This post will focus on Tibet. Both the Dalai Lama and high ranking Chinese officials are intimating that change is in the air regarding policy towards dissident Tibetans. But before discussing these new developments let's review the situation in Tibet as of 2010 when I last posted on the subject. My blog entry then was a review of the geo-political history of Tibet vis-a-vis China. At around the same time a Congressional Report on the visit of a U.S. Senate delegation led by then Senators Kerry (D-MA) and Lugar (R-IN) was released. Now buried in the Congressional archives this report is startling for its revelations of the immense progress that has occurred in Tibet over the last decade. This report has the imprimatur of the ever critical US government so it is no whitewash. Let's read some of its observations.
The delegation entered Tibet by travelling 25 hours on the newly opened Qinghai‐Tibet railway, which connects Golmud in northwest Qinghai Province with Lhasa. The “Great Train” is an engineering marvel, built across more than 700 miles of permafrost at altitudes ranging from 11,000 to nearly 17,000 feet.
Staff members enjoyed several hours of unaccompanied time each morning and evening. Chinese officials made no effort to impede our meanderings through the city during off hours. In addition to our official meetings, each day we travelled unescorted around Lhasa, observing city life and chatting with a variety of residents and visitors to the city.
The delegation was impressed by the scale and scope of the economic transformation that is obviously underway in Tibet and other parts of Western China. The region’s transportation infrastructure has been transformed over the past decade, as a massive investment by the central government has produced thousands of miles of new highways, hundreds of bridges and tunnels, dozens of airports, and most significantly for the future of Tibet, the Qinghai‐Lhasa rail link (soon to be extended from Lhasa to Xigaze in Western Tibet).
The region obviously has enjoyed high growth rates for many years. The growth is spurred by massive central government subsidies and investment. Officials told us that the central government provides 93 percent of the budget of the Tibetan Autonomous Region. The central government’s investment has not been limited only to the transportation sector. According to Chinese authorities, the government has completed 80% of roughly 225,000 units of “safe and comfortable” housing, designed ultimately to provide modern accommodations for 1.2 million Tibetans. An important underlying truth: average Tibetans are better housed today than before. Tibetans said they were grateful to have housing that is warm and has electric power, running water, and modern appliances. Members of the delegation were able to confirm both the extent of this massive housing initiative, and the generally appreciative Tibetan attitude about it, both in the TAR and in other Tibetan regions.
The government has also made a significant investment in education over the past decade, although by its own admission, Tibetans still lag behind ethnic Han Chinese in educational achievement and opportunity. Until recently, Tibetans had few options for higher education close to home. The staff delegation visited the very modern, just completed Lhasa campus of Tibet University (8,000 students) and met with professors and scholars engaged in research on ancient Tibetan Buddhist scriptures. Other faculty, students, and staff are working to develop Linux and Microsoft compatible Tibetan language software. The professors, some ethnic Tibetan, others ethnic Han, were excited to share their work with the staff delegation. They displayed obvious dedication to the mission of the university, namely; bringing higher education and new opportunities to a generation of Tibetans.
Tibetans enjoy many special privileges, especially the ability for a married couple to have more than one child. Apart from exemption from the “one family, one child” rule, Tibetans receive some other special benefits, including preferential access to elite universities for those few who qualify based on test scores and completion of high school.
Indeed, a surprising finding is that Han migration appears to be occurring organically, and does not appear to be the result of a deliberate Chinese government policy to populate Tibet with non‐Tibetans. The migration of ethnic Han settlers to Tibet is more the byproduct of Chinese economic development strategies than a goal of them. Most of the Chinese migrants with whom we talked did not have a hukou (residency permit) for Tibet, and therefore were not eligible for subsidized health care, housing, and education. In other words, most were technically illegal migrants, who had to pay for health care, education for their children, and apartments. Moreover, since they do not possess a Tibet hukou, the migrants are not tallied on official government census forms as living in Tibet. This helps explain how Chinese authorities can claim that the population of Tibet is 90% Tibetan (and 95% minority, overall).
Intensive cultural restoration and preservation efforts are underway. Our general impression is that throughout Tibetan regions of China, there are massive investments being made to restore sites of religious and historical significance, and in some cases expand them. Some of the restoration work is being carried out with central government funding, while other efforts, particularly outside of the TAR, are being privately financed by donors and through the revenue generated by tourists. Officials in charge of cultural preservation proudly announced that since 2001, the government has spent more than 1.4B yuan (more than $200 million) inside the TAR to help reconstruct and renovate cultural sites damaged during the Cultural Revolution.
Over the course of our brief visit to Tibet and Tibetan regions of western China, staff found that the situation defies simple explanation. Rapid economic development has produced real improvements in the quality of life, lifting hundreds of thousands of Tibetans out of poverty and bringing new opportunities to most of the residents of the rooftop of the world. Infrastructure improvements not only serve Chinese national security needs, but also allow goods to travel to market, students to reach schools, and doctors to treat the sick. Hydro and solar power plants are electrifying the Tibetan plateau, giving humble yak herders access to satellite television and cell phones with digital cameras. Tibetans are living longer, healthier, and more productive lives. As Tibet is integrated into modern China, Tibetans are enjoying new opportunities in China and even abroad, and many are seizing them.
