Letting the people decide is something China has a problem with regarding the independent state of Tibet which they invaded in 1949. Tibet had it's own Buddhism religion, language, literature and art. It also had an unpleasant feudal theocracy so do not be fooled into thinking it was some heavenly democratic based peoples paradise.
Many people are still around that also remember the brutal oppression by China during the 1959 uprising, the Tibetan peoples last major push to overthrow the Chinese invaders, that resulted in a massacre of tens of thousands of Tibetans.
The way the Chinese Government is getting around the "let the people decide" issue here is a classic case. With forced Chinese 'education' of the local children, with a massive resettlement policy of Chinese (Han) into Tibet and again '1984' style propaganda (or downright rewriting of history) for the younger generation, or indeed older but more gullible people
The Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government-in-exile now have to base themselves in India.
Zomg lolz to the noobs who don't understand that people can have a memory of the world as it was ... not how the China propaganda machine wants it to be.
