China Hand has an informative post on his blog about the current disturbances/uprising in Tibet. Talking about the Tibetan Popular Uprising Movement which seems to have coordinated the pro-independence activities that have been taking place around the world– but most especially inside the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) of China– he asks:
- what is TPUM thinking?
Did they want to provoke a crackdown that would create a groundswell of Western support for boycotting the Beijing Olympics?
Certainly, if anti-Han activism in Tibet and abroad turns the Olympics into a humiliating diplomatic and public security ordeal, instead of a triumphant coming-out party, the Chinese are going to take out their frustrations on dissent in Tibet.
Assuming that Tibet Uprising has thought this thing through, the conclusion would be that they are consciously trying to elicit Chinese over-reaction, exacerbate the crackdown, and alienate more and more Tibetans from the idea of accommodation with the PRC.
In other words, think of Tibet as the new Gaza.
The occupying power games the political/diplomatic system to counter criticism, but relentlessly extends its military and economic reach inside the territory. The occupied turn to militancy. They attempt to create an atmosphere of intense bitterness and anger on the ground through direct action and by the creation of a new generation of militants in religious schools.
The objective is to marginalize moderate and co-optable forces, make a successful occupation impossible militarily, politically, and socially, and finally compel the oppressor to give up and withdraw.
An interesting idea, except it hasn’t worked in Gaza, even with sub rosa aid from Iran.
With the Tibet independence forces actively opposed by India and the United States and just about every other government I can think of, I wouldn’t think that such an approach would succeed in Tibet.
Well, it is true that Gaza has not yet gained independence from Israel’s economic shackles, but that might well be achieved sometime within the next year…
There are, of course, numerous similarities and some differences between the situation of the Palestinians and that of the Tibetans.
One big similarity: the longing for “home” among the many Tibetans exiled outside their ancestral homeland. (One difference: the breadth and centrality that the idea of organizing an exiles’ march to back their homeland has in the planning of the new generation of Tibetan activists.)
One evident difference is the position on these respective issues adopted by “the west”, in general. Westerners tend to be very supportive of Israel vs. the Palestinians; and supportive of Tibetans vs. China. (The relative weight of “the west” in world affairs is declining; but it is still an important factor.) Another difference, in my view, is that at the cultural level, many Han Chinese have real affection and veneration for Tibetan Buddhism as part of their own cultural heritage, while most Jewish Israelis tend to be dismissive, hostile, or extremely denigrating toward Islam as a religion. In China/Tibet, Buddhism in general has the potential to be a bridge between the two contesting national groups. In Israel/Palestine, no such supranational cultural bridge easily suggests itself.
Another difference: right now, Israel is not seeking to swallow up Gaza into Greater Israel and totally assimilate its indigenous residents, as China is in Tibet. In fact, Israel has never sought to assimilate the indigenous residents of any of the Arab lands it has occupied. Instead, it has strongly preferred either to expel them directly, or to make their life so constrained and miserable that they leave.
At the territorial level, though, the better analogy of the territorial expansion of China’s zone of exclusive control is not with Gaza, but with the West Bank. It is into the West Bank that Israel is currently pumping thousands of new colonial settlers each year; giving them preferential treatment in many economic spheres; and skewing land-use and infrastructure planning totally in favor of their interests– as China has been doing, with its and for its own ethnic settlers, in Tibet.
In terms of the demographic balance, if it comes to a total showdown– which I certainly believe the Chinese authorities want to avoid– or a longterm contest by attrition, then the four million or so Tibetans are a tiny drop in the bucket compared to the billion-plus Han Chinese; while the eight million Palestinians living in and near to the area of Mandate Palestine outnumber the six million Jewish Israelis.
I think Beijing has many, many potential options to divide-and-rule the Tibetans that they have not explored fully yet. One extremely smart move for them would be to make some non-trivial concessions to the Dalai Lama and get him to return to Lhasa. Think: Oslo– but one we would hope would work out.
It is worth underlining that– as China Hand notes– the Dalai Lama supports the idea of the TAR remaining an “Autonomous Region” under over-all Chinese sovereignty. He is not calling for complete Tibetan independence, though that is the goal that many of supporters in the west might prefer. Of course, the kind of autonomy he seeks is one that leaves the Tibetan Buddhists quite free to practice their own religion and run their own religious institutions. This includes the effective functioning of the Panchen Lama identified by the Tibetan Lama-ate itself, rather than the young man “named” as the Panchen Lama by the Chinese authorities and kept under their sway in Beijing.
