Chuang Tzu’s happy irony came to mind when I saw this story the other day:

Police in southern China have discovered a factory manufacturing Free Tibet flags, media reports say.

The factory in Guangdong had been completing overseas orders for the flag of the Tibetan government-in-exile.

Workers said they thought they were just making colourful flags and did not realise their meaning.

But then some of them saw TV images of protesters holding the
emblem and they alerted the authorities, according to Hong Kong’s Ming
Pao newspaper. 

     Oops.  This only really matters, however, if you believe that nationalism can be distinguished from globalization.  I don’t think it can.  Let’s think about it in terms of contemporary China.  What China is now, what it has become in the era of economic reform, is a society and culture fundamentally different from Maoist times and imperial history.  Things that are now taken as perfectly fitting expressions of Chinese-ness – like modern Olympic athletic competition – would be reject by Mao and Confucius.  The former understood the Olympics to be a venue of the global bourgeoisie; and the latter said that "gentlemen do not contend."  But neither of those sentiments reflect the China of today.  "Opening to the world" has transformed the country.

    So what difference does it make, really, if Tibetan flags are made in China?  It simply follows the logic that has made China into world economic dynamo: find the low cost producer.  Making plastic Christmas trees and pirated DVDs and paper dolls of Elvis Presley are what China does now.  What do a few thousand Tibetan flags matter?   It only matters if you are a nationalist, bound to be frustrated by the reality of a globalized China.   Makes me think of Chuang Tzu’s little story of "three in the morning:"

To
wear yourself out illuminating the unity of all things without
realizing that they’re the same – this is called "three in the
morning."  Why "three in the morning?"  There was once a monkey trainer
who said at feeding time, "You get three in the morning and four in the
evening."  The monkeys got very angry, so he said, "Okay, I’ll give you
four in the morning and three in the evening."  At this the monkeys
were happy again.  Nothing was lost in either name or reality, but they
were angry one way and pleased the other.  This is why the sage brings
"yes this" and "no that" together and rests in heaven the equalizer.
This is called taking two paths at once.

Chuang Tzu (24)