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Comment by reustle | Hacker News Reader

Not saying this is right, but it sounds like the city exceeded their legal cap of 5k people? So it doesn't sound like it's a total surprise to them. Am I reading it wrong?

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I partially agree with you. I've been there at last year. It is far from cites, about 10 hours driving to the nearest airport. When I got there, there were more than 20k people lived in the small valley, without TV/clean water/electricity. Most houses are made from wood. If there is a fire, I can't imagine how many people would die.

However, the gov do not give them another place to live and study. It is not a city or town, it is a college. Most people are studying at there. The highest degree is Kanbo. People need 15-20 years to get this.

That's just rationalization. Had the city population been 4200, the cap would have been set at 4k.

You're right, I guess it isn't clear when the cap was set. I assumed it was defined more than a few years ago.

I agree with you that this is a fair speculation, but nonetheless a speculation. There is no evidence before that Chinese government, despite being fairly un democratic, arbitrarily change how official rules are interpreted, AFAIK. I don't think HN welcomes such style of posting.

It's not clear to me that there was any legal cap; from what I can tell, it was set by this order.

Under what legal authority does that cap exist?

It's China, so it falls under the authority of the CPC first, then any legal considerations second.

We marvel at how quickly they built up high speed rail, but when you can just seize land without regard to imminent domain, associated lawsuits and the like, things tend to get expedited.

Indeed every great human achievement had been accomplished with great human suffering and injustice. But perhaps that's the reality of the human condition, and nothing is ever going to change that.

But what constitutes a great achievement?

>Indeed every great human achievement had been accomplished with great human suffering and injustice. No. How do you apply that logic to the last decade or two of advancements. Large Hadron Collider, SpaceX, gravitational waves, Mars explorer, human genome project etc etc.

China is the colonial power; that's all the authority required.

Note that China did the same to the Han majority as well, for example in the destruction of the Hutongs in the major cities such Beijing this century, not to mention the destruction of the temples 70 years ago during the communist revolution.

When I read this context-free article all I could think of was Henry VIII's destruction and confiscation of the monasteries. Now it's just a historical aspect of a larger movement.

This feels tragic to me, but honestly it's hard to tell if it even is or not from that one article.

Ah ok, thanks. What is China's motivation for removing these villages?

Avoid crowds.No crowds, No protests. Every year, more than 10k people are gathered at there on special days.

Th article doesn't say why in particular but in general the government is very sensitive to any organization that might challenge its authority. In addition, China is committed to Hanization of Tibet, so limiting opportunity for aggrieved people to get together is probably important to that objective.

Except Henry VIII destroyed all monasteries and outlawed all monasticism in his realms. I'm sure there are Buddhist monasteries and seminaries (or whatever they are called) elsewhere in Tibet and China.

There are some still active, yes, though the Party is quite active to prevent them from becoming centers of unrest. The party controls th panache lama and wants to appoint the next dali lama as it does with catholic bishops, heads of monasteries etc. And like Henry, the government confiscated the wealth of the monasteries in the cultural revolution

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