An interesting campaign by an intrepid Ladakhi has woven the issue of environment with China’s misdeeds and calls upon the world to act now.
Sonam Wangchuk, an engineer, has set up his base at the Himalayan Institute of Alternatives (HIAL) in Phyang Valley in Ladakh and has posted a burst of videos, part of a campaign, “I Live Simply”, since May when China began its aggression in India’s northern state of Ladakh.
Sonam is calling upon people to “live simply” as a way to boycott China and its manipulation of the global market.
Sonam, while speaking to Epoch Times, said: “Each individual in the world has amazing power. One power is that they can choose their own leaders, which is an unprecedented power we have acquired through our democracy.”
Another mean is “wallet power”. Through it, by boycotting the goods, people would “not encourage” regimes such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
“It’s not just me and the toothbrush or the pair of shoes that I buy, but what it does, if it fuels a monster that is, you know, causing so much disharmony and pain around, then I have the power to not patronize that. That’s where I say wallet power,” he said.
His campaign is attracting people by truckloads. More so in India which is still under shock after a bloody conflict in Galwan with their overbearing neighbours which cost them 20 soldiers.
Sonam lives 120 miles from Galwan valley.
“It was partly influenced by what was happening right next door—bullying and aggression and so on, after Tibet, [it’s] Ladakh, [and] that irritates, irks Ladakh,” Sonam said on his campaign.
It’s not just about Indians. Sonam is aghast at what China does to its own people. He believes the world and its leaders must take blame for enabling China in its repressive measures. In cutting economic deals with China.
“And the people around the world were gullible, who are flowing in this river of desires to get their cheap products without caring what that does tomorrow or day after,” he said, adding that it’s not just ordinary people, but also leaders of various nations who are keen for economic deals with China.
They would not overlook these things when it’s like, Kuwait with Saddam attacking. But they would overlook when China is doing that to Tibet, or Xinjiang, or so on,” Sonam said. “And they would overlook that China doesn’t even let its own people have access to information.”
And Sonam is bewildered why the world would give China globalization benefits on a plate when China even refused to allow its own people to access information.
“We have something like village citizenship—a citizen of the village. So to enjoy all the benefits of support from the village, you have to deliver certain requirements of the village. … Only when you pay all those dues, you enjoy the rest,” he said.
“They don’t give freedom of access to information, even leave aside other things. They keep their people closed. They can do whatever to extract labour from them. They can do whatever to extract resources from the earth,” he said.
“They are exempt from all these regulations and norms of civilized behaviour. And what does the West do? Instead of demanding them to follow, they’re moving their own plants there to benefit from this extraction and exploitation so they can produce cheap and sell it with a big margin in America, which is pathetic double standards.”
“The Chinese Communist Party and its strength is because of the consumeristic mindset of the rest of the world. Their strength has come from the world that wants cheap things to fulfill their desires, and so on,” he said.
“And that has been happening ever since we started living beyond our means—you know, we need one pair of shoes, and we have 10 or 14—that kind of lifestyle. That is where we went wrong in just overdoing, over-consuming, and thinking that is an index of success.”
Nowadays “you may find human life shaped to suit the market—that was never the idea,” he said.
“Because of this mindset and approach, we have become consumption monsters that want more and more and more of everything. And that more and more is limited by your means, your income. And China filled that gap by producing cheap to give more and more of consumables to the people, and in the process, it did whatever to its people, to its natural resources, to its forests, nobody cared as long as they kept getting their own cheap goods.”
In Sonam’s worldview, the “post-modern economics” should include costs for everything in the environment and not just those created by humans.
“Where everything is costed, not just your house and your car, and so on. The air you get is never costed. The service that plants and animals provide you is never costed,” he said when asked what he means by harmony in today’s world.
(This is the edited version of a piece that first appeared in Epoch Times).
