China once again drops a big rock on its toe

You cannot but feel sorry for Beijing's rulers. They have the knack of making a bad case worse. Take the recent crack down in Tibet, it has largely turned world opinion against it, tore to shreds its choreographed campaign to bring peace and harmony to the world through the Beijing summer Olympic games, and torn off the mask of a rising world power albeit nominally Communist, but with a human face, soul, and feelings. Well all that's gone! In spite of harsh repression in Tibet and neighbouring provinces with large Tibet populations, it has not quashed the will of Tibetans for freedom and affirmation of who they are, and this despite more than a half century of Beijing's trying to turn Tibetans into ersatz Chinese. But Beijing's woes do not remain in Tibet. The oppressed Muslims in China's Xinjiang or Western Turkestan have taken to arms against the central government, and now Beijing admits, Muslims have begun taking to the streets in protest. Although we're not witnessing the spark that caused a prairie fire, to slip into the Leninist imagery, we're on the other hand, witnessing the faltering power of Communist rule in China. We won't examine the growing social and class tensions within the majority Han population, nor the struggle of intellectuals calling for a more open society, nor the daily confrontation of the destitute peasants in the neglected Chinese hinterland with local leaders who represent Beijing's central, stifling, oppresive rule. The Communsits are heirs and prisoners of China's past...they react in the same way towards discontent in the same way that the emperors did. And with brutality. Some may say in a traditional way, the mandate of heaven is slowly slipping away from Beijing, this in the face of unprecedented economic expansion and growing world status of China. This said, to hold on to power, Beijing will not hesitate to wage full and open warfare against its own people, and such a policy will further weaken its grasp on power.