The Dalai Lama would probably also require that Tibetans in the TAR be allowed to regulate matters of residence and land-purchasing inside the TAR (to protect themselves from any further uncontrolled influx of Han Chinese) and that they be allowed to regulate many other aspects of the TAR’s economic development at the TAR level, rather than having economic “plans” forced onto them by Beijing.
Honestly, with goodwill I believe these matters could be negotiated relatively easily.
One big reason why this should be more possible today than, say, 40 years ago, is that China’s relations with India are far less tense now than they were then, so the military sensitivity of Tibet, and the fears Beijing may once have had that this distant province might act as a welcoming place for the activities of pro-Indian (anti-Chinese) Fifth Columnists should be a lot less intense than they were then.
Interesting and significant, I think, to see how harshly the Indian authorities seem to have been cracking down on the TPUM people who’ve been trying to organize the “long march” from Daramsala to the border with Tibet.
Of course, Beijing also has extremely ambivalent ideas toward the idea of Tibetan spirituality… Quite a hefty residual heritage of Han Chinese respect for Tibetan Buddhism, yes, as I noted above, but also quite a lot of “Communist”- oriented fears of anything that resembles organized religion.
Chinese officials have, however, expressed concerns in recent years that their younger generations have quite insufficient moral grounding/ moral education; and there has been some open-ness to allowing Buddhist teachers (and even some Christian teachers) to provide this in some cases. But mainly, what Beijing wants to avoid– as in their crackdown on the Falun Gong– is the consolidation of any forms of organized nationwide networks that are not under the CCP’s exclusive control… So maybe in the context of a Dalai Lama-Beijing agreement, the DL would have to promise not to undertake any “evangelizing” or build/support any forms of his own religious networks in areas of China outside the TAR.
Anyway, I am largely speculating, for now, about the possibilities of a DL-Beijing deal. I need to speak to a couple of good friends who know a lot more about this than I do; and then maybe I’ll be able to write something more about the topic here. But I would just note that it is not nearly as unthinkable a prospect as many of the diehard pro-Tibet people in the west seem to think.
Helena, thanks for this — stimulating. I have a series of working questions about TPUM, most especially about their apparently “international strategy.” Even here in Charlottesville last monday (March 10th), I was startled by the well organized pro-tibetan independence march and demonstrations around town (even local shopping centers) — and even the local media coverage they received.
So yes, there indeed is a conscious and deliberate campaign afoot to attain “international legitimacy” for their cause — well beyond what the DL apparently is willing to seek. (Of course, merely “getting it” isn’t the end game, but a means…. )
No doubt, as CH points out, the Chinese government will determine to counter the claims of TPUM…. The Olympics are all about “international prestige.”
I’ll just note that the question of who is the Panchen Lama assumes greater significance with each passing year since, as I understand it, when this incarnation of the DL goes to barda (i.e. dies) then the PL is usually a big influence in both identifying and educating the next DL– and also, during the next DL’s youth the PL can play a big role as a kind of “regent” within the religious hierarchy.
The present DL is a wise, wise old soul. I had the honor of meeting him and talking briefly with him here in C’ville in connection with the book I did on him and other Nobel Peace Laureates. Writing the chapter on him in that book was deeply inspiring and thought-provoking for me.
The fact that there were sizeable pro-Tibet public activities in C’ville last week is not surprising, given the weight of the Tibetan Buddhist studies program at UVA– one of the top ones in the US– and the presence of numerous Tibetan refugee families in town.
Are there any similarities, though, between Tibet and Kosovo? In Kosovo, a majority of people living there wanted to break away. But their action has been condemned as violating Serbia’s sovereignty, and Serbia has invoked historic claims to maintain Kosovo within its borders. Can the same argument be made about Tibet then? That Tibetans calling for independence are violating China’s sovereignty and disregarding China’s historic claims to the area?
This is totally uncomparable to Gaza.
What is happening in Tibet (little) and the exile community (much noise) is much more comparable to a U.S. financed ‘color revolution’ attempt.
I have laid out some hints for U.S. involvement in this here:
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2008/03/tibet-uprising.html
B, thanks for having done all that investigative work. I had certainly noticed portions of that same record of “color revs” involvement with this, but you have pulled it all together excellently there.
