An article published Jan 4 by the Dalai Lama group titled "China's Claim that 'Old Tibet' Was a Feudal Serfdom is Fiction" claimed that before 1949, "Tibet was neither an ideal society nor a feudal serf system". It described old Tibet as a beggar-free, rule-of-law society without famine in which tenants were wealthy and the economy was self-sufficient. The article claimed that, compared with China at the time - and even China today - Tibet was a "far more civil society".

It has been unprecedented for the Dalai Lama group to ignore historical facts and to openly hail its past of feudal serfdom, which was actually similar to the Dark Ages in Europe. Its audacious move was also thought-provoking and has sparked two major arguments that I'd like to make to refute the article.

1. It is the consensus of the international community that old Tibet was ruled by the theocracy implementing feudal serfdom.