chinese...

            No, deciding that KILLING PEOPLE is not worth boycotting because nobody did this before is a very sorry and lame political excuse made by Politicians, Public Relations officials, Human Resource Management types, Sales people, and all the other ASSHOLES who think making a good argument is more important than admitting that KILLING PEOPLE is wrong.

            Yes, you are interesting, but IMHO the moderators were too naive in up-modding you. I think you may be legitimate; but I think there may very well be a Chinese inf

        • Re:govt-sponsored (Score:4, Insightful)

          by smoker2 ( 750216 ) on Saturday March 22, 2008 @09:26AM (#22828770) Homepage Journal
          Utter crap. Your claim that somehow the USAs decision not to go to the Moscow Olympics caused the fall of the USSR is rubbish, and even your weak disclaimer negates your statement. Even more amusing is the reason for that boycott - the USSR had invaded Afghanistan. Who is embroiled in Afghanistan now (and Iraq) ? And even your reasons are the same as theirs - to quash rebel forces opposed to your domination of the area. The USSR boycotted the 1984 LA Olympics, for political reasons, did that have any effect on world peace ? Even the 1976 boycott by the African Nations did nothing to directly influence the South African apartheid regime.
          The Olympics should not be about politics, and refusing to play nicely is what causes and prolongs arguments. By dealing with the Chinese, we get to understand them, and more importantly, they get to be exposed to, and start to understand and relate to us. These things take time, but by working together, I'm sure we'll find that as the Chinese govt. evolves (as it must due to death of current officials and leaders) the next generation will not be so hostile to the west, and even embrace more of our values. Once they are working on the same set of values then our arguments will make more sense to them.
          Just telling them to fuck off and not engaging will just reinforce the separation of our cultures. And seeing as how the Chinese pretty much own your asses, financially speaking, you shouldn't be picking a fight you haven't got the capability to win.

          • By dealing with the Chinese, we get to understand them, and more importantly, they get to be exposed to, and start to understand and relate to us. These things take time, but by working together, I'm sure we'll find that as the Chinese govt. evolves (as it must due to death of current officials and leaders) the next generation will not be so hostile to the west, and even embrace more of our values. Once they are working on the same set of values then our arguments will make more sense to them.
            Just telling them to fuck off and not engaging will just reinforce the separation of our cultures. And seeing as how the Chinese pretty much own your asses, financially speaking, you shouldn't be picking a fight you haven't got the capability to win.

            Noble, and to an extent, you have a point. But the OLYMPICS is hardly a cultural ideal that can facilitate any reasonable type of cultural or political change. If that were the case the Chinese government would not have LOBBIED!! for the Olympics.

            The asshats in power in China are quite aware of world opinion against them, and quite frankly they don't care. They know they have enough economic influence for countries like the US, etc. to only make symbolic gestures. Yes the business oriented asshats in the W

          • Here's the thing though: the Chinese place far more emphasis on hosting a smooth Olympics than any other nation before them. A near worldwide boycott of the Olympics over their actions in Tibet and at home is one of the few levers the world has left. The impact is unclear, but it would cause massive loss of face - and that's the closest thing to pressure that the Chinese government will respond to.

            As for whether the rest of the world can win this fight - no, it can't. Does that mean that it shouldn't fight

          • The Olympics should not be about politics,

            No, it should be about money as God intended.

            Considering your signature is a link to a sporting good store (at which you are probably a stock boy), I can understand your concern about the Olympics, smoker2.

            Now, go get your shinebox, you little wanker. It's been a long time since the Olympics were about sport and not politics. The last "pure" Olympics probably took place in Ancient Greece. And as far as China "owning" the US, your country used to "own" the US, too

        • The US owes china a lot of money.

          Envy is the weakness of china.
          Greed is the weakness of the US.

        • Download it from PB, that will teach the IOC. No money for them!

          A better effort would be not not buy anything from there, but only taiwan. Common apple, make a Communist Free iPod in Red/white/blue.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Yaa 101 ( 664725 )
          Remember, the US is up to it's neck into debt against China.

          That is why you hear nothing from your leaders.
        • I know I won't watch the Olympics this year. Not One Bit.

          Now let Coke [olympic.org], Samsung [olympic.org] and Lenovo [olympic.org] know you're not going to buy their stuff while they support the Olympics and you'll start being effective.

          Lenovo may not give a damn, but Samsung and Coke aren't directly tied to China's teat. It's terrible PR to be tied to repression.

