European Tribune - Community, Politics & Progress.

Why Washington Plays 'Tibet Roulette' With China

by vladimir
Fri Apr 18th, 2008 at 04:57:57 PM EST

By F. William Engdahl

Washington has obviously decided on an ultra-high risk geopolitical game with Beijing's by fanning the flames of violence in Tibet just at this sensitive time in their relations and on the run-up to the Beijing Olympics. It's part of an escalating strategy of destabilization of China which has been initiated by the Bush Administration over the past months. It also includes the attempt to ignite an anti-China Saffron Revolution in the neighboring Myanmar region, bringing US-led NATO troops into Darfur where China's oil companies are developing potentially huge oil reserves. It includes counter moves across mineral-rich Africa. And it includes strenuous efforts to turn India into a major new US forward base on the Asian sub-continent to be deployed against China, though evidence to date suggests the Indian government is being very cautious not to upset Chinese relations.
The current Tibet operation apparently got the green light in October last year when George Bush agreed to meet the Dalai Lama for the first time publicly in Washington. The President of the United States is not unaware of the high stakes of such an insult to Beijing. Bush deepened the affront to America's largest trading partner, China, by agreeing to attend as the US Congress awarded the Dalai Lama the Congressional Gold Medal.

Full-article dump edited for copyright reasons by afew

With help of the CIA, the Dalai Lama fled to Dharamsala, India where he lives to the present. He continues to receive millions of dollars in backing today, not from the CIA but from a more innocuous-sounding CIA front organization, funded by the US Congress, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). The NED has been instrumental in every US-backed Color Revolution destabilization from Serbia to Georgia to Ukraine to Myanmar. Its funds go to back opposition media and global public relations campaigns to popularize their pet opposition candidates.
As in the other recent Color Revolutions, the US Government is fanning the flames of destabilization against China by funding opposition protest organizations inside and outside Tibet through its arm, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

Tibet is of strategic import to China not only for its geographical location astride the border with India, Washington's newest anti-China ally in Asia. Tibet is also a treasure of minerals and also oil. Tibet contains some of the world's largest uranium and borax deposits, one half of the world's lithium, the largest copper deposits in Asia, enormous iron deposits, and over 80,000 gold mines. Tibet's forests are the largest timber reserve at China's disposal; as of 1980, an estimated $54 billion worth of trees had been felled and taken by China. Tibet also contains some of the largest oil reserves in the region.
On the Tibet Autonomous Region's border along the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region is also a vast oil and mineral region in the Qaidam Basin, known as a 'treasure basin.' The Basin has 57 different types of mineral resources with proven reserves including petroleum, natural gas, coal, crude salt, potassium, magnesium, lead, zinc and gold. These mineral resources have a potential economic value of 15 trillion yuan or US$1.8 trillion. Proven reserves of potassium, lithium and crude salt in the basin are the biggest in China.

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Why Washington Plays 'Tibet Roulette' With China | 28 comments (28 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

Format needs editing (4.00 / 4)

Please

provide a link to the article
choose 3 key paragraphs and
put those in blockquotes.

As it stands, this is possible copyright violation...

"This is nothing compared to how Putin rigged Eurovision."

by poemless on Fri Apr 18th, 2008 at 06:04:13 PM EST

Re: Format needs editing (none / 0)

Quite right. Vladimir, we avoid full article quotes here for copyright reasons. You should summarize between excerpts, and give attribution and a link, please.

When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Sat Apr 19th, 2008 at 07:15:23 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Format needs editing (4.00 / 2)

[ET Moderation Technology™]

Vladimir, it's not good form to post an entire article, not to give proper attribution and a link, not to write at least a little commentary of your own.

It's also poor form not to come back to your diary, read the comments, and discuss.

Since you don't seem to be around, I have reduced the article to several excerpts. If you want to choose other excerpts, you can do so.

Please note you should also place an introductory section "above the fold" (upper editing window), and the rest in the second editing window.

