WesWorld

As has come up in recent days, the state of Tibet seems to be in some doubt as to whether it is an independent non-player country or an autonomous part of China. Due to the entangling issues this will doubtless cause, the mods would like your opinion the status of Tibet.

Among the cases:
- China and India have previously and repeatedly recognized an independent Tibetan government headquartered in Lhasa.
- Tibet was historically not recognized as an independent country, and was not a member of the League of Nations.
- Apparently most of the players are/were under the impression that Tibet was an independent country.

This poll will be nonbinding but shall help the mods sort out the question of Tibet. Note: this is NOT a poll of member countries, but of players. Comments are welcome.

I was under the assumtion that it was independant and Chinese relations seemed to afirm that.

The two neighboring nations - China and India - have in WW acted as if Tibet was an independent nation, treating the authorities in Llasa as if they were independent. While historically Tibet may have been treated one way, in Wesworld it appears to have been treated another. Therefore, for purposes of Wesworld, it should be treated as an independent nation.

To clarify and frame the debate, the question of Tibet's status comes from many people appearently assuming Tibet was independant, which stems from the Big ass Map, which depicts it as seperate from China. This (as I'm sure Canis, and Brock can attest) is an artifact of the original map being one obtained from the CIA website, which appearently included Tibet as seperate for it's own purposes.

However, historically (and indeed, up to the present day), no nation has recognized Tibet as an independant nation, so total Tibetan independance in Wesworld would be unexplained and unprecedented - but this is beyond the scope of this poll. Historically, Tibet has been an "Autonomous region" of various Chinese nations dating back centuries. Reading between the lines, this means that while China asserts political and legal control over Tibet, the region is generally left to it's own internal self-government

I would suggest and invite the two players most affected by Tibet's status to state any case or preference they have before any votes are cast (Perdedor99, and Parador).

Player :
Not sure why my OOC opinion is sought vs my nations- they do differ.
I've figured Tibet was functionally part of China in this game, just one with very loose control. Hence why it's colored like China (though I guess that is just the NPC colors..) oh well thats the player's view.


Edit : So just went and did a search in News for Tibet.
Found references from Rocky on forward.
It would appear both India (since 1923) and China (since 1935) have treated Tibet as separate.

In a LoN discussion, Roo noted Tibet as one of the Non-members

Brockpine lists Tibet as a nation Bulgaria & Chile have no contact with.

I could swear the issue came up with Ubiwan, but don't see that, may have been a Dutch-Chinese PM exchange. I've always viewed it as part of China, and seemed to have glossed over abundant evidence to the contrary.

Oh well, deduct my vote from Autonomous region column and stick it independent.

Might as well have the IC view, I suppose; but I'm more interested in the OOC view.

Quoted

Originally posted by Brockpaine
Might as well have the IC view, I suppose; but I'm more interested in the OOC view.

More accurately, I think we need the OOC view settled before nations can have an IC view on it, really.

I voted none of the above, to my way of thinking an independent Tibet and an Autonomus Tibet are exactly the same thing. Both are dependent on China for access to the rest of the world, so quibbling over legalities is silly IMO. And it really doesn't affect me IC or OOC.

Dittoed.

Judging from the evidence presented, I would say independent. However, is there really any point? Judging from the Chinese and Bharat news, if it is independent, it won't be for much longer anyway. So I suppose it makes some storyline fodder for Perdy and Par to play with that doesn't come dangerously close to Europe, so meh..let 'em maul it. I vote independent.

I say Tibet is an autonomus province of China because even though it has a border on the Big Map it is shaded the same colour as China. If it were truely independent it would have been coloured seperately by Canis. There is no reason to suppose WW history is so widely different from OTL that suddenly its popped up independent.

Any news posts I've made in response to China before the present situation were coloured by China's news posts. I never really gave it a second thought. Really this issue has never been addressed as its never become an issue or effected 90% of WW dealings. Now it has and it needs to be sorted.

Really 99% of the whole LoN thread makes no sense. I can't see how two monks could be invited to the chamber or anything else. What next Faires, Santa Claus claiming the North Pole? Ain't gonna happen. If it were some kind of OOC heads up via PM would be nice.

I think there is a reason why the color of Tibet is a slightly darker color than the color of China when looking at the Big Map: that at that moment in time, it is separate from China, but it is not recognized as an independent nation by any of the other nations in the world, so its atual state is probably hovering somewhere between being part of China and being independent.

The way I see the things written about it in the news articles, either China/India are playing a game with Tibet, giving them the feeling that they actually are an independent nation in the world and actually have something to say to the rest of the world while in reality they aren't and they don't, or it is the press at work, making things sound more friendly and peaceful than they actually are or misinterpreting things said or done by the governments. Remember that what is posted as news is, in almost all cases, news released by the press.

Government officials are cunning foxes and all the points Brock gave OOC, if they were presented to them IC, they would say "You assumed it meant *this* but if you look closer at the facts, you will see that it does not mean *this* at all but that it actually means *that*..." and then follow it up with hours and hours of talking and discussing until you actually do believe that it means *that* and not *this*.

Now, unless there are statements by both governments somewhere that clearly indicate that they are recognizing Tibet as an independent nation, I believe my vote would be going to Chindia playing games with Tibet.

Quoted

Originally posted by Rooijen10
Government officials are cunning foxes and all the points Brock gave OOC, if they were presented to them IC, they would say "You assumed it meant *this* but if you look closer at the facts, you will see that it does not mean *this* at all but that it actually means *that*..." and then follow it up with hours and hours of talking and discussing until you actually do believe that it means *that* and not *this*.

Walter makes a good point.

Enter a chief of the First Nations:

"Like White Men, Yellow Men speak with forked tongue."

Whether or not Tibet is part of China or a notionally independent state, the region is unquestionably in China's sphere of influence and they should be allowed room to manoeuvre. Let's face it, the region is irrelevant to pretty much every country apart from China. Human rights abuses? This is the 1940s, not today.

*yawnnn* I'd say just play along with it. Maybe LoN security needs to be looked at, maybe these two guys used forged passes or something. Maybe its a chance to launch a in-depth (ie expensive) and illuminating (ie worthless) investigation into the security of the LoN. I mean we can't afford a Wikileaks repeat here in WW... After all it gives the Aussie rep another reason to continue drinking while tossing darts at the picture of the Indian rep, while the Mexican continues plotting against Iberia between shots of tequila.

and autonomous most of the time because the Chinese government has lots of other issues to pay attention to, but they'll get their way in Lhasa if they press for it moderately.

i write some points, jumped in my mind.

What reasons would speak for an independent Tibet ? Comparing to OTL ....... NONE !!!

Quoted

Definitely a Chinese sphere of influence !!

Absolutely right !!

Quoted

the region is irrelevant to pretty much every country apart from China.

Absolutely right, may be Bharat has some interests but that's all. Is any other nation affected, by what is happened there ? NO !


And always keep in mind ..... we are in 1940, and not in the present, so human rights are a foreign word.

Quoted

Originally posted by parador
And always keep in mind ..... we are in 1940, and not in the present, so human rights are a foreign word.

I quibble with this. The concept of human rights did not magically puff into existence in the 1980s, it was merely that it was not used to rally the international community to do international community-ish things.

Human rights are just a way to allow the US to meddle in the affairs of other nations while appearing to be the good guy...

As for Tibet...