By Manik Mehta
German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s reception of the Dalai Lama in September last year has caused relations between China and Germany to take on a frosty air. Taiwan Journal regular contributor Manik Mehta investigates the implications of Merkel’s decision and China’s reaction.
The Chinese Communist party mouthpiece Global Times has been mocking and bitterly attacking German Chancellor Angela Merkel ever since she demonstrated courage, in the face of vociferous protests from Beijing, to receive Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, in the Chancery Sept. 23, 2007.
The newspaper, which usually dedicates scant attention to foreign parties and their policies, gave prominent coverage on its front page to an internal policy paper called “Asian Strategy” that Merkel’s conservative ruling party, the Christian Democratic Union, had prepared. The Chinese say the German chancellor received the Dalai Lama not because of domestic political calculations, but because–as the increasingly paranoid and insecure Beijing leadership suspects–Merkel and her party are pursuing a “dangerous agenda” aimed at encouraging the Dalai Lama to carry out his “splittist designs” against China.
What is particularly conspicuous about the Chinese leadership is that it has singled out Merkel for an unusually long tirade. While other world leaders such as Austrian Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer, U.S. President George W. Bush or the Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper have also received the Dalai Lama, the Chinese anger against them was short-lived.
Of course, the Chinese made the usual noises and lodged protests with these leaders, but they also made sure that the matter did not spin out of control. However, in the case of Merkel, German analysts attribute the continuing annoyance to the CDU’s paper, which the Chinese fear, could also influence other European countries that may be inclined to receive the Dalai Lama and even raise questions about China’s sovereignty over Tibet at some point in the future.
The CDU’s paper raised the question of China’s system of government, a reference to the repressive Communist regime that rules the nation of 1.3 billion people. The paper also calls for a new definition to the West’s position in a world that is becoming “less and less Euro-Atlantic centric.” Merkel’s party has been urging Europe to support the American position in the Far East. “We support the role of the United States as a power guaranteeing security in Asia.” In other words, the CDU’s paper aims to arrest the influence of China’s rising power. In China’s eyes, the CDU is prodding Germany and Europe toward a new clash of the East-West systems.
Reacting angrily to Merkel receiving the Dalai Lama, Beijing promptly canceled a number of meetings with German officials, including one on human rights in China, and another between Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries and her Chinese counterpart. Peer Steinbruck, the finance minister, also had an official visit canceled, but it is hoped that Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel’s trip will go ahead at the end of January as planned. China has openly told the German side that the cancelation was due to the reception accorded to the exiled Tibetan leader in the Chancery.
Taiwan and Tibet are two issues that ring alarm bells in Beijing whenever any country officially interacts with politicians or official representatives of these two regions. While China would like Taiwan to “reunite” with the “motherland,” it claims Tibet as an “integral part” of the Chinese nation. Thus, any Western leader even seen shaking hands with Tibet’s de facto leader or with Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian is bound to anger the paranoid and over-sensitive Communist leadership of China which typically reacts with the “don’t-meddle-in-our-internal-affairs” charge.
Merkel has dismissed the criticism, arguing that as chancellor she will decide whom, when and where to receive foreign dignitaries. A combative Merkel even snubbed her Foreign Minister and Vice-Chancellor Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who described the welcome mat laid out for the Dalai Lama as a “mistake.” Merkel said that by receiving the Dalai Lama she was not trying to derail Germany’s “one-China policy.” Indeed, she urged the Chinese leadership to seek direct talks with the Dalai Lama.
But German-Chinese relations have become frosty not just because of Merkel receiving the Dalai Lama. Earlier, during her official visit to China at the end of August last year, Merkel had been asking penetrating questions about the human-rights situation in that country. The Chinese were also annoyed that Merkel had not indicated during the visit to Beijing about her intention to receive the Dalai Lama, an act that created “strong political symbolism” to the world about “the Tibetan problem.” The Chinese government views the Dalai Lama as not just the spiritual leader of Tibet but also as a political figure–a “splittist,” as Beijing calls him–who from his exile in Dharamsala, India, continues to pose a symbol of opposition to the Communist regime.
