Mystery Man from Beijing

By Therang Buengu

As the upheavals of March settle into a new layer of memory, there are still a few things that linger in my mind. Among them, one still evokes in me a strange excitement every time I think about it. The mystery man from Beijing: who really is he?

In the first few days of the uprising, a person using the name of Jigme Namgyal started writing scathing articles in the Chinese language, critical of Beijing’s Tibet policy. Within a few weeks, Jigme Namgyal published seven lengthy articles–a total of 30,000 or so characters. What profoundly impressed me was not the length and prolificness of his writings, but rather his intimate knowledge of Beijing’s Tibet policy making circle , his intense frustration with the Beijing leadership’s short sightedness on Tibet policy and his ability to express his thoughts and feelings–yes, feelings: this guy is not pretending he is a detached analyst–his articles are filled with anger, frustration and often bitter pessimism. Then at the end of May, just as he appeared suddenly out of the stormy sky, the mystery man from Beijing disappeared into the darkness of Beijing’s insistence on a hardline policy on Tibet. We haven’t seen his writing again. Still don’t know who he or she is.

The Economy of Tibet at a Glance (Part I)

Overall Growth in the TAR

Nominal GDP: In 2000 – 11.78 billion yuan (US $1.47 billion)
In 2007 – 34 billion yuan (US $4.5 billion)
-In 2005 the tertiary sector contributed more than half of the TAR’s GDP growth

-Public education and healthcare are widespread in the Tibetan rural areas, although they are undersupplied and often of very poor quality relative to the rest of China

Disproportional Growth in Urban and Rural Tibetan Areas

-The Tibetan areas today can thus be described as two economies – the rural subsistence economy, based on individual landholdings and accounting for 85 percent of Tibetans in the TAR (2000 census), and the urban modern economy, based largely on government administration, services, military, construction, and increasingly, tourism.

The Younghusband Expedition (1903-1904)

By Jigme Duntak

In 1898, Lord George Curzon had been appointed as Viceroy of British India. By December 1903 Curzon had dispatched a British force of three thousand soldiers, heavily made up of Afghans and Gurkhas from British India, in order to deal with the harsh Himalayan terrain, along with seven thousand support troops into Tibet. The military contingent was led by Brigadier General J.R. MacDonald and Major Francis Younghusband under the public pretext of solving “trading difficulties” through a “peaceful mission”.[1] The same pretext had been used for British interventions in Burma, however, the actual reason and causes for this British expedition, which later developed into a violent military mission, were much more complex. Lord Curzon’s decision to orchestrate a forced entry into Tibet was based on his strong belief, that across the northern deserts, Russia had been intruding and exerting her influence in Tibet. The public portrayal of the expedition as a means of negotiating small frontier and trade disputes was also a legitimate motive for the British. The negotiations that took place upon the expedition’s arrival in Lhasa (September 1904 Lhasa Convention) are a testament of this. Tibet was a region that had been shrouded in mystery due to the isolationist policies imposed by both Tibet and its suzerain, China. Thus the expedition was also spurred out of European curiosities to explore a land that was highly romanticized in European minds.

Hell on Earth – The Tibet Myth

By Jigme Duntak

In 1979 a book titled Great Changes in Tibet was published in the People’s Republic of China. Within this book the early 20^th century Tibetan society, prior to its occupation by the PRC in 1950, is described as a “hell on earth where the labouring people suffered for centuries under the darkest and most reactionary forms of feudal serfdom.”[1] This depiction of traditional Tibetan society is promoted and maintained by the PRC who argue that before 1959 all but 5 percent of the entire Tibetan population were slaves or serfs in a feudalistic system where they were treated as “saleable private property”.[2] Consequently, the PRC perceives itself not as the invaders of Tibet in 1950 but rather as the liberators of the serf and slave masses that had comprised the other 95 percent of the population. This perception of Tibet has also become increasingly spread throughout the West through works like Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth by Michael Parenti in which he writes of a pre-Communist Tibet characterized by oppression, manipulation, mutilation and torture.

In spite of what is depicted in the works of Parenti and the PRC, it should be addressed as to why it is inaccurate to depict the early 20^th century pre-Communist labour systems in Tibet as a system characterized by abusive “feudal serfdom”.