China-Tibet and Russia-Chechnya Conflicts
One of the key variables identified by political scientists as leading to internal tensions in the nation-state is ethnic diversity, a problem that has impacted some 53 of 172 countries with populations of over 200,000 in which a majority ethnic group occupies dominant positions vis-à-vis politics, culture, and the economy (Sodaro 148). China, whose population is 92 percent Han Chinese, "has continuing problems over Tibet, which was forcibly annexed in the 1950s by the Communist Chinese government" (Sodaro 148). Russia, reconstituted after the breakup of the former Soviet Union, has experienced a violent challenge in Chechnya, "a largely Muslim region where a separatist movement launched a guerrilla war for independence" (Sodaro 528). These ethnic conflicts will be analyzed herein, with the argument advanced that the Tibetans have not used armed conflict against the Chinese as the Chechens have against the Russians.
Tibet has endured slightly more than 50 years of Chinese suppression following an uprising that saw the Dali Lama, the country's spiritual leader, flee into exile with some 100,000 followers and 20 years since protests that led to the imposition of martial law in the capital of Lhasa ("Another Year of the Iron Fist" 15). The Chinese presence in Tibet has been constant and at times brutal and while Tibetans have at times rioted or engaged in peaceful protests against the continued occupation of their country, the violence in Tibet has never reached the level that became common in Chechnya. Nevertheless, as Warran W. Smith points out, "an explosion of anger and violence has arguably been building for years in response to deliberate Chinese policies designed to extinguish, once and for all, the last vestiges of Tibetan separatism" (79). The Han Chinese leadership has deliberately sought to extinguish the Tibetan spirit of resistance as it has over many centuries "to ...