Confusion Is Next: The NY Times & Immigration

Sez here that Han Chinese immigrants are moving to Tibet in large numbers in search of jobs and opportunity, and that the Reds are encouraging this as the easiest means of fully annexing a region they have never been able to fully pacify in the 60 years since they originally invaded. Big tragedy as oppressed medieval culture is watered down by arrivistes. I wonder if there are any lessons that Americans might learn from this? China's Money and Migrants Pour Into Tibet

Han Chinese workers, investors, merchants, teachers and soldiers are pouring into remote Tibet. After theviolence that ravaged this region in 2008, China’s aim is to make Tibet wealthier — and more Chinese.

Chinese leaders see development, along with an enhanced security presence, as the key to pacifying the Buddhist region. The central government invested $3 billion in the Tibet Autonomous Region last year, a 31 percent increase over 2008. Tibet’s gross domestic product is growing at a 12 percent annual rate, faster than the robust Chinese national average.

Simple restaurants located in white prefabricated houses and run by ethnic Han businesspeople who take the train have sprung up even at a remote lake north of Lhasa. About 1.2 million rural Tibetans, nearly 40 percent of the region’s population, have been moved into new residences under a “comfortable housing” program. And officials promise to increase tourism fourfold by 2020, to 20 million visitors a year.

But if the influx of money and people has brought new prosperity, it has also deepened the resentment among many Tibetans. Migrant Han entrepreneurs elbow out Tibetan rivals, then return home for the winter after reaping profits. Large Han-owned companies dominate the main industries, from mining to construction to tourism.

So, according to the Times, a nation's culture, economy and society can be irrevocably changed when unlimited numbers of immigrants "pour into" it. The thrust of the article is that this is a Bad Thing, and who can disagree? Certainly, I wouldn't want to live in Tibet - no offence, but, living as a serf in service to a bunch of monks is not my idea of fun - but its culture and society are unique and, absent the invasion by China, self-sustaining. The appearance of tens of thousands of people who live in bordering regions, have no affinity for Tibetan culture (indeed are actively hostile to it), and push native born Tibetans out of the marketplace will inevitably degrade and water down Tibetan society, making it more Chinese than Tibetan. Experience, not to mention human nature, dictates no other result.

So why is it so hard for the Times to understand why so many Americans don't like the idea that we have so much unlimited immigration from one country - Mexico - for no better reason than it shares our southern border?