“1. Reasonable people can differ about whether China today is totalitarian or merely authoritarian, but for myself I would submit that any state that still has an official ideology enforced by authoritarian means, notwithstanding how far gone it is today from hardcore Maoism, is totalitarian.”

Be it the western love (under of blessings of monothetic traditions) of distinguishing ideologies or whatever, it is better to know an ideology in China has been regarded and is always a PRETEXT for political struggles. i.e. the Chinese don’t really care that much about it. Sometimes debates go astray quite easily when criteria are different.

“2. The miniscule number of Tibetan-Americans is also beside the point.”

Tibetan or American, that is also a question, isn’t it? Does this really help with ur discussion here? By the way, in English “Chinese” weighs on the Han people while in Chinese, “Chinese” mean citizens of China. Teorritory issue is the question of relation to Beijing, which many in China will consider in a less ethnical manner. But, why should Americans care about this? If do then the communication becomes a bit easier.

“3. Human sacrifice has never been a part of Tibetan Buddhism. You probably confuse two things that, however grisly, have nothing to do with murder: disposal of the dead by feeding them to vultures (known as “sky burial’), and the carving of human bone into useful and ornamental objects. I can not reliably say how widespread, or not, these practices are today.”

What can I say about this? Call you a liar? Or just ignorant? Don’t tell me you never come across the “tribute vessels” (literally) from slave skulls or skinned kids. Surely somebody can argue it isn’t in the sutras or not the ones from their cults. That didn’t stop the lamas doing it in the old days. DL is an outstanding PR expert. Himself peaceful? Maybe. His religion peaceful? Hell no.

“4. Perhaps the Dalai Lama is not Mother Theresa, but if he’s a cynical operator on some level, he is certainly no more so than, say, the Pope.”

I don’t know M. Theresa. No comment on that.

“5. You miss my point entirely about Strom Thurmond’s apologetics for segregation (and, for that matter, those of Fox News for the occupation of Iraq), but political oppression aside, in the 1950s blacks probably did have a better standard of living in the South than in the North”

Same as above.

For your info, b/c of the Confucian traditions there isn’t a well defined line between religion and superstitution in the Han mind-set. That means, they believe money/development can persuade people out of the OLD WAYS and embrace modernity, just like the Han massage themselves out the imperial universe. The confidence in this attitude is just as strong as the Anglo-sphere’s bet on “democracy follows wealth”.

Independent feudal states are not my geopolitical fantasy. Even if there be some charm to them, they are not viable entities, for the same reason you are not going to revert to having a government/national defence (even in its true meaning) funded entirely from tariffs and duties.

Those of you who chant free Scotland and Wales … you understand that those politicians advocating independence are either rabidly pro-EU or are Trotskyites awaiting the mythical simultaneous World Revolution? All states without nuclear warheads and large centralised concentrations of capital need rely on some geopolitical leader or alliance for its security.

I will add also that there is no doubt that the CIA is provoking some disturbances in Uighurstan. I recall right after the “War on Terror” began, funding was made for teaching and studying Uighur language (alongside Pashtu). This was not for beatniks to fascinate themselves with its poor literary tradition and join the PeaceCorps!

Mr Ross: I do not want to say that Buddhist philosophy permits human sacrifice, but rather Tibetan Buddhism, as locally practised, is a mixture of pre-Buddhist barbaric traditions and more acceptable Buddhist philosophy (itself partly akin to Eastern Christianity). I am not attacking Buddhism but only stating that Chinese modernisation may overall be intellectually and spiritually beneficial just as European Christianisation and modernisations were to Africa.

Mr Meehan: you were lecturing David that Kai-shek was no neocon…no, he was just a con. You say pre-modern Catholic Europe can be compared to Old Tibet … no, Old Tibet was more barbaric and there is less excuse to have such a low life expectancy … you attack Taoist and David(-ist) bureaucratism … but the conservative traditions of Europe are also steeped in bureaucracy (France, Prussia, Russia…) since this arose from long-existing, highly evolved organic States.

But I guess they are supposed to be laughable and inferior because they ain’t Amuhrican. The Constitution of the USA, which an ancestor of mine signed, was not granted by God Almighty in unquestionable perfection, with no need for evolution.

At the very least, he does not see Lamaism as consistent with paleoconservatism. With Taoism–which has David’s support–having influenced Chan, I wonder what he would think of that particular school of Buddhism.

It does not appear that Chan went on to influence Lamaism in any way.

I suppose it’s too much to hope that David would know that Taoism was a major influence on Zen (Chan) Buddhism. Confucianism presupposes a large bureaucracy, but,….Oh wait, so does David!

Have you given comprehensive treatment to this elsewhere? I would like to find out more about this thesis.

“And the dismemberment of China, in Taiwan and Xinjiang as well as in Tibet (and then where?), is classic neocon stuff, complete with the creation of an Islamist state in Xinjiang as in, for example, Chechnya or Kosovo.”

If such dismemberment were to come about it should spring from an intrinsic, organic development and not be predicated on Wilsonian self-determination.

Up to 1959, most participants in “the traditional Tibetan culture” were serfs whose life expectancy was half what it is today. They don’t miss it. But they remain as traditionally Tibetan as ever. Within China. As they have been for thousands of years. You can’t get much more traditional than that.

The Confucian and, up to a point, Taoist heritage is far closer to paleoconservatism than Buddhism is.

And the dismemberment of China, in Taiwan and Xinjiang as well as in Tibet (and then where?), is classic neocon stuff, complete with the creation of an Islamist state in Xinjiang as in, for example, Chechnya or Kosovo.

Could a free Tibet prosper on its own? It certainly could thrive under its feudal culture but the left wouldn’t think so. Tibet being so reactionary would be anathema to the internationalist leftists who would immediately insist that Tibetans revel in the merits of modernity. Here would be yet another nation that would fall under “benevolent global hegemony”. This prospect should at least give conservatives pause.