Parag Khanna is a good writer and like most writers she tends to be more of a disciple of fancy and imagination than of realities and solid historical research. She has set up a tenuous and theoretical parallel between the US and China. In the UK Guardian, Khanna asks the innocent question whether the US can ever think of allowing Texas or California to break away from the mother nation. The answer is of course in the negative. Such a thing can hardly be imagined, leave alone implemented. Such, we are told is the lot of China with reference to especially Tibet. Tibet, Khanna would have us believe, is as much coveted by China as Texas is loved by the greater Americas. This is good syllogistic logic but pathetically bad practice of social scientific tenets and false retrojections into history. A cursory glance into Texan history will tell us that there were large number of Texans who wanted to be part of the United States of America and not joining either Mexico or being an Independent State. Tibetans, on the other hand, have always been eager to remain independent and neither be part of China or even be a prefecture of China even as the Dalai Lama feebly gives in to Tibetan demands. Khanna subtly avoids mentioning even in passing the great cultural and spiritual heritage that Tibet is heir to. This is done also by first comparing Tibet to Texas et al, then with the Muslim Uighur separatists ruled Xinjiang province in China. Texas is oil rich and thus attractive to the US. Xinjiang and Tibet are both rich in uranium, gold and timber. The Chinese simply want that. This is the truth but for an outsider to writer of Tibet without referring at all to any of its cultural glory shows that the writer’s sympathy lies with atheistic China. In fact the latter portion of the report reads like a veritable raison d’être about why Tibet should not gladly be part of China.

Khanna lets us know of the great improvements that Tibetan life will have if only Tibet accepts Chinese hegemony. Education for all, better communication, both physical and wireless, a stronger economy and the list goes on. The Dalai Lama would do well to read this article for the former is slowly conceding defeat in the face of Chinese tyranny. But the moot question for us reading Parag Khanna is how the work has been published by the Western media and the writer’s forthcoming book is on its way to Western academia. In the name of research and historiography, Khanna’s writings will further isolate the Tibetans and make them vassals of the Han Chinese. People will increasingly believe in the benevolent attitude of China and one day we will all shout for joy at China’s annexation of Tibet.

Source: UK Guardian

Image: Destination 360