Chinese views on Tibet: The cry of Tibet

————————- by Wang Lixiong ————————-

Tuesday, 10 June 2008, 3:30 p.m.

The
recent troubles in Tibet are a replay of events that happened two
decades ago. On Oct. 1, 1987, Buddhist monks were demonstrating
peacefully at the Barkor — the famous market street around the central
cathedral in Lhasa — when police began beating and arresting them. To
ordinary Tibetans, who view monks as “treasures,” the sight was
intolerable — not only in itself, but because it stimulated unpleasant
memories that Tibetan Buddhists had been harboring for years.

A
few angry young men then began throwing stones at the Barkor police
station. More and more joined, and then they set fires, overturned cars
and began shouting “Independence for Tibet!” This is almost exactly
what we saw in Lhasa two weeks ago.

The fundamental cause of
these recurrent events is a painful dilemma that lives inside the minds
of Tibetan monks. When the Chinese government demands that they
denounce their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, monks are forced to
choose between obeying, which violates their deepest spiritual
convictions, and resisting, which can lead to loss of government
registry and physical expulsion from monasteries.

From time
to time monks have used peaceful demonstrations to express their
anguish. When they have done this, an insecure Chinese government, bent
on “annihilating unstable elements” in the “emergent stage,” has
reacted with violent repression. This, in turn, triggers violence from
Tibetans.

In recent decades, the Chinese government’s policy
for pacifying Tibet has been to combine the allure of economic
development on the one hand with the threat of force on the other.
Experience has shown that this approach does not work.

The
most efficient route to peace in Tibet is through the Dalai Lama, whose
return to Tibet would immediately alleviate a number of problems. Much
of the current ill will, after all, is a direct result of the Chinese
government’s verbal attacks on the Dalai Lama, who, for Tibetan monks,
has an incomparably lofty status. To demand that monks denounce him is
about as practical as asking that they vilify their own parents.

It
should be no surprise that beatings of monks and closings of
monasteries naturally stimulate civil unrest, or that civil unrest,
spawned in this way, can turn violent.

Why aren’t these
simple truths more obvious? Phuntsog Wanggyal, a Tibetan now retired in
Beijing who for years was a leading Communist official in Tibet, has
observed that a doctrine of “anti-splittism” has taken root among
Chinese government officials who deal with religion and minority
affairs, both in central offices in Beijing and in Tibet. Having
invested their careers in anti-splittism, these people cannot admit
that the idea is mistaken without losing face and, they fear, losing
their own power and position as well.

Their ready-made tag
for everything that goes wrong is “hostile foreign forces” — an enemy
that justifies any kind of harsh or unreasoning repression. When
repeated endlessly, anti-splittism, although originally vacuous, does
take on a kind of solidity. Careers are made in it, and challenging it
becomes impossible.

I am a supporter of the Dalai Lama’s
“middle way,” meaning autonomy for Tibet in all matters except foreign
affairs and national defense. This arrangement eventually would have to
mean that Tibetan people select their own leaders — and that would be
a major change from the way things are now. Tibet is called an
“autonomous region,” but in fact its officials are all named by
Beijing, and are all tightly focused on their own personal interests
and the interests of the Communist Party. Tibetans can clearly see the
difference between this kind of government and self-rule, and there is
no way that they will support bogus autonomy.

It follows —
even if this is a tall order — that the ultimate solution to the Tibet
problem must be democratization of the Chinese political system itself.
True autonomy cannot come any other way.

It is time for the
Chinese government to take stock of why its long-term strategy in Tibet
has not worked, and to try something else. The old problems remain, and
they are sure to continue, perhaps in places like the “Uighur
Autonomous Region” of Xinjiang, if a more sensible approach is not
attempted.

Chinese views on Tibet: The cry of Tibet

————————- by Wang Lixiong ————————-

Tuesday, 10 June 2008, 3:30 p.m.

The
recent troubles in Tibet are a replay of events that happened two
decades ago. On Oct. 1, 1987, Buddhist monks were demonstrating
peacefully at the Barkor — the famous market street around the central
cathedral in Lhasa — when police began beating and arresting them. To
ordinary Tibetans, who view monks as “treasures,” the sight was
intolerable — not only in itself, but because it stimulated unpleasant
memories that Tibetan Buddhists had been harboring for years.

A
few angry young men then began throwing stones at the Barkor police
station. More and more joined, and then they set fires, overturned cars
and began shouting “Independence for Tibet!” This is almost exactly
what we saw in Lhasa two weeks ago.

The fundamental cause
of these recurrent events is a painful dilemma that lives inside the
minds of Tibetan monks. When the Chinese government demands that they
denounce their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, monks are forced to
choose between obeying, which violates their deepest spiritual
convictions, and resisting, which can lead to loss of government
registry and physical expulsion from monasteries.

From
time to time monks have used peaceful demonstrations to express their
anguish. When they have done this, an insecure Chinese government, bent
on “annihilating unstable elements” in the “emergent stage,” has
reacted with violent repression. This, in turn, triggers violence from
Tibetans.

In recent decades, the Chinese government’s
policy for pacifying Tibet has been to combine the allure of economic
development on the one hand with the threat of force on the other.
Experience has shown that this approach does not work.

The
most efficient route to peace in Tibet is through the Dalai Lama, whose
return to Tibet would immediately alleviate a number of problems. Much
of the current ill will, after all, is a direct result of the Chinese
government’s verbal attacks on the Dalai Lama, who, for Tibetan monks,
has an incomparably lofty status. To demand that monks denounce him is
about as practical as asking that they vilify their own parents.

It
should be no surprise that beatings of monks and closings of
monasteries naturally stimulate civil unrest, or that civil unrest,
spawned in this way, can turn violent.

Why aren’t these
simple truths more obvious? Phuntsog Wanggyal, a Tibetan now retired in
Beijing who for years was a leading Communist official in Tibet, has
observed that a doctrine of “anti-splittism” has taken root among
Chinese government officials who deal with religion and minority
affairs, both in central offices in Beijing and in Tibet. Having
invested their careers in anti-splittism, these people cannot admit
that the idea is mistaken without losing face and, they fear, losing
their own power and position as well.

Their ready-made
tag for everything that goes wrong is “hostile foreign forces” — an
enemy that justifies any kind of harsh or unreasoning repression. When
repeated endlessly, anti-splittism, although originally vacuous, does
take on a kind of solidity. Careers are made in it, and challenging it
becomes impossible.

I am a supporter of the Dalai Lama’s
“middle way,” meaning autonomy for Tibet in all matters except foreign
affairs and national defense. This arrangement eventually would have to
mean that Tibetan people select their own leaders — and that would be
a major change from the way things are now. Tibet is called an
“autonomous region,” but in fact its officials are all named by
Beijing, and are all tightly focused on their own personal interests
and the interests of the Communist Party. Tibetans can clearly see the
difference between this kind of government and self-rule, and there is
no way that they will support bogus autonomy.

It follows
— even if this is a tall order — that the ultimate solution to the
Tibet problem must be democratization of the Chinese political system
itself. True autonomy cannot come any other way.

It is
time for the Chinese government to take stock of why its long-term
strategy in Tibet has not worked, and to try something else. The old
problems remain, and they are sure to continue, perhaps in places like
the “Uighur Autonomous Region” of Xinjiang, if a more sensible approach
is not attempted.