With Chinese Olympic pragmatism promising a change in attitudes, Tom Mountford argues that the future could be bright for Tibet
Forty-six years ago the Dalai Lama left Tibet and went into exile with over 100,000 of his Tibetan compatriots. Four years ago the Chinese government and the Tibetan community in exile began official talks. Yet thus far the pace has been glacial; where will this process lead?
Tibet lies in far western China – covering a huge sway of land across some of the most inhospitable terrain in the world. To integrate Tibet within China, the Chinese government has undertaken a mass colonisation programme in the province. This has involved offering valuable incentives for ethnic Han Chinese to migrate to the area and artificially propping up new industries to support the expanding population; Tibet is a huge economic drain on the Chinese government. The military presence is heavy and the Chinese have integrated the province by engineering road and rail links to support this military presence. From a Chinese governmental perspective this policy has its advantages; many now argue that it would be impossible for Tibet to go back to being an independent state and that its very culture has been subsumed by this deliberate Chinese policy.
Now that negotiations are in progress one of the trickiest questions is what would happen if the population in exile did return. Although the Chinese sought to create a class of successful Tibetans that they hoped would align itself with Chinese interests, the two communities are still very interconnected. Many of the successful Tibetan elite still send their children to be educated in Dharamasala in North India, with the exile community.
In 2003, I travelled through the Chinese provinces bordering Tibet, home to large Tibetan communities. The monks that I met there talked of the epic journeys they had made, walking around Tibet to the Nepalese border and hoping to bribe their way past the Nepalese border guards. The Tibetans tend to make this odyssey in large groups, travelling in the spirit of pilgrimage – a testament to the sense of community that still links the separated Tibetan communities.
The Tibetans have placed their culture before their politics for some time now. The Panchen Lama, second only to the Dalai Lama in the hierarchy of Tibetan Buddhism, famously argued that demands for a free Tibet should be renounced in order to preserve Tibetan culture. He argued that the independence campaign only scared the Chinese into persecution of Tibetans and restriction of their culture.
The Dalai Lama eventually accepted this, shocking many of the Tibetan community in exile when he visited the European Parliament in Strasbourg in 1980 and called not for Tibetan independence, but for a largely autonomous Tibetan state within China.
The 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing are rapidly approaching and yet China’s image is still marred by the issue of Tibet. The country has gone to huge lengths to secure itself a leading role in the world, and being awarded the Olympics delighted the Chinese people who took it as proof of China’s growing international standing. Yet politically the Chinese government realises that the Olympics require handling with the softest of kid-gloves. The eyes of the world will be focused on China in the lead-up to 2008, and during the games themselves there will be unprecedented numbers of Western journalists on the ground.
At a talk delivered in Oxford recently, the Sino-Tibetan expert and journalist Isobel Hilton spoke of a friend in Beijing who went out to dinner with some Communist Party officials recently. As the alcohol flowed, they revealed the great anxiety within governmental circles that Taiwan might declare independence from China on the opening day of the Olympics. How could China retaliate then, in the spotlight of the international media?
Yet for all the political difficulties that the Olympics present, most experts agree that the games are a great opportunity for China. If the Chinese were to succeed in making an agreement with the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan community in exile, this would be the best kind of publicity the Chinese government could hope for. As the country continues the process of reform initiated by Deng Xiaoping in the 1970s this could transform the perception of China in the west.
Yet there are a number of stumbling blocks to agreement. Crucially, the Dalai Lama would never return to Tibet or China until the Chinese reveal the whereabouts and the status of the Panchen Lama. After the death of the previous Panchen Lama the Dalai Lama had followed the traditional Tibetan Buddhism method to identify the new incarnation, who was at that time only a boy of six. Yet the Chinese government refused to allow the Dalai Lama such power, placing the boy under house arrest and appointing their own, the so-called ‘Chinese’ Panchen Lama. The whereabouts of the original Panchen Lama are still unknown.
Hilton believes that in negotiations the Dalai Lama should hold out for a return to the 1950s situation, whereby the Dalai Lama was allowed to live in Tibet and the province had a large degree of political autonomy. Previously the Chinese have only talked about the Dalai Lama living in Beijing, under their watchful eyes. Within Chinese political circles there are two opposing currents of thought, hinging on the question of whether it is better to find a political settlement with the Tibetans before or after the Dalai Lama’s death. Given the Dalai Lama’s huge personal standing many argue the Chinese government would be foolish not to find an accommodation through him.
After his death there is the possibility that the Tibetan community in exile might fragment. Would his successor not try to establish his standing by maintaining an uncompromising stance in negotiations? As Hilton points out, the Tibetans can only make one big return, yet the cards are stacked in their favour to obtain many of their demands. Olympic rings and political hurdles to come, but 2008 might just be the year of progress for Sino-Tibetan relations.
