for me personally, one of the biggest shock is how extreme the reactions are.
On one side, you got people thinking that there’s an active genocide going on in Tibet and that China is doing everything against them.

on the other end.. while we know there are quite a few Chinese who have extreme nationalism.. some of it is ridiculous. I’ve seen some advocating a new “cultural” revolution there, mass migrating “Han Chinese” to the region, etc.. things which would probably worsen the situation and make the Tibetans even angrier.

I’ve followed Tibetan history for a bit, mostly because there’s some parallels between Tibet and the Ryukyus. One of the most common things I’ve heard is that Tibet was always a part of China. The problem is “what is China?” the Mongols were the ones who went into Tibet and incorporated it with China, but never really ruled it directly (mostly in indirect means), let alone populate it. It was for the most part independent. At the time of course, many people didn’t consider the Yuan Dynasty as being Chinese, and there were quite a number of revolts..but some argue its Chinese now, and others argue that it isnt. The Manchu led Qing Dynasty (several centuries later) were the ones that really made more effort to conquer and control Tibet (again another Dynasty that is non-Han, but probably more likely to be agreed upon as a Chinese Dynasty).. but they never really populated it either and the control over the region weakened by the 20th century until the PRC established actual control over it. (either way, there was a beginning to this “control” so it is faulty to say “always”)

PRC’s control over the region is mixed. getting rid of the serf system is probably good (although its argueable the extent of how severe the serf system was and that whether Chinese and Western Values should be rightfully used to judge what the Tibetans do and value). However despite what the Dalai Lama has done or not do, its clear that they still admire him.

The cultural revolution saw alot of damage being done in Tibet and lots of cultural loss, but it also affected everywhere else, minority regions and non minority regions. Probably the biggest problem today is the income gap.. Tibet may have seen rising income, living standards, etc.. but the ratio is much lower than the rest of China. Out of all the minorities, Tibetans still are either dead last or near the bottom when it comes to literacy, life expectancy, etc. Its just that now the percentages are better, but they are still ranked in the same area.

some if it is due to its location.. no one really wants to live in an isolated, hard to reach area with a harsh climate, which is the major reason why its poorer than many other areas. Lately, the PRC certainly is making a big effort to spread this wealth gap as they know too that even if these poorer areas are rising, as long as the gap between them and the rich coastal area becomes bigger, the people in the poorer areas will still be unhappy.

however spreading this wealth over there will take alot of time, and perhaps not enough time to calm down any resentment.

Ultimately, its really up to the people living in Tibet what they want, not us non Chinese who live hundreds or thousands of miles away, or nationalistic Chinese who for the most part, don’t live in Tibet either.

there’s tons of kingdoms in the world that have been conquered. the US annexed Hawaii, but today most people there would rather stay in the US. But more importantly Hawaii independence groups exist and are tolerated. Greenland prefers to stay with Denmark, etc. Here in Okinawa, the Ryukyus was an independent Kingdom that got annexed by Japan, then became part of the US and back to Japan again.. many people here don’t really like Japan, but very few really want full independence.. and at the same time, there’s several Okinawan independence parties that are tolerated as well. If PRC’s efforts in Tibet are more positive than negative, then the government should have the confidence to allow such naysayers to say what they want as the majority won’t take them seriously such as the numerous “independence” groups that exist in the “West”.