I have very mixed feelings about the work of the DC-based “International Center for Nonviolence” and the Boston-based Albert Einstein Center. Historically, the AEC was a small, independent-minded organization, but more recently I think it has joined the ICNV in taking a lot of US government funding– something that I see as, in this context inherently problematic.
Inkan, yes, there are similarities between Tibet and Kosovo; and Tibet and Kurdistan. In all three cases you have some degree of US/western sponsorship for projects aiming at secession of ethnic minority-dominated areas from the rule of long-established central governments whose sovereignty of the areas in question was never previously questioned.
That is another big difference between the Tibet situation and that in Gaza or the West Bank, since Israel has no legitimate and recognized claim to sovereignty in the OPTs.
Hi Helena, thanks for discussing my post. My point in employing the Gaza analogy refers to tactics, specifically a shift away from conciliation to confrontation. I’m not trying to compare the historical or legal merits of the Gazan and Tibetan cases. I think the differences between Gaza and Tibet are material enough that it may have been a major error of tactics by the Tibetans to hope that an insurrection–or its bloody suppression–would generate sufficient global concern to improve Tibet’s international position.
Best
CH
You know China organized those protests in Tibet. It is relatively easy to do, just pay some agitators and have your intelligence forces direct events. Obviously, there has to be some underlying issues to get it going, so they just provided the fuel. The obvious time to protest and get maximum attention would have been during the Olympics, not now.
Governments always penetrate dissident groups, TPUM is likely compromised with Chinese agents and those who come out in support of Tibet will find it difficult to ge a visa if they had plans to go to Beijing for the olympics, which might be part of the plan as well.
They also staged the hijacking by Islamic terrorists from their Xinjiang region which is home to some 8 million Uighurs.
The motive for both is to give China an excuse to put both Tibet and Xinjiang region in lockdown mode until after the Olympics, and discourage or prevent any tourism until it is over. The possibility of a boycott in Tibet is zero. And let me tell you this, if China did not want us to know what was going in Tibet, we would not know.
China has learned a lot from Bush, as well as our CIA activities over the last 60 years, and we have learned from them. Glad we are exporting our values as well as importing theirs, narrows the trade deficit.
So now it’s a CIA conspiracy. Or it’s a Chinese communist conspiracy. Maybe it’s both at the same time….
“Westerners tend to be very supportive of Israel vs. the Palestinians;”
They do???
I can’t help wondering if you’re not confusing the attitude of the ‘average person on the street’ with that of their governments. Obviously, it’s based on anecdotal evidence, but I would say that, outside of the US, most ‘ordinary people’ in the so-called West who have an opinion on Israel-Palestine tend to side with the Palestinians. Also, surveys in various countries indicate that Israel is seen as a great threat to world peace. “Western” governments tend to favour Israel mostly from geo-political reasons (ie. gaining kudos from the US, and fear of Islamist movements like Hamas) but I don’t think their views are neccessarily representative of those of ‘their’ people. Even in the US, far fewer people are staunchly pro-Israel than is commonly assumed.
Good point, Murphy.
Re the attitudes that some people in the US MSM elite bring to the Tibet-China issue, I was completely gobsmacked to listen to the report about Tibet on the ABC network’s main evening newscast yesterday: the way they described the events in Lhasa you would have thought that ALL the casualties there were Tibetan victims of Chinese police/military violence when we know from many other sources that a good portion of them were ethnic Han victims of (apparently) mob violence from ethnic Tibetans. Since I’d just listened to a BBC report in which this latter point was adequately established, the contrast was clear.
Murphy is only half right. He is correct that Western governments are generally more pro-Israel than their citizens, because states tend to favor other states over non-state actors. What he forgot to say is that, for the same reason, Western governments are also much more pro-Chinese than their citizens when it comes to the Tibet question.
Tibet is, as several people have mentioned above, internationally recognized as part of China. As such, what is happening there is not legally an occupation, even if it looks like one, because a country cannot occupy part of itself. To the Westphalians in charge of the present geopolitical system, the Tibetans’ struggle for self-determination, and the sponsored settlement of Han Chinese that has made them a minority in their own land, are purely internal matters.
The Tibetans have thus not received even the lip service that the Palestinians get. Palestine is not juridically part of Israel, the Palestinians’ struggle crosses national borders, and the mandarins of the world like their borders clean. The Tibetans, in contrast, have the misfortune to be oppressed by a majority in their own country, so to other national governments they are as ants.