When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Sun Apr 20th, 2008 at 06:05:51 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Format needs editing (none / 1)

point taken.

by vladimir on Tue Apr 22nd, 2008 at 10:58:08 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Format needs editing (4.00 / 2)

As it turns out crossposting is not a problem, leaving out the source and slightly editing the title is however:

Risky Geopolitical Game: Washington Plays `Tibet Roulette' with China

The CRG grants permission to cross-post original Global Research articles on community internet sites as long as the text & title are not modified. The source and the author's copyright must be displayed. For publication of Global Research articles in print or other forms including commercial internet sites, contact: crgeditor@yahoo.com

www.globalresearch.ca contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of "fair use" in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, economic and social issues. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than "fair use" you must request permission from the copyright owner.

by A swedish kind of death on Sun Apr 20th, 2008 at 10:29:01 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Format needs editing (none / 0)

Cool, and thanks for the research. It would have been better seeing this from vladimir, however. Now it's up to him if he posts the article properly.

At least a minimum amount of commentary from the poster is desirable too, even in a LQD (Lazy Quote Diary).

When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Sun Apr 20th, 2008 at 10:54:17 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Format needs editing (none / 1)

You are most welcome.

And true.

by A swedish kind of death on Sun Apr 20th, 2008 at 10:58:45 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Quite an impressive conspiracy theory (none / 1)

But while I find it plausible, even likely, that the U.S. government has had a hand in stirring up the recent unrest (when has it not?) in Tibet, it would not have been in cohoots with the so-called "Dalai Lama clique", as Engdahl implies (and as the Chinese propaganda machines keeps on hysterically insisting), but rather among the angry young generation of Tibetans who the Dalai Lama has repeatedly and publicly urged to "calm down", both before and after the violence in March.

Certainly, such frustrated, desperate and increasingly educated young people would be ripe for manipulation, especially when they say things like,

What has nonviolence achieved for the Tibetan cause, apart from some converts to Buddhism in the West?
Seeking Buddhahood is one thing, and freedom for a country is another. We are fighting for freedom in the world and not freedom from the world.
Our leaders quote Gandhi. But Gandhi saw British rule in India as an act of violence and said that resistance to it was a duty. I see the Chinese railway to Lhasa as a similar act of violence. What's wrong with blowing up a few bridges? How can such resistance be termed wrong and immoral?
"The Restless Children of the Dalai Lama"

It would have been better had Engdahl provided some specific evidence that the CIA and/or some other rightwing reactionary forces were behind the Tibet demonstrations and violence. His essay makes for an entertaining just-so story, but the reader wonders why his theory should be taken as anything more than nicely spun speculation that is ultimately based on paranoia about American efforts to stimy China's rise to world prominence.

Of course, if his sources for such hard evidence were the same as those who arranged to have his article published on the China Internet Information Center, it would be understandable that they would not want to divulge how they obtained such inside information.

(Incidentally, you may want to add "LQD:" to the front of this diary title -- it stands for "Lazy Quote Diary", just a friendly way to let readers know that the bulk of a diary, in this case all of it, is quoted from another work. It also helps if you put <blockquote>TEXT<blockquote> tags around the quoted text.)

A language is a dialect with an army and navy.

by marco (cowannar at gmail punkt com) on Fri Apr 18th, 2008 at 07:20:55 PM EST

Original article based on fabrications... (4.00 / 2)

Engdahl's original article claims that the CIA and the U.S. Defense Department are using "nonviolence" as a form of warfare against China, among other countries. But anyone who thinks that the CIA knows anything about nonviolence is either crazy or so mesmerized by his own conspiracy theories that he needs to get some fresh air and sunshine. Here's one example of the Engdahl article's fabrications: He names a single U.S. army officer who he says trained the Chinese students involved in the Tiananmen Square protest in 1989, later allegedly trained the Falun Gong in nonviolence at some unspecified time, and even later supposedly advised protesters in Tibet. The officer in question, who retired in 1991, is on record as saying that he never had contact with any of these people, and in any case there isn't a shred of evidence anywhere to substantiate such claims. Engdahl either made all this up, or channeled it from other purveyors of disinformation about nonviolent struggle like Michael Barker and Jonathan Mowat. The fact is that nonviolent resistance boils up from within societies where basic rights are suppressed; you can't manufacture or manipulate that rage from Washington. The U.S. government could never figure out how to contain the civil rights movement and the anti-Vietnam war movement, which were notable internal nonviolent struggles directed against U.S. policies and institutions. After failing to comprehend nonviolence in the 1960s and 1970s, it could hardly turn around and use nonviolent action to manipulate discontented Chinese students or Tibetans frightened about losing their cultural identity. This article is simply laughable.

by Tom Paine on Thu Apr 24th, 2008 at 05:25:20 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Why Washington Plays 'Tibet Roulette (none / 1)

I find it highly unlikely that the US Govt. and its corporate masters would do anything to seriously upset China over human rights. Talk about almost any other country in the world, even Tibet/China in the 60s, and I might be convinced to at least nod maybe, but I find this story of modern day political intrigue particularly difficult to believe.