Now everything that is mentioned above is from a US Congressional Whitepaper on Tibet which can be downloaded in full here. It would appear that Chinese policy towards Tibet is exemplary and worthy of emulation. None of the progress observed there would have been possible without massive amounts of investment by the Chinese government. If Tibet was "free" it would assuredly be an impoverished backwater similar to other Himalayan countries and regions such as Nepal and rural regions of northern India and the people of Tibet would be living a harsh, superstition laden life much as their forebears had. Now I know some will say, well isn't that better than losing your Tibetan identity? All I can say is I don't see those people who are critics of China's role in Tibet returning to live in the hovels that served as their own ancestors abodes. So why all the fuss about Tibet and why the self-immolations by Tibetan monks?
First off, the geo-politics of the relationship between Tibet and China proper has to be taken into account. That is discussed in my previous post. To cut to the chase Tibet sits astride the soft underbelly of China and has been a geo-political sore spot for decades, even before the founding of modern China. The British imperialists and their successors, the Americans, have had no fonder wish than to tear Tibet away from China so that it could become a pawn in their attempts to destabilize China, dismember it and effect regime change. If Tibet was under American suzerainty it could serve as a staging area for further interference into China's internal affairs. Given our tack record of foreign interventionism, who can doubt that? So the CIA and other U.S. governmental agencies have always had the goal of fomenting strife in Tibet and what better way than using the Dalai Lama as its cat's paw in the region.
Secondly, there are real tensions in Tibet. The Chinese are the first to admit that gross injustices occurred during the Cultural Revolution nearly half a century ago. With the exile of the CIA backed Dalai Lama, a rump government in exile exists to channel Tibetan grievances into oppositional activities. Many monks have thus become politicized by loyalty to their religious leader. Rebellions and dissent fomented by acolytes of the Dalai Lama have led to harsh crackdowns on monasteries that give aid and comfort to opposition leaders and their followers.
There are also tensions brought on by the unprecedented economic growth seen in Tibet over the last decade. The Congressional Report brings these conflicts and contradictions clearly into view. Even though government policy supports the preservation and promotion of Tibetan language and culture, Han Chinese attitudes towards Tibetans at the popular level are prejudicial. Such attitudes are, unfortunately, a sad part of human nature. As mentioned above there has been a vast influx of Han Chinese into Tibet as economic opportunities abound and transportation has eased. Integrating Tibet into China will effect vast socio-cultural and demographic changes in Tibet which will necessarily elicit and exacerbate new tensions between native Tibetans and other ethnicities in China. These are side effects of the rise of China as a modern, industrialized nation state.
Our criticisms of China's policy towards Tibet thus must be tempered by reality. China has done more than nearly any country in improving the material living conditions of its minority peoples and in preserving and protecting their cultural heritage. But modernization of traditional societies and their integration into the Chinese nation is fraught with potential conflicts and contradictions. It is the height of hypocrisy for middle class European Americans in sunny California to bemoan the fate of Tibet while they trod over land stolen from California's indigenous people who were met with genocide, the stealing of their resources, the decimation of their cultures and the loss of their languages.
Well with all of that out of the way what about the recent news from Tibet. Two interesting developments suggest that the balance of power is shifting in Tibet. The self-immolations to my mind are the last desperate attempt by diehard supporters of Tibetan independence to destabilize the situation and embarrass China. As Tibet continues to progress, modernize and integrate into the 21st century more and more Tibetans will become sinified and secularized. The power and influence of the Tibetan Buddhist hierarchy will begin to deminish at an ever quickening pace. It is only natural that as the threat of Tibet splintering from China diminishes Chinese policy towards Tibetan grievances will moderate. That is what the two news stories that were previously mentioned seem to indicate.
One article, "Tibetan self-immolations having little effect, Dalai Lama says," suggests that the Dalai Lama has implicitly supported the self-immolations, as he states that they are "understandable." It now seems that these religiously motivated suicides are not having their intended effect and may actually be backfiring. They are in reality no different than suicide bombings in their ideological inspiration if not their collateral damage and should be considered acts of terrorism. Perhaps the Tibetan separatists led by the Dalai Lama are realizing that the jig is up and they must now seek some form of accommodation with their Chinese adversaries.
The second article, "Is Tide Turning for Tibet Policy," shows a similar movement on the Chinese side. There is a debate emerging between the hard-liners who feel that the Dalai Lama is still seeking to separate Tibet from China and advocates of soft-power who want to engage dissident Tibetans and effect some sort of conciliation. As it turns out the father of new Chinese President Xi Jinping was a liberal Communist leader who had a friendship with the Dalai lama and held him in high esteem ("Does China's New Leader Have a Soft Spot for Tibet?"). So all in all the situation in Tibet is much more complex and fluid than meets the Western eye. It is up to the Chinese people of all nationalities to resolve their own problems. We do not countenance others telling us how to resolve our domestic conflicts, of which we have many, so it is none of our business telling China how to resolve theirs.
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