“Free Tibet”? Mao Already Did

“Free Tibet” sounds noble—until you ask: free for whom?

Before 1951, Tibet was not a spiritual paradise. It was a feudal theocracy where over 90% of the population were serfs and slaves. Monasteries owned most of the land. The Dalai Lama wasn’t just a religious leader—he was a landlord. And under his rule, peasants were routinely tortured, mutilated, and starved in the name of cosmic order.

It was Mao Zedong and the Chinese Revolution that ended that system. In 1951, the People’s Liberation Army entered Tibet and negotiated the Seventeen Point Agreement. The goal: peaceful integration, religious freedom, and the gradual abolition of serfdom. The land was redistributed. Slavery was banned. Schools, hospitals, and roads were built for the first time.

That’s what “Free Tibet” looks like—free from feudalism. Free from landlord rule. Free from the myth that theocracy equals peace.

But the West doesn’t care about serfdom. What it cared about was the Cold War. The CIA trained and armed Tibetan rebels throughout the 1950s and 60s, not to protect “culture,” but to destabilize China. The same people who now wave Tibetan flags said nothing when the U.S. funded terrorist bombings in Lhasa or sheltered the Dalai Lama in Washington.

Today, the “Free Tibet” movement is a branding tool for empire. It shows up on Hollywood bumper stickers and NGO grant proposals—but never in working-class communities in China or Tibet. Why? Because most Tibetans today aren’t asking for secession. They’re asking for jobs, schools, healthcare—and they’re getting them.

Poverty in Tibet has fallen drastically under socialism. Life expectancy has doubled. Literacy has soared. The region is no utopia—but it is far freer than when lamas ruled with the whip.

So when someone says “Free Tibet,” ask them this: from what, and for whom?

Because Tibet was freed. Just not in the way the empire wanted.