<In fact, Tibet pretty well disproves your case.>
How so? When non-cooperation isn't tried, how does that prove that non-cooperation won't work?
China has never suffered any punishment (serious, global sanctions and embargoes), over Tibet. If the whole world (or just the U.S., Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and the EU) placed an airtight embargo on all imports and exports from China, until China gave Tibet the freedom that, say, Spain allows the Catalans, what would happen?
As you point out, and I agree, the world is unlikely to do this, because they just don't care that much about Tibet. Trading and investing with a billion Han Chinese is much more important (not just for the French, but the U.S. and Israel as well). This simply proves that colonialism and suppression of minority rights is still tolerated, by most of the world.
But if the world decided not to cooperate, then nobody could get away with it, not even China. Israel and the U.S., and Europe and Japan, we know what the Chinese are doing in Tibet, and we keep trading and investing with them. This is tacit consent, tacit approval. We are voting with our dollars, voting to let the Chinese continue to destroy the nation of Tibet. |