        • Fine, however the 2012 Olympics must also be boycotted for the British actions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Northern Ireland, Argentina etc. All Olympics in America should be boycotted until they free the natives from European occupation, as well as withdrawing from Alaska, Iraq and Hawaii.

        • I don't know why the international community isn't using the Olympics to put pressure on China regarding Tibet.

          Because the majority of people in power don't give one tenth of one fuck about a tibetan.

          We dropped out of the 1980 Olympics in Moscow for the same reasons, and the Soviet Union fell in the next decade (not that they were directly related).

          To suggest that our dropping out of the Olympics had anything to do with human rights is ignorant; to suggest that it had anything meaningful to do with the fall of the Soviet Union is either disingenuous or flatly stupid. It's a jingoistic footnote at best.

          I know I won't watch the Olympics this year. Not One Bit.

          The current "Olympic Games" are entirely financially motivated (by everyone but some of the athletes, anyway) and have about as much to do with the originals

      • Re:govt-sponsored (Score:5, Informative)

        by XchristX ( 839963 ) on Saturday March 22, 2008 @09:07AM (#22828684)

        The Chinese government is red-faced on this and it hasn't even begun to wreak its vengeance.
        It's already well under way. Chinese communist sympathizers have been engaging in a fair bit of historical revisionism and propaganda on the internet about these incidents. Check out the wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_unrest_in_Tibet [wikipedia.org]) , for instance, where CCP communist shills in the diaspora have been edit-warring in gangs to make the Tibetans look like the bad guys (compare that ridiculous piece of biased rubbish there with less unreliable sources(http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?id=19922&article='Beijing+orchestrating+Tibet+riots' [phayul.com]).

        It continues to amaze me that a free and proletarian medium like the internet can be abused by a sufficiently determined group like the Chinese CCP and their global network of apologists and propagandists to spread misinformation and whitewash their atrocities. It's sickening.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by 1u3hr ( 530656 )
          Check out the wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_unrest_in_Tibet) , for instance, where CCP communist shills in the diaspora have been edit-warring in gangs to make the Tibetans look like the bad guys

          And I was disgusted to see the article "Tibet", supposedly about the history and culture of the regon, mostly devoted to a long rationalisation of why it is and always has been a part of China (excpet for when it was influenced by Evil Western Colonialists).

          • And I was disgusted to see the article "Tibet", supposedly about the history and culture of the regon, mostly devoted to a long rationalisation of why it is and always has been a part of China (excpet for when it was influenced by Evil Western Colonialists).

            Believe it or not that damn page has a google page rank of 7. Although a glance at the history page seems to indicate that some of the communist tripe has been toned down over the months, WTF??!??! I think that the Tibetan diaspora should start their own wiki-site (wikis get higher placement on google searches than regular websites) and counter such bullshit.

        • Take a look for example at the "WW2" article. It's a freaking featured article, yet it's insanely pro-soviet. Instead of listing the Soviet Union as one of the two initial aggressors or even mentioning them as combattants on the Axis side, most of the article praises the deeds of Soviet soldiers.

          "Deeds of Soviet soldiers". Hell right. Same as what happened in Tallin recently when folks protested against having a statue of thugs who occupied them for >50 years worshipped in the middle of the capital.

          D
        • Wikis are controlled by the most OCD group. And Chinese nationalists (they are certainly not communists, just like China really isn't a communist country anymore) can be exceedingly OCD. Not to mention focused on propaganda distribution. I'm not surprised that the edit wars are being won by them.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Prune ( 557140 )
          Regarding your link: the story has been taken off the source page, at Canada Free Press, casting doubt upon its authenticity. And this is saying something, considering CFP is known as not a very credible source in the first place. It also had an article claiming that the Amero was a plot for the United States to repudiate its debts. But this article also claimed that the Euro came about because the Vatican minted a coin with the Pope facing the wrong way: http://canadafreepress.com/2006/cover121406.htm [canadafreepress.com]
          A

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tacocat ( 527354 )

        I wonder if anyone outside of China will have enough balls to stand up and say, "Hey China, you're all a bunch of ass-hats" with sufficient clarity and force that they (China) is put in a position where red-faced or not, they have to account for their actions.

        This is another fine example of a situation where the USA and UN will do absolutely nothing to affect improving human rights in a nation with complete disregard for human rights unless doing so has some advantage to those parties. We ignore Darfur be

        • I wonder if anyone outside of China will have enough balls to stand up and say, "Hey China, you're all a bunch of ass-hats" with sufficient clarity and force that they (China) is put in a position where red-faced or not, they have to account for their actions.

