New Chinese Voices in Sino-Tibetan Negotiations

Dharamsala and Bejing: the Negotiations that Never Were by Claude ArpiPublished by Lancer Publishers and Distributors, New Delhi, 2009pages 294, price Rs 795

 Claude Arpi’s judgement of the dialogue process between Dharamsala and Beijing is   clear from the title of his latest book. Despite its loud doubts, The Negotiations that  Never Were will serve as an essential reference book for researchers and third  parties interested in the intermittent Sino-Tibetan dialogue, which, according to the  author, began as far aback as 1973 when some Xinhua (official news agency of China)  reporters based in Hong Kong used George Patterson, a Scottish missionary- turned  writer, as a conduit to establish ties with Dharamsala.  The book is enriched by the author’s deep access to all those Tibetan principals  involved in the dialogue process and the actual negotiations. It is also enriched by the  author’s own extensive research on a subject much commented but little researched  on. The Negotiations that Never Were will form the basis of future Sino-Tibetan  negotiations literature because the book’s enduring contribution to this literature is  the blow-by-blow accounts it gives of all the contacts and discussions between  Dharamsala and Beijing. In reviewing this book one marvels at the fact that these negotiations took place at  all. In international politics, diplomacy is always backed by military force. In  conducting such relations among sovereign nations, the unstated message always is,  negotiate, or else. The option of war is used as a compelling argument for concerned  parties to choose negotiations as a less expensive way to settle outstanding disputes.  Tibetans, committed to non-violence, do not have the military option. Despite this,  why did the negotiations take place at all? That these negotiations took place is a  reflection of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s hold on his people and the quality of  leadership he has provided. They also reflect the diplomatic skills of the Tibetan  leadership and those Tibetans involved in the negotiations in persuading China, a fast  rising power in the world and a firm believer in the power of the gun, to talk to  people committed to non-violence.  That nothing came out of the negotiations till now is not at all surprising. What will  rack
the brains of future scholars will be the reasons why China decided to
hold these extensive discussions in the first place. They will explore
the reasons why China, while spewing abuse on His Holiness the Dalai
Lama, was conducting discussions with his representatives. Zhang
Qingli, Beijing’s viceroy in Lhasa, once famously demonized His
Holiness the Dalai Lama as someone with “a human face and a heart of a
beast.” What domestic and international compulsions were at work to
force Beijing to talk with representatives of a “beast”? The Negotiations that Never Were examines
all these issues. It starts by giving a succinct background of the
Chinese invasion of Tibet, the signing of the 17-Point Agreement and
the mis-steps that provoked the widespread resistance, which culminated
in the 1959 uprising that led to the flight of His Holiness the Dalai
Lama and thousands of Tibetans to India, Nepal and Bhutan. The author
picks up the story of the contacts between Dharamsala and Beijing from
1973 and follows it through to the Tibetans handing over the Memorandum
on Genuine Autonomy for All Tibetans to the Chinese side in 2008 and
what came of the Special Meeting held in Dharamsala. A welcome
addition in the book is the author’s examination of the attitude of
individual Chinese to the Tibet question. Although official China says
there is no problem in Tibet, un-official China, that vast interlocking
network of human rights and environmental activists, writers and
scholars who form the country’s nascent but growing civil society, sees
that there is a big problem in Tibet and the government is mishandling
it. Claude Arpi quotes extensively from Zhang Boshu’s article, The Way to Resolve the Tibet Issue,
(available on www.chinadigitaltimes.net) to make his point that, though
the majority of the Chinese public’s thinking on Tibet is shaped by
official propaganda, there is a growing public opinion in China that
strongly and bitterly disagrees with the government’s handling of the
issue. In his article, Zhang Boshu of the Chinese Academy of
Social Sciences, says, “The Tibet issue is first of all a human rights
issue. Although the authorities are not willing to admit it, I want to
say it plainly. This problem that plagues the leadership of the
Communist Party, if we look at its origin, was created by the Chinese
Communist Party itself as the ruler of China.” Zhang Boshu recommends
that “Solving the Tibet issue will take courage and great wisdom. Petty
scheming could ruin Tibet and ruin China.”There are other
Chinese who are dismayed that China’s current hardline policy on Tibet,
rather than solving, is exacerbating China’s Tibet crisis. Claude Arpi
quotes from Wang Lixiong, well-known Chinese writer, and married to an
equally well-known Tibetan author and blogger. Wang Lixiong puts the
failure of the talks at the doorstep of that vast anti-splittist
bureaucracy that operates in the party, government and army. He points
out that the officials who operate this cumbersome bureaucracy are the
ones who formulate China’s Tibet policy. They are also the ones who
shift blame on His Holiness the Dalai Lama and other “splittists” for
any unrest provoked by the hardline policies they implement. During
the spring 2008 unrest in Tibet, “the highest authorities took no
action; all was executed alone by the ever growing (lower)
bureaucracy,” Wang Lixiong says. During the Tibet unrest, Chinese prime
minister Wen Jiabao went on a state visit to Laos and before the
international media expressed his hope that the Dalai Lama could use
his influence to calm things down in Tibet. Wang Lixiong says, “This
was unheard of and aroused international attention, seeing it as the
highest authorities’ new pattern of thinking. However, nothing
followed, and no change in the handling was made by the
‘anti-secession’ institutions.” The “anti-splittist” bureaucracy
prevented the leadership from taking any flexible steps to resolve the
vexed issue.The inclusion of a whole chapter, China’s Voices of Dissent in The Negotiations that Never Were
is, perhaps, the author’s way of saying Tibetans can take comfort in
these voices of reason in any just settlement of a protracted issue.
Perhaps the author might prove to be right. As China undergoes
astonishing changes, there might come a day when Chinese civil society
would have a say in shaping Beijing’s Tibet policy.