China and Tibet conflict
In 1950 Radio Beijing announced “The task of the People’s Liberation Army is to liberate Tibet.” Soon after 40,000 Chinese troops invaded Tibet. After seizing Tibet, and setting up a government, China stated “We will not alter the existing political system in Tibet.”. Tibet’s uprising began in As Lhasa in 1959. The Chinese responded with widespread brutality. With the threat to abduct the Dalai Lama, 300,000 Tibetans surrounded Potala Palace to offer protection. After a week Tibet’s Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, fled to India.
In the 1960’s Tibet’s agrarian economy was beginning to transform into a communist society, which led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of peasants and nomads. Tibet’s Buddhist religion was soon curtailed, and thousands of monasteries were burned. Nuns and monks were seen as terrorists and were beaten, tortured, and jailed. Monasteries that were not destroyed were closely surveillance by police, and any references or images of the Dalai Lama were banned.
For every one Tibetan, there are two Chinese. Tibet’s language of business is now chinese, giving Tibetan’s a disadvantage, and leaving them to work in agriculture. Since China’s occupation in 1950, over 1,000,000 Tibetans were killed, which is almost more than the amount of people killed in the Rwandan genocide, and the atomic bombs dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.
Controlling Tibet allows China to have access over Tibet’s water supply. This supply holds the world’s third largest store of water-ice, and is the source of many asian rivers. This means China has control over 47% of the world’s water supply.