I posted the Moon of Alabama page link that b gave above to the [DEBATE] list. The [DEBATE] list is based in South Africa but has plenty of US subscribers).
I mean the link about the “colour revolution” industry.
Yoshie Furuhashi then, in response, posted the following link to an item about the forthcoming (April 6-9) “colour rev” jamboree in Kiev, Ukraine, sponsored and organised by the US National Endowment for Democracy. Go to:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnw/20080312/pl_usnw/world_movement_for_democracy_to_meet_in_kyiv
If there’s a color revolution industry, then that’s an industry I feel good about rallying behind for once. 🙂
Well, then, Inkan, you might be interested in some further reading on the related subject of the “branding of Simon Bolivar and the Cuban Revolution”.
In the “colour rev”, a country’s history and actual political economy is displaced by a bland and content-free “colour” enthusiam, pumped up with free rock festivals and all sorts of gimmicks and snake-oil Elmer Gantry-style, Moonie-style induced (and short-lived) mass hysteria.
In this other variation, which you might call “reverse branding”, the target country’s historic imagery is expropriated, absent its political content, to serve as the brand for the contrived bogus “revolution”.
You can read the explanation of how it comes to pass that G W Bush can be found absurdly claiming to be an ‘hijo de Bolivar’ (son of Bolivar)!
The URL is:
http://www.counterpunch.org/valdes03172008.html
Thank you for the article, Dominic. The article actually notes how, as an example, Ernesto Guevara has been reduced to merely a “Che” brand. I think you yourself have been contributing to the reduction of Castro to a brand by insisting on calling him “Fidel”. The article faults Hugo Chavez along with the neocons, for appropriating the name of Simon Bolivar and sticking everything from the Bolivaran Republic to the rest of his “bolivaran” policies as his own brand, the same as George W. Bush did in that incident the article describes.
To tell the truth, I normally dismiss the “color revolution” cliche as lacking meaning. It was convoluted to represent the overthrow in Kyrgyzstan and especially the political movement against Hezbollah and Syria in Lebanon as “color revolutions”. Georgia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Myanmar and Tibet are all very different situations.
However, in his post, “b” tried to impart a brand meaning to the phrase, a negative brand meaning. He was dropping the catchphrase “color revolution” as a pejorative: he expected us to reflexively react negatively to the Tibet situation just by branding it a “color revolution”. I refuse to go that route. I will not automatically reject any political action just because hardline leftists try to brand it a color revolution. So my post was a rejection of “b”‘s negative branding more than anything else. Let’s see what this conference in Kiev actually produces.
I read “b”‘s article in his blog. The activities he asserts the U.S. and the free Tibet movement is organizing include protests, student movements, embarrassing the Chinese government. Well, what’s wrong with embarrassing a government? Or carrying out protests and civil disobedience? I didn’t see anywhere in his article any claims that the US or Free Tibet movement are organizing political assassinations, false flag operations, or say, fake accusations that the Chinese are going to shoot weapons of mass destruction at Taiwan, or some such. Or even violence. Violence has indeed happened; news reports of any violence carried out on Han Chinese by Tibetans needs to be reported. But I haven’t seen any evidence that the Dalai Lama or the US government purposely organized this violence. So I don’t see anything wrong with any of the activities “b” tries to condemn in his blog entry.
Zhao Ziyang and Hu Yaobang were Chinese Communist party leaders who wanted freedom for all citizens of China-including the Tibetans, and the people who demonstrated in Tiananmen Square and who were killed or jailed for it. They were kicked out of their leadership roles by the hardliners, kept incommunicado, and placed under house arrest for the remainder of their lives. To the list of those unjustly jailed by the Chinese government we must now add Yang Chunlin and Hu Jia, prominent Chinese human rights activists, who have been sentenced to 5 years and 3 1/2 years respectively, for advocating freedom, equality under the law, human rights, and protecting the environment.
These hardliners are the people we are dealing with when we urge Chinese negotiation with the Dali Lama. They had no respect even for their own Communist Party Secretary General when he urged humane, compassionate and respectful dialog with the Tiananmen Square protesters.
Only by making credible threats to withhold Olympic attendance or, better yet, suspend trade with China will we ever get any real opportunity to improve human rights in China.
I also urge Olympic athletes to wear black armbands in mourning for the oppressed Tibetans and Han Chinese human rights workers.