Millions of people around the world are demonstrating for the Tibetan cause, while millions of others have hit the streets to champion China and the Olympic Games. While on tour, the Olympic Torch has faced protesters, been escorted by police phalanxes, been extinguished five times while in Paris and inspired the international tours of alternate torches (i.e. the Human Rights Torch Relay and the Tibetan Freedom Torch Relay). The Tibet-China issue has been thrust to the forefront of contemporary politics.

The main conflict zone between the Tibetans and the Chinese Government lies in public opinion. Official sources from Beijing will tell you that Tibet’s Exile Government is telling lies in an effort to rally Western support, win independence for Tibet and reinstate a system of feudalism. However, official sources from Dharamsala deny these claims and state that Beijing is responsible for the information war, the Dalai Lama is asking for nothing more than meaningful autonomy and there is no desire to reinstate feudalism. Whom should you trust?

Recently, The Daily published an op-ed [“The truth about Tibet,” May 30] that gives a short acknowledgment to “China’s track record on human rights” and seems, overall, to be very well-intentioned.

The article contains three statements that I adamantly support. I agree that Westerners, for a variety of reasons, tend to romanticize the Tibetan people and their struggle. I agree that “with the appropriate reforms, there is no reason that Chinese and Tibetans cannot coexist peacefully in a unified China.” And, I agree that the Chinese people deserve the opportunity to celebrate the positive aspects of their nation’s progress as it hosts the Olympic Games this August.

In addition to these three reasonable and agreeable statements, the op-ed presents several “larger truths,” which I have condensed into the following six points. My responses follow In parentheses.

(1) Tibet has been a part of China since the thirteenth century (for a concise, comprehensive description of Tibet’s historical status see Eliot Sperling’s “Don’t know Much About Tibetan History” at nytimes.com).

(2) The institution of the Dalai Lama as Tibet’s political and spiritual leader was not legitimized until the Chinese emperor of 1751 made it so (in the 1640’s, with the help of the Mongol prince, Gushi Khan, the 5th Dalai Lama united the eastern and western provinces of Tibet and spiritually unified it under the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism).

(3) The Tibetan language is the closest relative to the Chinese language from the Sino-Tibetan language family (classical Tibetan is classified under the Tibeto-Burman family; derived from Sanskrit; it is not tonal, though there are tonal dialects).

(4) China abolished Tibet’s oppressive socio-political system of feudalism and slavery and has brought widespread “economic prosperity and social welfare” (the positives and negatives of both systems need to be considered and weighed; Tibet would have modernized on its own due to globalization).

(5) Tibetans actually have it better than Han Chinese, because the Communist system offers them economic and social favoring (are the costs of China’s rule worth these benefits?).

(6) And, last but not least, Tibetan Buddhism has been widely practiced and tolerated. (Practiced? Not as freely as it could be. Tolerated? Increasingly so, but still insufficiently: Tibetans cannot openly revere the Dalai Lama, most active monasteries have a Chinese police station, monastery populations are restricted, monks and nuns have been imprisoned and tortured for being outspoken and the Dalai Lama’s choice for Panchen Lama is 19 years old and has been in Chinese custody for 13 years).

If these six points are blended together, they become quite suggestive. Without any intellectual discourse, the “truths” of this op-ed help to construct an image of acceptability that invests too much faith in the official Chinese side. An image that says, “Tibetans have it good and are free enough, so why is everyone making such a fuss? Yes, there are some human rights abuses, but Tibet is a part of China and China will solve its own problems. Heck! Tibetan and Chinese are so linguistically similar, so what’s this nonsense about cultural genocide?”

Why is this image a problem? It is a problem because it works. It serves a purpose. From this perspective, it seems illogical to support the Tibetan cause. However, real truths do not act as functioning agents. Real truths tend to make decisions difficult, not easier.

While the West may be guilty of romantic exaggeration, pro-China sources are guilty of downplaying the importance of the Tibet issue. In a world where non-action is the default, Beijing holds the upper hand if the informative, bite-sized “truths” it propagates can convince a significant number of people that the Tibetan cause is not a worthy one.

Josh Fouse is President of Stanford Friends of Tibet. If you have questions, comments or would like to learn more, email him at jfouse "at" stanford.edu.