Chinese Open Fire on Nuns and Monks

Communist's hate religion. Religion is anathema to red thinking and will not be tolerated as shown by the abhorrent response to an uprising in Tibet that seems to be getting worse:

Residents of Luhuo said that a monk and a farmer appeared to have been killed and about a dozen people wounded in the latest violence in Tibetan areas of China. Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, said that one officer was killed when police confronted a “lawless mob” in Luhuo.

The demonstration began at 4pm when about 200 nuns from Woge nunnery and a similar number of monks from Jueri monastery marched towards the Luhuo Third District government office. They were joined by several hundred farmers and nomads, witnesses said.

Shouting “Long Live the Dalai Lama” and “Tibet belongs to Tibetans”, they approached the office. The paramilitary People’s Armed Police appeared and ordered the crowd to turn back. Witnesses said that shots were fired and two people appeared to have died. They identified one as Congun Dengzhu, a farmer, and the second as an unknown monk.

Now I've been extremely critical of Nancy Pelosi and her lack of leadership but I have to give her credit here. She's taken a tough stance on China and has continued that by openly supporting the Tibetans as a whole and the Dalai Lama in particular.

It's high time for the Bush administration to take an equally tough stance. It's a hard decision as we've allowed China to buy a mountain of our debt but a strategic, secret policy of encouraging investment and increasing exports from nations in our own hemisphere would be prudent at this time. Note I said slow as an announced policy would have a severe impact in the short term economic situation.

Colombia, Chile, Mexico and the Dominican Republic would be excellent nations to offer increased import opportunities to and we can begin slowly pulling back our export dollars from a nation that is utilizing our own currency to build up a military that is looking to challenge us in the Asian region. Plus, with Mexico, we could increase their GDP while decreasing the need for crossings into the US.

The Chinese are in a tough position with the Olympics approaching and a policy of carrot and stick would be highly recommended at this point. Free Tibet may seem like a silly bumper sticker on the back of a leftists car but smart diplomacy at this point with a serious stick wielded could produce just that result.

Update: Post headline fixed. I had written "minks" instead of "monks". I can't help but think the libs would be more upset if they had been shooting at minks instead of monks.