Bob Bifford

30% of the time, it works every time.

[Bob Bifford @BobBifford]

My point originally was to bring up how discussion of succession from the US is totally normal and allowed in America, to the point you can literally have a political party advocating for it. A concept that seems to shock and scandalize poor ol’ Warwick. That’s it.

As to actually allowing a state like Hawaii to gain independence, yeah, because of the civil war that would be almost impossible outside of an amendment to the constitution. Thankfully that hasn’t come up because we can comfortably say there is no desire amongst the population for such a thing because we fully allow the movements I’ve mentioned and they get very little support (obviously one can argue that colonization has brought in many outsiders that drown out the native voices, yadda yadda, but what can you do at this point).

That isn’t the case for US Territory though. The constitution gives control of all territory to congress. All it takes is congressional action, approved by the president, to allow for independence of any US territory. This most famously being done when we released the Philippines, but stuff like the Panama Canal Zone and some pacific islands has also happened. If Puerto Rico had a strong vote in support of independence, no matter what people here say, I honestly think congress would fully vote to allow it. Hell, I think a lot of the current MAGA folk in congress would vote for it right now even though they want to stay!

[Bob Bifford @BobBifford]

@CdeKristov @baoshaoshan @gonglei89 The same way Tibet became apart of China, unfortunatly.

[Bob Bifford @BobBifford]

Whew, lots of responses from China since I last looked!  Elon turning on auto-translate may be the thing that starts WW3.  I’ll go ahead and respond to you since you gave a very nice response and have things I want to respond to, but I guess this will go for all the other Chinese posters in this thread who have responded.  Also, it’s Saturday night and I’m drunk.  Bad luck for all of you as a wall of text is incoming!

First, I just want to say that everything I talk about is with all due respect to all of you.  I’ve lived in China in the past (pre-covid), and know this is a sensitive issue that brings forth lots of emotions.  I’m honestly not trying to stir things up, but just give my dumb outsider perspective, which you are free to view as totally ignorant. But consider this long ramble a response to all the various posts here.

You mentioned that Tibet has been part of China for 800 years…… but that really feels like stretching the definition.  The Mongols conquered it, but then it effectively gained independence for several hundred years after the Yuen dynasty died.  The leaders may have given tribute, but there was no real control.  Did the average Tibetan consider themselves Chinese, or a part of China during all this time?  “Identity” is the important word here when considering how people will respond to an offer of independence.  And I’ll say that even if Tibet was technically part of China for “800” years, much of it was effectively on its own, and there was no strong bond amongst the people.   Did the average person there, during this time, ever think of the emperor at all?  It really wasn’t an unbroken continuous thing.  China regained control in the 17th century, but again, the actual ground level control was uneven.  Eventually China invaded again, under Mao, and now thought to impose the modern concept of a unified nation state with China, which is something else that never existed in the past.

Which is all to say that up until the 20th century, from all I read, I believe most Tibetans would have been perfectly happy to declare their own independent country, as most still had a very strong internal sense of Tibetan identity, regardless of the movements within to overthrow slavery and the monarchy or support it.  Since that time, things have obviously become much more complex and changed.  China has poured a lot of money into the province to improve lives, though also pushed more patriotic education to support unification.  

The funny thing is with this whole discussion, based on personal experience, I think that if even given a free vote, the modern Tibetans would *probably* vote to stay.  They’ve certainly gained a lot and I think a majority would see the sense in staying.  Many are proud to be apart of China.  I really don’t disagree with the post that started all this.  But the key is, as I said, they’ve also maintained a strong sense of personal identity and independence up until recently.  Based on my travels of the world, I’ve also seen how people will fight to the death for an ethno-state, no matter the economic consequences, so I wouldn’t for sure say that they’d take the “sensible” economic choice.  At the end of the day, you really CAN’T know what a group of people will decide to do until they’re given a full free vote on what to do next.  Afterall, I’m an American, and when given a chance to vote, we often vote for the worst thing for us all.  😂

[Bob Bifford @BobBifford]

For what it’s worth, I do have a slightly higher understanding of this than the average dumb American. I’ve lived and worked across Asia for over a decade in many countries, including Chengdu for awhile (where I became intimate with Tibetans on a personal level and learned about them). It’s the internet so you have no reason to believe that, but what can you do. I never actually presumed anything on them, just that I could see the possibility of them (if actually given a choice) choosing independence despite the drawbacks. I could also very easily see them not. You seem all in on them being total gung ho china patriots….. which is not really my experience. That’s all anecdotal though, and the conversation seems to have run its course, so thank you for your time regardless.

[Bob Bifford @BobBifford]

I mean, yes? I pointed out the fact that Puerto Rico votes to stay in the US as supporting your original point. But that doesn’t mean other cultures or civs that exist under other governments would feel the same if given a vote, even if it meant loss of access to a greater economy. Nationalism does that, situations are different. Or are you referring to something else?

My point here was just that Warwick thought it was provocative to bring up American Colonialism when we literally talk about this crap in America all the time. Hell, we talked about if Hawaii should regain its independence when I was in high school in the 90s as a topic. You can freely start a political party to advocate for it or run all the ads you want. It’s normal. But he seems to get triggered if you do the same discussion for Tibet and China.

[Bob Bifford @BobBifford]

This is a silly point to bring up in the case of America. We fully allow successionist movements to operate and form political parties. There are many such movements in Hawaii (and other states/territories), it’s just that the vast majority of people don’t support them. Puerto Rico has had multiple votes on if they want to leave or stay in the US (they keep voting to stay, which does give more strength to Lei’s point). This is not the case for anywhere in China.

[Bob Bifford @BobBifford]

@AndyBxxx Another US Color Revolution!