I can swear there ain't no heaven but I pray there ain't no hell. _ Blood Sweat & Tears

by Gringo (stargazing camel at aoldotcom) on Fri Apr 18th, 2008 at 10:38:13 PM EST

Re: Why Washington Plays 'Tibet Roulette (4.00 / 3)

No, Iagree they wouldn't do it over human rights, but they're certainly happy to use human rights as an excuse.

The Cheney neo-clowns have certainly been wanting to start something with China for their own reasons for ages. One only has to remember that in the early months of 2001 Mary Cheney was talking about some form of "inevitable" conflict with China.

So this issue and the Olympics provides an opportunity.

As for the Dalai Lama, I'm not the least surprised by his dubious friendships. I think we accepted sometime ago that our political elites have far more in common with each other than they do with the likes of us, their supposed grass roots. In such circles alleged ideological differences melt away as they find more pressing communities of interest. At the very least the Dalai Lam will see the "enemy of my enemy as my friend".

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Sat Apr 19th, 2008 at 08:23:49 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Why Washington Plays 'Tibet Roulette (none / 0)

I agree with evrything you say Helen except for the conclusion. I just don't see the USG taking a chance with its largest trading/(corporate profit) partner.

I can swear there ain't no heaven but I pray there ain't no hell. _ Blood Sweat & Tears

by Gringo (stargazing camel at aoldotcom) on Sat Apr 19th, 2008 at 09:21:17 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Why Washington Plays 'Tibet Roulette (4.00 / 6)

Your question makes a presumption that the current USG has a calculating rationality about the best interests of America in its approach to the rest of the world.

This assumption diverges from observation quite markedly.

Tibet isn't the only instance where they are running the risk of annoying China for no obvious reason; their harrasment of Iran threatens a strategic resource partner for China who are beginning to invest heavily there.

I say obvious reason : These people are natural bullies and war-mongerers who like to create instability simply because they see profit in it. I'm not going all Naomi Klein when I say this but there have been numerous instances where their behaviour has had very negative outcomes for the USA, yet they continue. A repeated incompetence is indistiguishable from malice, so you may take your pick regarding motivation.

But Deep Throat was right : Follow the money.

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Sat Apr 19th, 2008 at 10:38:13 AM EST
[ Parent ]

And given the nature of the regime in (4.00 / 2)

Washington, we should not be surprised how it conducts foreign policy relative to the two most credible threats to the US hegemon: the EU and the PRC.

It is actually notable just how muted and behind the scenes US policy levers currently being deployed actually are. This, to me, indicates the utter weakness of the US' position and it's growing realization of it's weakening position.

"C'est un scandale !"

by redstar on Sat Apr 19th, 2008 at 12:02:44 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Why Washington Plays 'Tibet Roulette (none / 1)

The US hasn't militarily challenged any country with a strong military since WW2. That won't change now.

you are the media you consume.

by MillMan (millguy at gmail) on Sat Apr 19th, 2008 at 07:51:10 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Why Washington Plays 'Tibet Roulette (none / 1)

that should be "hasn't attacked." Threatened, sure.

you are the media you consume.

by MillMan (millguy at gmail) on Sat Apr 19th, 2008 at 07:55:06 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Why Washington Plays 'Tibet Roulette (none / 0)

Oh, I thought the reason we invaded Iraq was that they had immediately-threatening weapons of mass destruction that were about to be used on the USA. Doesn't that count as a strong military?

by asdf on Sun Apr 20th, 2008 at 01:00:16 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Why Washington Plays 'Tibet Roulette (4.00 / 3)

Your question makes a presumption that the current USG has a calculating rationality about the best interests of America...

Quite the contrary. Just as the invasion of Iraq may have been a ridulously short sighted act, it was not done with the best interests of "America" in mind, unless one considers enrichment of a few to be in "America's" best interests. I have watched the American Government and corporate elites do their thing for the past 25 years and rarely have I found it to be in America's best interest. They have been cultivating the Chinese for at least that long in part because they see profit in the relationship. Should there be profit in making the Chinese unhappy, I guess they might be guilty, but the current situation in Tibet is unlikely to affect China's stability. If one really wants to upset the Chinese, look no further than Taiwan.