          As nice as that sounds, it is impossible. It is impossible to tell someone (a country) what you think of them and then get them to explain their actions. China will just say "this is an internal matter". We should call them uncivilized barbarians an
    • They needn't be government sponsored merely idividuals and organizations who are ignored by the government as long as they stay on the "right" side of the law. Believe or not, extreme nationalists are willing to do the dirty work for free. It doesn't matter what country your in, you'll find some extreme patriots willing to go above and beyond to silence thier radical counterparts. Some governments do more to stop them, others do less... when it suits them.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by clragon ( 923326 )

        Believe or not, extreme nationalists are willing to do the dirty work for free.
        Exactly, remember the cyberattacks on Estonia [wikipedia.org]?

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by asuffield ( 111848 )
      On the whole, I find it unlikely. When the Chinese government is involved in that sort of thing, they don't attack web servers, they bury people in unmarked holes. There is no evidence, no media coverage, no identifiable body or even any indication that there is a body. The people who offended them just don't show up for work one morning, and nobody sees them again. It doesn't even matter what country they live in - the arm of the Chinese government is very long, and law enforcement tends to turn a blind ey
      • It is possible that the Communist Parties of India (marxist as well as maoist) are involved in these cyber-attacks. They're pretty much the worst variety of radical Communist thugs in South Asia right now, and they have been known to engage in pogroms against Tibetan monks/exiles in India at the behest of their Chinese paymasters.They have rigid editorial control over the Indian media, and routinely spew forth venom and propaganda that glorifies the Chinese CCP and demonizes Tibetans. They even tried to bla

  • falung gong is chines (Score:3, Insightful)

    by xkillkillx ( 987532 ) on Saturday March 22, 2008 @05:47AM (#22827982)
    Slightly off-topic : i doubt those crazy Falun-Gong followers qualify as an "anti-Chinese group". They're just a sect/spiritual_practice/younameit which has no such goal as "being anti-Chinese". The Chinese goverment does qualify as "anti falun gong" though.
  • Correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks as if you have to click a powerpoint attachment for this to work. So the attacker is posing as the clueless secretary or retarded bureaucrat of the organization?--Because those are the chronic ignoramuses who sends me that kind of .doc, .ppt, .xls crap. Maybe its about time one of our TLAs spread the word to democracy loving NGOs in oppressive regimes: don't click on any microsoft attachments, ever, period. If its that important, bounce the message and tell them to conv
  • If you feel that you are vulnerable to this sort of thing - the solution is simple: text only email/attachments.

    Text contains all the information that you want. It is sometimes nicer to make things look prettier, but give me sunstance over style all the time.

  • Rage Against the Chinese? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SlashWombat ( 1227578 ) on Saturday March 22, 2008 @06:34AM (#22828134)
    Several replies and no-one has really been on topic. Doesn't anybody care about the plight of the Tibetans?

    I know Americans are all "gung ho" when it comes to invading countries that are important to it AKA Iraq, Vietnam ... but surely this has not diminished your sense of pity for others. (Or, perhaps it does, seems that it might explain many mysterious things.)

    China forced its way into Tibet quit some time ago, and now seem to be systematically destroying the Tibetan culture. Yet the Chinese shit in the face of anything that might detract from their own cultural identity.

    Aren't you guys ashamed? Or have all your high falutin morals gone down the drain!

    • Re:Rage Against the Chinese? (Score:4, Informative)

      by mgabrys_sf ( 951552 ) on Saturday March 22, 2008 @07:08AM (#22828222) Journal
      Probably because the plight is still under wraps. The information we've gotten to date has really been pretty sparse and it seems to be harder to openly support actions that even the Dali Lama has been outspoken against. I sympathize with the fact that the people reacting today are young and have been detached from the Lama for several DECADES and are living in the thick of it and are not expatriates in another area, but I'm not one to say - "yea - go for it - stick it to the man" - because fuck-all good it did in 1989.

      It can be best summed up in the famous tank photo. That photo of a man standing in front of the tanks heading to Tiananmen Square has been oft-touted as a photo that "changed the world". But that's always been bullshit. It didn't change a damn thing and was a harbinger of what was about to happen which was total suppression and annihilation. When the tanks moved against their own people in Russia - THAT was a game-changer. In China - it's business as usual and whether you position yourself in front of tanks or type in blogs and forums - it's not going to change anything. Sorry - but it's not.

