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.