For the Chinese government, the Dalai Lama and his “foreign clique” are tools in the hands of hostile forces abroad, whose sole aim is to oppose China’s sovereignty. The Dalai Lama’s assurances that he only wants autonomy for Tibet appear implausible to the Chinese because, according to them, he continues to adhere to two internal papers of the 1980s prepared by his strategists, promoting the independence of Tibet as a long-term goal.
But China’s insistence on its uncontested right to exercise sovereignty over Tibet is part of the myth about Tibet. Beijing adheres to the fiction that China’s territorial unity was maintained for 5,000 years through coherent and intact real estate. Since the 13th century, there has been a close priest-patron relationship between the senior-most Buddhist order and the Mongolian Khan, which flourished even after the Khan became emperor of China. The emperor also remained the military protector of Tibet. The Manchu emperor of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) maintained this relationship in the 18th century, when the Dalai Lama enjoyed extensive autonomy.
When the People’s Liberation Army invaded and occupied Tibet in 1950, it perverted facts and described its occupation of Tibet as a “liberation”; the Dalai Lama’s government, on the other hand, had maintained all along that it had represented an independent state. The Chinese Communist regime cannot use the former priest-patron relationship as a justification in international law to claim national sovereignty over the region. After all, the Tibetans have never regarded themselves as subjects of China, but if at all, of the Mongolian and Manchurians emperors.
After the overthrow of the emperors, the Dalai Lama declared Tibet as independent in 1913. In 1914, Britain, as the regional power and protector, offered guarantee for Tibet’s self-administration despite the sovereignty umbrella of pre-Communist China. In any case, the Communist People’s Republic did not assume the role of Tibet’s protector after it took the reins of power on the mainland. Though the Communist regime did initially grant the Buddhist hierarchy relative autonomy, it began immediately after the violent suppression of the Tibetan revolt of 1959 to brutally subjugate and suppress the monks and their culture, with the crackdown reaching its high point during the infamous Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). The Dalai Lama had, meanwhile, fled to India.
Western leaders, facing constant Chinese pressure, are no longer calling for Tibet’s independence. German politicians, including two such opposing figures as Roland Koch and Antje Vollmer, who are usually poles apart in their world view, consider it important to allow the Dalai Lama to return to his country in order to give Tibetan culture and religion genuine self-expression rather than try to provide this guidance from exile.
The question many German experts often ask is whether China’s “system” is replaceable by another system through a course of confrontation. If experiences of the past decades are any indication, issues such as “human rights” and “democracy” have put China on the defensive. China has instituted reforms only if they appeared expedient to its leadership and only if they caused no harm to the country’s “stability” that was the topmost priority.
The Chinese may be irritated by Merkel’s pro-active interest in Tibet, but the chancellor has received strong support from the German public. Germans representing a cross-section of society have endorsed her initiative, as evidenced in letters received by her office and to editors of newspapers as well as Internet blogs supporting the decision to receive the Dalai Lama.
But the German business community’s response has not been as warm, and is seen by the German public as again shamelessly dropping to its knees before Chinese leaders in return for lucrative contracts.
Jurgen Thumann, president of the Federation of German Industries, urged the government to enter “constructive dialogue” with China and avoid putting business relations at risk. China is Germany’s second-biggest export customer outside Europe, and carmakers, chemical firms and makers of industrial machinery are relying on it for growth. While these flows are unlikely to be affected in the short term, bilateral deals are more vulnerable with many joint-ventures still in the pipeline.
The cooling of relations between Germany and China signify that at the very least, countries that have any contact with the Dalai Lama or Taiwan will have their future relations characterized by the reputed ancient Chinese proverb: “May you live in interesting times.”