      Now, it's fun to embarrass them on the world stage, and watch them lose face. Probably why I'm going to watch the protesters in San Francisco when that stupid torch comes through with more than a little glee. It's also fun to bait them online for being such idiots because they have been utterly removed from any and all historical data on their govt on the various forums they have been spamming recently. But I don't think for a minute that it's going to change dick.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Loucks ( 951130 )
      I don't care about the "plight of the Tibetans." The Chinese are terrible rulers who slaughtered quite a few people. The Tibetan elite who preceeded them were also terrible rulers who slaughtered quite a few people. "Free Tibet" is a popular slogan among the college student and young democrat/progressive crowd, but the country wasn't really free before the Chinese occupation.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • How is this any worse than America shipping over people to Hawaii to wipe out their local language culture?

      • Re:Rage Against the Chinese? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by h4rm0ny ( 722443 ) on Saturday March 22, 2008 @08:44AM (#22828562) Journal

        I don't know enough about Tibetan history to say if you're right or wrong about past rulers of Tibet. But if you care about the Tibetan people today, you should be against the forces that threaten them today. It is useful to have the historical perspective in order to prevent a return to another bad system, but it doesn't alter the need to change the current one.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Tomji ( 142759 )
      China forced its way into Tibet quit some time ago... yeah 700 years ago. If only they were as effective as the english or other europeans in destroying culture and people.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Dachannien ( 617929 )
      I think we're just trying to avoid falling victim to one of the classic blunders, namely, getting involved in a land war in Asia.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by smoker2 ( 750216 )
      Or indeed the plight of the Native Americans, and the Inuit, and the Mexicans, and the Cubans, and the Africans and the Koreans, and everybody else who the US have steamrollered in their quest for world domination. Pity is a naive emotion when dealing with world affairs. What can you do about the situation NOW ? Being sorry for someone doesn't help them one bit. It's better to do what you can, when you can, than to waste time moralising over something you can't influence when the people concerned most need

  • Mainstream coverage of the attacks (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Bullard ( 62082 ) on Saturday March 22, 2008 @07:01AM (#22828206) Homepage
    The Washington Post [phayul.com] (article reprinted) has a more mainstream-orinted story on these attacks.


    It should be emphasized that the exiled Tibetan groups based in India are extremely vulnerable to China's attacks and snooping since they often operate on aging hardware running obsolete and unpatched Windows software, partly out of necessity since some Tibetan-language word-processing tools that they're familiar with only run on obsolete MS platforms and partly because they're only now beginning to realize that Linux can also be made to work for them both on the servers and desktops. In fact the government in neighboring Bhutan has already created a comprehensive Dzongkha (a Tibetan-like language using the same script) version of Linux.

    Equally huge problem is that most Tibetans in exile will naturally try to communicate with their family and friends back in the Chinese-occupied Tibet, but they don't realize that their unencrypted emails, "yahoo chats" and mobile text messages are all being monitored and logged by the Chinese authorities. Even if they don't exchange any sensitive information, simply receiving messages from outside China's control makes any Tibetan a suspect. Actually just being a Tibetan makes one a suspect under the eyes of the Chinese colonial masters...

    • Re:Mainstream coverage of the attacks (Score:5, Insightful)

      by asuffield ( 111848 ) <asuffield@suffields.me.uk> on Saturday March 22, 2008 @07:58AM (#22828400)
      I don't think the Chinese government thinks of Tibetans as automatic suspects, exactly. If there is anything that this whole affair reminds me of, it is the systematic extermination of the native Americans by the colonists. Han Chinese colonists move in and are supported by their government; natives can abandon their own culture and integrate into the Han nation (where they will be more or less accepted in time), or they can be shoved to one side and left to die out. Natives who oppose this get armies sent after them; those who don't oppose it get ignored. It's all stuff that we've seen before in history classes.

      The Chinese government has been doing this to Tibet for a period of centuries now (with varying degrees of enthusiasm depending on what else was going on at the time), and their reaction to people who say that Tibet is an independent nation is very similar to the reactions of US colonists to people who said the same things about the natives there (it basically amounts to "We're taking it, so this land is ours, and all those squatters can just go die in a hole"). The colonists do of course blame the natives for clinging to their culture instead of adopting the new, obviously superior one that is taking over.

