You can't buy ...

Article from The New York Times on recent unrest in Inner Mongolia.

“The Mongolian situation is very worrying for the Chinese leadership because you can’t just throw money at an issue like ethnic identity,” said Minxin Pei, a China expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and professor of political science at Claremont McKenna College in California.

@CCP:Like ... hello! Really?

Sigh, this is what you get when you mix Communist historical materialism with a sheen of capitalist greed. No respect or understanding for the importance of culture, or the depth of feeling regarding issues of identity. They don't even care about their own culture, much less that of other peoples.

You think you can buy your way out of this mess? Or just put up a perfunctory "museum"? Culture is something to be cherished and lived on an everyday basis. People have the right to shape their lives according to their traditions. Money doesn't make people forget.

Well, maybe it makes post-Communist Chinese people forget. But other peoples don't.