NEW YORK ¨C The self-immolation of exiled Tibetan activist Lobga Rangzen outside United Nations headquarters in New York on July 2 was not an expression of personal despair. It was a desperate attempt to jolt the world out of its growing indifference to one of the most important international issues of our time: Tibet¡¯s systematic erasure.
China occupied then-autonomous Tibet shortly after the founding of the People¡¯s Republic. The occupation is often viewed primarily through the prism of human rights, and for good reason. But it should also be understood as an effort to lay claim to one of Asia¡¯s most valuable geopolitical assets: the vast, resource-rich Tibetan Plateau dominates the Himalayas, contains the headwaters of Asia¡¯s great rivers and overlooks South, Central and Southeast Asia.
In recent decades, China has invested heavily in the Plateau ¡ª building extensive military infrastructure, constructing mega-dams on Asia¡¯s great rivers and expanding extraction of strategic minerals ¡ª while relying on surveillance, coercion and security forces to suppress resistance. But physical control of Tibet is not enough for Chinese leader Xi Jinping. He wants complete and lasting control over the entire Tibetan Plateau.
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