I think we have the same idea about the nature of the political crowd in Washington, I just don't see them really trying to get under China's skin unless they somehow see doing so as a relatively risk free out for the current financial mess.

I can swear there ain't no heaven but I pray there ain't no hell. _ Blood Sweat & Tears

by Gringo (stargazing camel at aoldotcom) on Sat Apr 19th, 2008 at 08:27:41 PM EST
[ Parent ]

The Dalai Lama and the Pope both (none / 0)

must be in Washington's pocket:

Pope Says World Must Intervene If Nations Do Not Protect Human Rights

A language is a dialect with an army and navy.

by marco (cowannar at gmail punkt com) on Sat Apr 19th, 2008 at 07:05:09 PM EST

"Responsibility to Protect" doctrine (4.00 / 2)

FT.com / World - Pope tells UN to intervene over rights

He referred to the principle of the "Responsibility to Protect", a doctrine of global collective security still evolving since it was published in a Canadian-sponsored initiative in 2001 after the Rwanda genocide and war in former Yugoslavia.
The Pope said the principle had only recently been defined, but it was implicit in the origins of the UN. Referring to states' duties to their citizens, he said: "If states are unable to guarantee such protection, the international community must intervene with the juridical means provided in the United Nations Charter and in other international instruments."
There was also a responsibility to protect the weak. "I am thinking especially of those countries in Africa and other parts of the world which remain on the margins of authentic integral development and are therefore at risk of experiencing only the negative effects of globalisation," he said.
Referring to the dominant position of leading world powers, he said it was a paradox that the multilateral consensus continued to be in crisis because it was still subordinated to the decisions of a few.

A language is a dialect with an army and navy.

by marco (cowannar at gmail punkt com) on Sat Apr 19th, 2008 at 07:25:42 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Pope is right - a non-catholic (4.00 / 2)

I think the Pope is correct; and he was careful and wise not to state the form intervention should take.

I can swear there ain't no heaven but I pray there ain't no hell. _ Blood Sweat & Tears

by Gringo (stargazing camel at aoldotcom) on Sat Apr 19th, 2008 at 08:35:56 PM EST
[ Parent ]

behind global warming too (none / 1)

The recent Global Warming hysteria is in reality a geopolitical push by leading global elite circles to find a way to get the broader populations to willingly accept drastic cuts in their living standards, something that were it demanded without clear reason by politicians, would spark strikes and protest. The UN's latest IPCC report on Global Warming calls for diverting a huge 12% of global GDP to "prevent the harmful effects of climate change." The UN report, for example, estimated that its recommendations to reduce certain manmade emissions would cost about $2,750 per family per year in the price of energy.
Today there are two principal policy options of the Anglo-American power establishment to impose their further control over a world that is rapidly slipping out from under them. We might call them Plan A and Plan B for short.
The first, Plan A, was the option represented by Bush-Cheney and the big oil and military industrial complex behind them. Cheney and his close Houston friend, Matt Simmons, propagated the myth of Peak Oil to lull populations into accepting the inevitability of $100 a barrel or even higher oil prices. In the meantime, the relative strength of the Big Oil and the related US military establishment grew with higher oil prices.
[...]
The second broad faction of maintaining their control over the greater part of the world economy, Plan B, sees Global Warming and "soft power" as embodied in the organs of the United Nations and IMF and World Bank as the more suitable vehicle to convince people to willingly accept drastic reduction in living standards.
Barack Obama, the apparent choice of the same elites as a "breath of change" to allow them to regroup after the debacle of the Bush-Cheney years, would likely opt for the second faction of the global elite--the Global Warming option to lowering general living standards, `Plan B' of the Anglo-American establishment. In a recent campaign speech in Wallingford Pennsylvania, Mr. Obama replied to a question about Al Gore, the hero of Global Warming. As President, Obama said he would consider putting Al Gore in a Cabinet-level position--or higher. He stated, "I will make a commitment that Al Gore will be at the table and play a central part in us figuring out how we solve this problem. He's somebody I talk to on a regular basis. I'm already consulting with him in terms of these issues but climate change is real."
The two major global factions
Today there are two major factions within the Western political power establishment internationally. They cooperate and share broad elitist goals, but differ fundamentally on how to reach these goals. Foremost is their goal of sharply controlling global economic growth and population growth. The first faction is best described as the Rockefeller Faction. It has a global power base and is today best represented by the Bush family faction which got their start, as I document in my book, as hired hands for the powerful Rockefeller machine. The Rockefeller faction has for more than a century based its power and influence on control of oil and on use of the military to secure that control. It is personified in the man who is since 2001 de facto President in terms of decision-making--Dick Cheney. Cheney was former CEO of Halliburton Corp., which is both the world's largest oilfield services company (now based in Dubai for tax reasons), and the world's largest military base constructor.
The second faction might be called the Soft Power Faction. Their philosophy might be summed up that they think its "possible to kill more flies with honey than with vinegar." Their preferred path to global population control and lowering of the growth rates in China and elsewhere is through promoting the fraud of global warming and imminent climate catastrophe. Al Gore is linked to this faction. So is British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. They see globalist institutions, especially the United Nations, as the best vehicle to advance their agenda of global austerity.

