Memes

says the bot ass username

You'll be disappointed

You start your argument with a misuse of the term “imperialism.” Imperialism does not simply mean “a state intervening in a region.” In the modern political-economic sense developed by Hobson and Lenin, it refers to the outward expansion of advanced capitalist powers, driven by monopoly interests, finance capital, capital export, military coercion, and the subordination of peripheral economies for the extraction of superprofits. Calling the PLA’s entry into Tibet “Chinese imperialism” simply flattens a specific historical category into a generic moral label that explains nothing if value and holds little analytical meaning.

You also treat Tibet as if it were an external colony comparable to India under Britain or Algeria under France. That simply does not hold historically. Tibet was incorporated into the Yuan state in the 13th century and remained, through changing forms of rule and varying degrees of central control, within the historical framework of the Chinese state. You can dispute the details of that history, but treating the PLA’s entry as a straightforward case of foreign colonial annexation is not serious analysis.

You also erase Tibetan class divisions. You treat the old Tibetan ruling strata as “the Tibetan people” while ignoring serfs, slaves, poor peasants, lower clergy, and pro-unification Tibetan figures. The old order was not a democratic national community. It was a theocratic-feudal system dominated by aristocrats, officials, and upper-ranking monastery authorities. Serfs and slaves made up the overwhelming majority of the population, while land, political authority, and legal power were concentrated in the hands of a tiny ruling bloc.

This means “self-determination” cannot be discussed abstractly. Self-determination for whom? For the aristocrats and monastery estates that controlled land and labor? For the old theocratic administration? Or for the oppressed majority living under that system? If your concept of self-determination means preserving the political power of a serf-owning theocracy, then it is not the self-determination of the people. It is the self-determination of the old ruling class.

Nor is it accurate to pretend that Tibetans themselves had no role in calling for change. The 10th Panchen Erdeni telegraphed Mao Zedong and Zhu De in 1949 calling for troops to liberate Tibet and expel imperialist forces, and Reting Yeshe Tsultrim also urged the PLA to liberate Tibet as soon as possible the 10th Panchen Lama and Reting Yeshe Tsultrim urged PLA liberation of Tibet.

It is also worth noting that the central government did not immediately impose sweeping social reform after 1951. Reform was delayed, and in 1956 the central government decided that no reform would be carried out in Tibet for six years. However after the 1959 rebellion (which was materially led by the CIA through the training, arming, and insertion of Tibetan guerrillas drawn from anti-communist and former ruling-class networks) democratic reform was carried out. This reform responded to the demands of broad sections of the Tibetan masses who did not want to return to serfdom should these rebellions of the old ruling class succeed. Just a side note on the rebellion: imperialist powers have repeatedly cultivated separatist or reactionary forces inside socialist and postcolonial states in order to fragment them, weaken central sovereignty, and preserve geopolitical leverage (look at ETIM, the groups such as ISIS and BokoHaram in Africa funded through the CFA Franc etc.). Dismissing Tibetan support for reform altogether simply reproduces the viewpoint of the old elite and its foreign backers.

The “forced Sinicization” claim is also overstated. There has been no general outlawing of the Tibetan language, Tibetan religion, or Tibetan public cultural expression. Tibetan remains visible in public signage, official settings, education, media, and cultural life. Tibetan and Chinese are both used on public signs, in official documents, and across public institutions; Tibetan is also taught in schools as a major course of study. That does not mean there are no tensions or criticisms to make about state policy, but the claim that Tibetan culture is simply being erased is not supported by the basic observable reality.

The problem with this argument is that it assumes Chinese imperialism was necessary to defeudalize Tibet

You failed to consider my mind palace, fool! I can imagine things going better! The perfect IS the enemy of good, but only in hindsight!

We defeudalized you so now we get to forcibly assimilate you / erase your culture is wildly unacceptable by any measure.

You thought my mind palace only had one weapon? Fool! I can invent reality wholecloth!

it assumes Chinese imperialism was necessary to defeudalize Tibet

It assumes Chinese Maoists aided Tibetan communists in their overthrow of the brutal theocracy that governed the country to date.

Certainly possible this could have happened another way, in the same way you might argue the US could have revolted against England without the help of France.

But the idea that Chinese integration with Tibet constitutes "imperialism" presumes China's economy is parasitic - leeching resources, robbing land, and press ganging laborers for the benefit of Beijing. None of that is in evidence. Just the contrary. China and Tibet have been engaged in reciprocal mutual aid, to the benefit of both regions.

Most importantly, it doesn’t justify forced sinicization

Capital improvements being reframed as "forced sinicization" is just American agitprop. The Chinese government is extending education as an amenity to a province that lacked it. The Tibetans are learning Mandarin because it benefits them to speak fluently with their wealthy neighbors.

For the same reason Indonesians learn English and Italians learn German, Tibetans are learning Mandarin.

Are you using the formal or informal definition of imperialism here? Because I don't see how it meets the formal definition based on my understanding of the underlying economic mechanisms. For example, if they were engaging in imperialism why would Tibetan's own their own homes instead of the land being taken over and the average peasant being proletarianized/forced into urban centers or large scale production agriculture to work?

Why would them taking over Tibet be expansionist? Tibet has been part of China for hundreds of years, only breaking off briefly during instability caused by foreign imperialist powers.

By this logic, the US, Australia and a lot of other countries should not exist. The real world is around you.