Western bourgeois
commentators have shed crocodile tears over the plight of the Tibetan people.
But interestingly apart from a lot of talk they are doing very little. China is
too important a trading partner to upset the cart too much. Here we look at the
historical background to the situation in Tibet and how it relates to the
growing contradictions within Chinese society as a whole.
Tibet erupted in ethnic based rioting over the past few
days. Undoubtedly there is some outside interference, but this alone cannot
explain what is going on. At the root of the problem is the uneven spread of
wealth, which has been made worse by the introduction of market economics,
compounding the feeling of national oppression of the Tibetans.
The largest human migration in the world gets under way every Chinese New Year, as China's 120 million strong army of migrant workers make their annual trip home. This year heavy snows led to railways and roads being overburdened and transport bottlenecks wreaked sudden nationwide chaos.