P.S. on Tibet (and cool Olympic venues!)

Just to follow up on the last, I heard an interesting argument a while ago at a talk on "China" (broad topic right) here at the law school. Someone asked why China seems to "care so much" about territories such as Tibet, Hong Kong, Macau, and even Taiwan. In short, one of the speakers suggested that the nature of these and other territories in China are so tenuous that were the government to give the smallest concession to recognizing their independence, the floodgates would open and the hold on all such territories would be lost. He went on to say that "maybe China isn't really a country." It sounds ridiculous, but he compared it to the former Yugoslavia as an umbrella entity that is holding together distinct smaller countries in nothing but name, and were it to be removed the countries would quickly break apart. It really begs the question "what defines a country." I think there are a whole lot of ways to answer that, and I have no idea if the comparison of China to Yugoslavia is valid, but it's interesting nonetheless.

Oh and as I promised...cool Olympic venues! Say what you will about the Beijing Olympics, you have to agree that they have style. I think that many of these buildings are at the top of my list of "coolest buildings I have ever seen in my life, I would never have dreamt up in a million years, and in some cases don't even understand how they can possibly exist," but my two favorites by far are the Bird's Nest and the Cube. I want to go to China to see the Olympics!!!