the fastest route to a free Tibet

is a free China. Not because the Chinese people will vote for a government that will recognise Tibet’s self-determination (they won’t), but because dismantling the apparatus of oppression in China will make it a lot harder to maintain it in Tibet. Therefore, I am enthusiastic about the goals of the so-called Chinese Jasmine Revolution, even though I have to admit I am not very optimistic about its prospects for success. Gady Epstein has a good summary at Forbes. Check out hashtag #cn220 on Twitter (but don’t believe everything you read). André Holthe translates from the Chinese a post entitled “We are the initiators of the ‘jasmine’ revolution“. Charles Custer reports from the scene in Beijing in a post titled “The Revolution that Wasn’t“; he says that nothing much happened. I would be very surprised if anything much comes of this, but you never know for sure what’s going to happen in the future. 自由万岁! Freedom forever!

Are the Tibetans to blame for the failure of negotiatons?

Barry Sautman’s recent column in South China Morning Post is hard to stomach. Sautman is one of the most notable Western academic defenders of Chinese policies in Tibet. This is a fine thing, since he tends to make rational arguments in favor of his opinions. Even if we don’t agree with his conclusions, his arguments give us an opportunity to reflect more deeply on our own opinions and so see the world more clearly. Obviously, that doesn’t put him above critique, which is richly deserved in the case of his new article, “The Tibetan Impasse”, a response to an earlier article by Lodi Gyari. Sautman’s basic thesis, as stated in his first paragraph, is that, “Three decades of ‘negotiations about negotiations’ between the Dalai Lama’s envoys and Beijing have not made progress because, although exile leaders claim they are not separatists, they continue with assertions and actions that belie that claim.” Thus, he places blame squarely on the shoulders of the Tibetans.

Response to a Chinese intellectual on Tibet

Over at the (excellent, as always) China Geeks blog, a guest poster has provided a translation (“How Chinese Intellectuals Perceive the Tibet Issue“) of an e-mail she received from a professor about the situation in Tibet. The translator, Mindy Zhang, was a Chinese student studying abroad who asked one of her professors (according to the introduction, this professor is a “major figure in the study of International Relations in China”) to give her some information about the Tibet issue. It’s depressing to think that authority figures are passing this kind of thing along to innocent Chinese students in informal situations, even outside of the official propaganda channels. The professor’s explanations show that there is a lot he doesn’t know or is confused about on this topic, assuming that he is not being intentionally deceptive.

Below are some of my responses to the points he raised:

Peter Lee on Tibetan politics and the “state-controlled model”

Writing at Asia Times Online, Peter Lee has a new piece (“China sees US as hedge for Taiwan, Tibet“) which gives a useful and interesting summary of some upcoming issues in the Tibetan political scene, as well as some other topics related to Sino-American politics. I do want to take issue with one turn of phrase he uses — this may seem like a minor point, but I feel that it is important to clarify: discussing the inevitable question of what sort of political conflict will develop between the Chinese government and the Tibetans when it comes time to find the next Dalai Lama, Lee writes, “The new governor of the Tibetan Autonomous Region declared that designation of the next Dalai Lama would strictly adhere to the state-controlled model dating to the Qing Dynasty: selection by lot from a golden urn under government supervision”.

The Future of Tibet

As we find ourselves again at the anniversary of the 1959 Lhasa uprising, it seems natural to wonder about what the future holds for Tibet. As far as any significant political breakthroughs, the situation for the foreseeable future remains quite bleak. There is no evidence that the current Chinese government has any interest in any kind of compromise, and no reason to believe that the next generation will, either. There might be a leadership struggle in Beijing in 2012, but, as far as Tibet is concerned, it is likely to be between bad and worse, or, perhaps, between two equally bad elements. Unless the power struggle is so destructive as to radically reduce the PRC’s ability to exercise power (which would necessarily also introduce a dangerous tendency toward chaos), it is very unlikely that it will result directly in a more conciliatory approach. Another change of leadership would be expected in 2022, and by then it’s hypothetically possible that a healthy liberalising trend would emerge, but that is a long way off.

