I don’t know who is running the PR department for the Chinese government, but they really need to work on the message. Rather than pointing out all of the good things China has done for Tibet, the state-run media continues to attack the Dalai Lama publicly, which will win them no friends.

Today they took it to another level.

He always plays tricks under the cover of doing good for Tibetans. It is doubtable that the Dalai Lama would speak on the behalf of Tibetans as he is sponsored by the US and his relatives work for Central Intelligence Agency.

Yah, that makes sense. What with all those natural resources and sunny beaches in Tibet, I am sure the American government is allotting resources in that political arena with Central Intelligence Agency.

For all its lashing out at the Dalai Lama through their piss-poor public relations office, China does deserve some credit for the state of contemporary Tibet and that is the case they should be making to the world. They’ve actually done a lot of good things there and while overall the Chinese government is repressive to freedom in ALL of China, they have given the Tibetans a better life than they had before.

The Tibetans are FAR better off under Chinese rule than they were under the rule of the Dalai Lama and his ilk, where the population lived in a system of serfdom.

As Newsweek wrote two years ago:

They want self-determination; fair enough. But that seems to be the only story about Tibet that is ever told. The other story is that, for China’s many blunders in the mountainous region, it has erected a booming economy there. Looking at growth, standard of living, infrastructure, and GDP, one thing is clear: China has been good for Tibet.

Since 2001 the Chinese government has invested $45 billion in the region, building schools and infrastructure including a train directly to Beijing. Tibet has averaged double digit growth for the past nine years and seen the price of goods drop drastically.

Granted, the Tibetans had no say in the “deal” that was forced upon them by China. A deal that basically amounts to the government offering Tibetans the same  astronomical rise in living standards experienced in the rest of the country as long as they relinquish the right to free worship and free speech.

Damned if you don’t, less damned if you do.

The fact that rural Tibet’s average income has reached $525 a month and is expected to be on par with the rest of China by 2020 is pretty impressive. Would they have been better off left alone under monk-rule? Most likely, not.

“I was amazed at the amount of money actually being spent in these villages,” said Melvyn Goldstein, co-director of the Center for Research on Tibet at Case Western Reserve University. Through extensive rural fieldwork in the TAR, Goldstein found that “health-insurance plans are getting better, bank loans are now more accessible, schooling is free for primary school and middle school, and access to electricity and water is improving.”

Should the Dalai Lama be allowed to return to Tibet? Yes. Should he be allowed to rule? Of course not, he sucked at it before and the system was far more autocratic than the one currently in place.

When China started garnering more wealth, it treated Tibet to the same benefits it did the rest of the country; and in doing so it cleaned up the mess that the Dalai Lama-led government left behind.

Activists can worry about getting the Tibetans free speech and freedom of religious expression later. Right now, they are far better off than they were prior to China giving them money, jobs and longer lifespans.