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Comment by em500 | Hacker News Reader

> I remember looking up the Dalai Lama and seeing at the bottom: "Nationality: Chinese" which made me laugh, but on the other hand things like these make many people upset.

Out of curiosity, what do you believe to be the correct nationality?

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I presume the Dalai Lama considers himself to be Tibetan.

Now, perhaps you would consider that we ought to demand people's "nationality" be an actual UN member state which counts them as a citizen and since Tibet isn't a member... That's a bit awkward though because the "One China" policy ensures neither the Republic (in Taiwan) nor the PRC will allow the other to be a UN member at the same time as them.

Also I find that I doubt we demand most people have documentary proof. Not taking their word for it is already a bit weird unless you're a border official. Is Samantha Bee really Canadian? I mean, she says she is so I just assumed...

> the "One China" policy ensures neither the Republic (in Taiwan) nor the PRC will allow the other to be a UN member at the same time as them.

Actually, 90+% of the population of the ROC, including their leaders, would be ecstatically happy to be an UN member separately from the PRC. The only reason they officially have a "One China policy" is that the PRC has made it clear that while they can tolerate the status quo of a rival government with zero prospects of actually challenging them controlling a small piece of their territory, they will very much not tolerate that piece of territory to become officially independant and provide an example for at least half a dozen others.

It could also be like asking what was Mozart’s nationality? Austrian or Holy Roman?

He was a Salzburger, which was an independent princedom back then.

Is that what he is celebrated as these days? Which country takes pride in this composer these days?

Salzburg is now part of Austria, so..

I agree. Same for the Dalai Lama. He was once Tibetan but today he is Chinese. That’s just how it has worked and does work, like it or not.

Obviously being in exile I have no idea what passport he carries of if he gets to issue his own given he contends the current government, etc.

The difference is that the Dalai Lama is alive and presumably has an opinion on this.

It think Austria is proud of their Salzburg heritage and China (CCP) works really hard to tear down the Tibetan culture.

Han Chinese children have to learn Tibetan in school:

https://mobile.twitter.com/DanielDumbrill/status/12992582723...

I think that rumors of cultural oppression in Tibet have been vastly exaggerated

He holds an Identity Certificate[1] issued by the Indian passport office, but no passport.

[1] https://portal1.passportindia.gov.in/AppOnlineProject/online...

Next time I'm in Austria, I'll tell them to tear down their Mozart statues.

Tibetan, because before the so-called "Annexation" of Tibet (the word "occupation" is carefully avoided, even on WP), Tibet was an independent country (at least for a few decades). It's not like Manchuria or a few other geographic regions inhabited by ethnicities different from Chinese. So people born during that period in Tibet were Tibetans.

With the Dalai Lama this point is particularly interesting, because his life is an ongoing conversation with the Chinese (although at times they seem like two monologues).

There are millions of people currently living who were born in the Soviet Union and about 0% of them identifies or is identified as “Nationality: USSR”.

I think what matters is whether the existence of an independent country is contested. No one contests non-existence of USSR but Tibetan case is not closed.

Maybe because the USSR was an artificial construct very few people identified with? Even when it existed, people were calling themselves Russians, Latvian and so on, not really "Soviet."

Nationality: Chinese*

* verbose explanation why this might be disputed

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