Ngabo Ngawang Jigme (1910 – 2009)

Ngabo Ngawang Jigme died a few days ago, just two months short of his 100th birthday. For good or ill, Ngabo had been one of the major figures in Tibetan politics since the 1940s. The scion of an aristocratic family, he rose through the ranks of the old Tibetan government to become one of the four members of the Kashag, which was generally the highest rank below the ruler. In 1950, at a crucial moment in Tibet’s history, the Kashag appointed Ngabo the governor of Kham (which in practice meant the area around Chamdo) and the commander-in-chief of the Tibetan forces on the frontier with Chinese-controlled territory; this was just as the new People’s Republic of China was consolidating its rule over the eastern Tibetan areas and moving its armies into place to attack the Tibetan government’s territory. Ngabo felt that it was futile to meet the Chinese with arms and that the only hope lay in a negotiated surrender; thus, when the People’s Liberation Army advanced on Chamdo, Ngabo surrendered. Ngabo became the Tibetan government’s lead negotiator in the talks that produced the 17 Point Agreement by which Tibet acquiesced to joining the PRC. He ignored the instructions given by the Kashag as utterly unrealistic and argued that if Lhasa disapproved of the agreement he signed they could simply refuse to ratify it.

The seed of a new Tibet policy in Kham?

The ICT reports on an interesting, if temporary and idiosyncratic, development in rural Dhrango County in Kham (near Nyarong; outside of the Tibet Autonomous Region): at the time of the Dalai Lama’s birthday a couple months ago, instead of preventing the public from celebrating, local officials actively promoted the celebrations.  They apparently handed out photographs of the Dalai Lama and, according to one source, they even “gave a speech in praise of the Dalai Lama”! It’s not unprecedented for CCP officials in rural areas to organise religious festivals, such as, for instance, a festival honoring a local god or King Gesar, etc.;  but a living political figure is something different, and the Dalai Lama is normally considered radioactive in Chinese politics.

About the Sperling-Lobsang Sangay controversy

Thanks for posting about the Elliot Sperling-Lobsang Sangay dissension, Jigme. I had actually intended to do a post on the Sperling article when it first came out, but, unfortunately, I got a bit wrapped up in non-blogging responsibilities. I found Lobsang Sangay’s response quite disappointing, both because I have a favorable impression of him (I lack any qualifications to assess his merits as a potential Kalön Thripa, but I like his bearing) and because I think there is a valid critique to be made of Sperling’s conclusions. And yet, Lobsang Sangay seems to respond only with invective. I don’t think it’s a fair criticism to simply accuse him of orientalism. His arguments make sense — it is very difficult to see how a free Tibet can be achieved through China’s legal system. The problem is that, when  you lack any good options, simply demonstrating the faults of Option A doesn’t prove that Option B is going to work well. So, the question must be: if genuine autonomy is a very difficult goal, how is independence going to be achieved instead? Personally, I agree with Lobsang Sangay that there is a better chance of making gains by supporting the Middle Way plan (or going further, even, and simply asking that Tibet be given exactly the same status as Hong Kong), but, unfortunately, I don’t think that this particular contribution to the debate actually helps make that case.

“What about the other 55?”

Over at the blog Chinageeks, the proprietor, C. Custer, takes a skeptical view, to put it mildly, of Tibetan independence and the Free Tibet movement. In part of a response to a comment on his post about a Free Tibet concert in Taiwan, Custer writes, “What about other ethnic minorities, shouldn’t they get countries too?” I wanted to highlight this because it’s a line I hear pretty frequently, often in the form of “China has 55 ethnic minority peoples — they can’t all become independent (or have home rule), can they?”

A Chinese think tank investigates the roots of the March 2008 violence

In May, the Open Constitution Initiative, a Chinese think tank based in Beijing, also known simply as Gongmeng, published a investigative report detailing their view of the causes underlying the violence in Lhasa in March of 2008. The International Campaign for Tibet recently put an English translation of the report up on their site.