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China still had no right to do what they did. They merely replaced one system that they saw as backward and corrupt with their own. Tibet was a very isolated place well into the 20th century, a lot of it's customs were similar to the kind of lives people in other countries lived hundreds of years earlier. China took advantage of their naivete, of Tibet's unfamiliarity with the modern world, they exploited every aspect of the Tibetans culture for their own gain. Tibet was (according to the Dalai Lama and others) actually on the brink of significant social change when the Chinese invaded. The Dalai Lama was a forward-thinking man even then, he wanted to establish better ties with the outside world and a fairer more modern social system within Tibet. (And he CERTAINLY recognises the importance of it now. The Chinese cannot argue that, were Tibet to become independent again, it would return to it's previous state of theocracy and primitive serfdom.) Tibet lost it's chance to evolve independently. It was easy for the Chinese to not only do what they did, but also to justify it. They still call it a liberation and make it sound like a noble crusade. But any country could call an invasion a liberation by pointing out the flaws in another society and claiming they were freeing the people of the country from those flaws. Doesn't make it right.
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