Global Warming gets the Cold Freeze Global warming hoax exposed by record global cold

For those who recommended this loon: you presumably also know that gullible ain't in the dictionary, right?

by MarekNYC on Sun Apr 20th, 2008 at 12:48:09 PM EST

Re: behind global warming too (4.00 / 2)

He is also the nuttiest Peak Oil denier, claiming an abiotic origin of oil.

*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.

by DoDo on Sun Apr 20th, 2008 at 01:25:01 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: behind global warming too (4.00 / 3)

Something I judge as even more nutty (but perhaps some here would give credit to it...) is his claim that Greens are a creation of the fossil fuel industry to combat the nuclear competition.

*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.

by DoDo on Sun Apr 20th, 2008 at 01:27:20 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: behind global warming too (4.00 / 2)

Are you denying the creamy chocolate center theory of earth?

you are the media you consume.

by MillMan (millguy at gmail) on Mon Apr 21st, 2008 at 01:54:20 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: behind global warming too (4.00 / 3)

We have also previously discussed Engdahls claims about the Global Crop Diversity trust.

"Doomsday Seed Vault" in the Arctic

Why now Svalbard?
We can legitimately ask why Bill Gates and the Rockefeller Foundation along with the major genetic engineering agribusiness giants such as DuPont and Syngenta, along with CGIAR are building the Doomsday Seed Vault in the Arctic.
Who uses such a seed bank in the first place? Plant breeders and researchers are the major users of gene banks. Today's largest plant breeders are Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta and Dow Chemical, the global plant-patenting GMO giants. Since early in 2007 Monsanto holds world patent rights together with the United States Government for plant so-called `Terminator' or Genetic Use Restriction Technology (GURT). Terminator is an ominous technology by which a patented commercial seed commits `suicide' after one harvest. Control by private seed companies is total. Such control and power over the food chain has never before in the history of mankind existed.
This clever genetically engineered terminator trait forces farmers to return every year to Monsanto or other GMO seed suppliers to get new seeds for rice, soybeans, corn, wheat whatever major crops they need to feed their population. If broadly introduced around the world, it could within perhaps a decade or so make the world's majority of food producers new feudal serfs in bondage to three or four giant seed companies such as Monsanto or DuPont or Dow Chemical.

To which I noted:

A swedish kind of death:

Engdahl does not seem to have his facts straight.

(Follow the last link for some factchecking.)

by A swedish kind of death on Sun Apr 20th, 2008 at 02:01:15 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: behind global warming too (none / 1)

He's apparently writing a book to reveal the great GMO plot. Everything is always a conspiracy. Embarrassing for those who are really concerned about the need to move agriculture away from petro-productivism altogether, GM included.

When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Sun Apr 20th, 2008 at 03:12:07 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: behind global warming too (4.00 / 2)

Everything is always a conspiracy.

Sometimes I get the idea of another conspiracy: maybe such people are CIA agents trying to discredit legitimate conspiracy exposures by enhancing them with provably wrong or insane elements?... But then I'm reminded of everyday people's 'creativity' in such matters...

*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.

by DoDo on Sun Apr 20th, 2008 at 04:59:34 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Why Washington Plays 'Tibet Roulette' With China | 28 comments (28 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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