      • Re:Mainstream coverage of the attacks (Score:4, Informative)

        by Anonymous Bullard ( 62082 ) on Saturday March 22, 2008 @11:56AM (#22829638) Homepage
        Interesting that you should bring up the comparison to the European colonists and native Americans. A couple of years back the Tibetan rights activists got hold of a Chinese Communist Party (Department of Propaganda) manual for their frontline workers involved in arguing the CCP's side online and in the western media. This Guilt Trip argument that the Western colonial powers had done similar things in their history was top of the list. However for some reason they completely refrain mentioning the last dictatorships that engaged in such genocidal expansionism: Stalin (who Mao got his ideas from) and Hitler.


        Also, the "West" (i.e. the western countries that engaged in colonialism; most did not and many were victims of their neighbours in Europe, too) has long ago seen the criminality of the old ways and has since sought to undo past damages. The fact that some colonial powers wiped out indigenous cultures, just like China has been doing to its past near-neighbours for centuries and millenia (check sometimes where the Han-chinese actually originate from), but later saw the error of their own ways should in fact give them some authority to speak from experience. If my great-great-great-.....great-grandparents were sent overseas by their unelected masters to do what we now know to be crimes against humanity, should I not be able to condemn those acts??

        Do you think it is reasonable or even understandable for China to be committing such genocidal colonialism today (since the 1950 invasion), all the while keeping their own population in complete darkness over what really is happening and what the Tibetans really want in their own country?

        And therein lies another massive difference between the tribal native cultures of the "new continents" and the Tibetans. The Tibetans were not only China's historical neighbours, with wars and peace treaties of their own (including an eternal peace treaty with the Chinese after the Tibetans had invaded the capital of China in the first century B.C.), their own army, central government, currency, postal system etc. The Chinese claims over Tibet are all the more ridiculous when they start referring to the Yuan dynasty... Those were the Mongol descendants of Genghis Khan who had invaded China too, and who agreed to a priest-patron relationship (without de facto control over governance) as protectors of Tibet after converting from Islam to Buddhism!

        When the Mongol empire broke up, the remaining Chinese quarter continued the Buddhist relationship with Tibet (i.e. the "primitive" Tibet was trusted to provide spiritual services to the Chinese courts for centuries...), but nominally claimed Tibet as part of the known Chinese empire (just like they did with all their other neighbours), still without de facto rule over its affairs. And somehow that spiritual relationship was carried into the 20th century by the newly-crowned communist emperor "religion is poison" Mao whose first task after coronation was to send his communist army to invade (the CCP term is "peaceful liberation") Tibet for real.

        Who told you that "the Chinese government has been doing this (genocidal subjugation) to Tibet for a period of centuries now"??

        But nice going, the Guilt Trip argument again succeeded in deflecting some of the spotlight off the current and ongoing crimes by the Chinese regime against the Tibetan nation.

        Now go and watch a documentary [google.com] about the Tibetans living and dying under the Chinese occupation today, not in the 15th or 18th century when people still had no say in their own affairs anywhere. The events in that documentary, which includes footage and interviews from the last major uprising in Lhasa and its aftermath twenty years ago, resembles eerily the current crackdown being executed by the Chinese military and paramilitary since last week.

  • Falun Gong Is Chinese (Score:3, Informative)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Saturday March 22, 2008 @08:34AM (#22828520) Homepage Journal

    anti-chinese groups like Falun Gong.


    Falun Gong [wikipedia.org] is Chinese. That sentence should say "Chinese rebel groups like Falun Gong".

  • "anti-chinese groups like Falun Gong." (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 1u3hr ( 530656 ) on Saturday March 22, 2008 @08:52AM (#22828614)
    WTF with: "anti-chinese groups like Falun Gong"??

    Most Falun Gong ARE Chinese. The government does not like them, fearing an organised group, though religious, could turn political, but to identify this as "anti-Chinese" is really nonsensical. (Americans might like to compare with the "Why do you hate America?" jibes made to demonise political opponents.)

  • Mabe we need to boycott walmart or put big signs by the doors show what china does to Tibet for most of the items in the store.
  • Maybe we need to boycott walmart or put big signs by the doors show what china does to Tibet for most of the items in the store.
  • Please, editors, do your readers the courtesy of defining acronyms not in mainstream usage in your summaries. (Yes, even SANS failed to do so, but that's still no excuse.)
  • each chinese made product we buy goes into the coffers of the fascist administration that organizes such attacks. and no, im not american, im turkish, and i have no objection to cheap goods or outsourced labor. my only requirement is that what i pay shouldnt go to trash like these.

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