[Wikipedia-l] wikipedia in China

[Ray Saintonge]

Andre Engels wrote:

> On Fri, 24 Sep 2004 18:48:53 -0700 Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> 
> wrote:
>
>> But don't forget the British responsibility in that.  China was 
>> allowed to walk into Tibet as a reward for their resistance to the 
>> Japanese.
>
>
> I understood that their reasons were mostly to keep out the Russians 
> without incurring the cost of colonizing Tibet themselves.

That too.

Britain and Russia have always had rocky relations, and that goes back 
to long before the communist regime took over in 1917.  The British had 
ships in the Persian Gulf in the early 1600s out of concern for Russia; 
it had Russia in mind during the Afghan wars.  The Crimean War was a 
direct confrontation with Russia.  The British have always been 
concerned about the Russians having southern sea access.  I would need 
to dig deeper to understand why, but perhaps it felt a threat to its 
naval dominance.  In the course of these geo-political wranglings 
backward local tribes like the Tibetans and the Kurds could easily be 
sacrificed to Britain's greater good.

Ec