China decries Dalai Lama's demands for autonomy

Like it or not, the truth is when the Chinese took over Tibet the population was grovelling in abject poverty, and the standard of living improved immediately as did the life expectancy, and the population grew.  The feudal system was broken and Tibetans were finally allowed to hold land and set their own course rather than being chattel for the lamas.

Before China freed the citizens of Tibet they had been in the uncompromising grip of a brutal Theocracy under the Lamas for centuries.  The Lamas and the rich landowners held the power of life and death over the serf slaves who were tortured, brutalized, starved, killed, bought sold and given away to others at the will of the tyrants who wore the same robes as the much vaunted Dalai Lama.

Their short brutal lives were imposed upon them by a system that denied them even the basic needs of life.  They could not own land, they had no access to education, doctors or any of the other luxuries the elite lived with.  They were required as slaves, to labour till they died to keep God's representatives living in the lap of luxury which the lamas most certainly did, and the ultimate lama, the one who lived in the grandest splendor while his servants coughed their ignominious lives out in diseased filth was the Dalai Lama, who was also the political head of state and thus had total control over his feifdom.

These men used a religious hokum of a spirit being reincarnated into a little child again and again,(not really a Buddhist belief at all but a local invention of men who created a way to hold power over the people in perpetuity), to cement their complete and totally ruthless control over a helpless population and each maintained a substantial police force and army to impose their crushing will on the hapless citizens.  The Dalai Lama's armed forces were the largest and were used ruthlessly to impose his will even on errant lamas who were getting too big for their britches.  Those slaves who disagreed even in speech were tortured and maimed as were their families and ultimately killed if they resisted the lamas will.

When the Chinese finally took over Tibet it was considered the most poverty stricken backward nation on the planet by Europeans and all who had visited. The country had not the slightest vestiges of the modern world that was growing around it.

The modern phenomenon of a gentle all loving man, good to the core, is just a carefully created myth fostered by the Dalai Lama who wants to be the ultimate ruler over a whole country and its people again, his legitimacy based on some foolish religious myth, and he has a very capable and serious propaganda and political organization built up globally to help him do just that.

The Dalai Lama did not become what we see today until necessity drove him to appeal to the rest of the world.

Finally, if you look at a map you will see that Tibet was, before the Lamas obviously a part of ancient China and when you look honestly at modern China and its dire need for what Tibet has you will know for certain that the Chinese will never, ever, ever give Tibet back to that religious autocrat to do with as he pleases.

Trying to pressure China into giving up Tibet is like trying to pressure the USA into giving Texas back to Mexico. It is a total waste of time, money and personal energy, a modern tilting at windmills that will change nothing.  There are many considerably more pressing issues for humanity to devote its resources and attention to than whether the Dalai Lama get "his country" back from China, and we would be well served to get on with those life and death challenges post haste.