Suresh S wrote:logically Your argument is correct You can not deny this . Ideally no body occupies Tibet and it should be left to tibetans but as we know that is not what it is . If there are only two choices either china occupy it or we occupy it , I say we occupy it. It will not be easy as u explained but I do not know what choice we have , if only we had a nice neighbour but we do not.
There is a third choice and understanding that despite all the bluster is useful. Tibet is still our neighbour and it is not easy for the Chinese to stay in Tibet, though they do put in a lot of effort. We should make it difficult and costly for them to mess with us.
Here is a summary of Chinese problems in Tibet:
1. Direct roads towards Tibet from eastern China go through mountains and are not open 365 days a year. Chengdu-Lhasa troad journey can take 10 days
2. Railway line skirts the mountains - goes up north to Xining, then runs east to Golmud and then south to Lhasa running on flat permafrost
3. Chinese bridges on permafrost require a lot of maintenance. Permafrost is soil+ice and is temperature dependent. In some areas the temperature in summer has to be maintained low by the use of pipes to inject ammonia. (as an aside I was wondering if someone dumped truckloads of salt near a Tibet pylon - that should melt the ice and destabilize the pylon
)
4. The train is oxygen enriched so that travellers do not get high altitude sickness as the travel on the train. But even so they will have to acclimatize in Lhasa
5. Mao himself ordered all Chinese troops to carry their own food because Tibet cannot grow extra food for a lot of people and the people would become even more hostile if their food was grabbed
6. Even today Tibet is reliant on food and fuel supplies from China and Tibets economy is still not self sufficient
7. Despite having 1300 million people in China - they have only managed to put 1-1.5 million Hans in Tibet because of altitude and food/economy issues
Tibet is no cake walk for China. We just need to make sure that they find it even more difficult. I still think bags of salt placed at the foot of train bridge pylons built on permafrost to salinize the soil will weaken them in the long term.