I love the Beastie Boys, but come on, Tibet, seriously? You don´t have to like the Chinese regime nor imperialism in general, but putting an end to the religious regime in Tibet was a good thing. After China had taken over, the Tibetarian farmers took in fact bloody revenge on the old religious authorities. This indicates what living under Dalai Lama must have been like for the people... Good that the big crowd is probably apathic enough to give a shit about their political message.
they probably didn't care about their political views too much, they more cared about the big ass music festival they were hosting about their political views, and back then it was pretty cool to see hip-hop creators do big charity events for this considering it was not popular at all.