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[Border Affairs, Jan-March 2009, released on 14 April 2009]By Vijay Kranti*Year 2009 has very special significance in the history of today’s People’s Republic of China (PRC). In October this year the Communist rulers of Beijing will celebrate the 60th anniversary of their coming to power and the founding of PRC. This year also marks the 60th anniversary of People Liberation Army’s entry into Tibet with the aim of ‘liberating’ and assimilating her back into ‘Great Motherland’ after over a century of “imperialists’ deceptions”. While Dalai Lama, the exiled ruler of Tibet, completes 50 years of his exile and his refugee compatriots have observed  the 50th anniversary of Tibetan people’s uprising against the occupying PLA on  March 10, Beijing rulers have decided to ‘celebrate’ the escape of Dalai Lama to exile. March 28, when Dalai Lama escaped to India,  has been designated as the ‘Serf Emancipation Day’ and a national holiday. According to the report submitted by the International Commission of Jurists in 1960 to the Secretary General of United Nations, it was in this very fortnight (from March 10 to 28) when the PLA gunned down more than 80000 such Tibetan ‘serfs’ in Lhasa and other parts of Tibet who rose up against the occupation of Tibet by the PLA.This year President Hu Jin Tao too has good reasons to celebrate the 20th anniversary of imposition of Martial Law in Tibet that paved the way to his current supreme position. As the Governor of Tibet he had effectively used tanks and armoured vehicles in Lhasa in March 1989 to crush the Tibetan people’s second major uprising against the Chinese colonial rule on Tibet after 1959. It was Hu’s this very ‘Lhasa Model’ which Beijing rulers emulated to save their control on China three months later on June 4 in the wake of an unprecedented upsurge of China’s democratic youths at Tien Anmen Square in Beijing against the Communist Party’s one party rule. No wonder, the wonderful efficacy of Hu’s Lhasa Model brought to light Comrade Hu’s special talents as a ‘disciplinarian’. It made him stand out of the crowd of comrades and subsequently lead to his induction into the inner power circle of the Party.However, in addition to this spate of anniversaries at hand, the Chinese leadership has good reasons to peacefully revisit some major issues this year that stare into eyes of today’s PRC, but had to be kept on the backburner due to the government’s six year long focus on Beijing Olympics. One such issue is corruption that has seeped too deep into the system and acquired too serious dimensions to ignore any more. Another is finding some long lasting solutions to the unending resistance of PRC’s two most difficult colonies namely Tibet and East Turkistan (Xinjiang). Third one, rising unemployment and the resultant socio-political unease, may be a bit old problem, but has gained new dimensions for the Chinese leadership in the wake of a perpetually worsening world economy and its serious impact on China’s work force.Present review is focused at the Tibetan issue that has come to stay as a major source of political and moral embarrassment to China’s communist rulers on the national as well as international fronts. An unending resistance from Tibetan population inside occupied Tibet for over half a century has seriously damaged PRC leaders credibility as well as their control over this colony. In the wake of recent breakdown of dialogue between Beijing and Dalai Lama’s Dharamsala based ‘Tibetan government in exile’ (TGIE), we shall review what stands between the two sides and if there is still some hope and space left for a peaceful and mutually acceptable solution.  HISTORY OF DIALOGUEHistorically speaking, the dialogue process between the Chinese and Tibetan governments started in 1950 after the just-found PRC’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) attacked and occupied big chunks of Tibet’s Eastern provinces of Kham and Amdo. In the wake of this national emergency, the caretaker council of regents of Tibetan government forced the 16-year old Dalai Lama to take over the reigns of the state two years ahead of due time. In the wake of threats from Beijing, Dalai Lama was shifted to a safer place Dromo in southern Tibet near Indian borders. In this backdrop of events the Chinese government invited the Tibetan government to send a delegation to Beijing for mutual consultation in early months of 1951. Beijing surprised the boy Dalai Lama and his colleagues in the Tibetan government when Radio Beijing broke the news of  ‘peaceful liberation’ of Tibet through a ‘17-Point Agreement’ between the two sides on  May 23, 1951.Recalling those moments in his autobiography ‘Freedom in Exile’, Dalai Lama writes, “….Every evening I would listen to the Tibetan language broadcasts of Radio Peking…… However, one evening, as I sat alone, there was a very different sort of program. A harsh, crackling voice announced that a ‘Seventeen-Point Agreement’ for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet had that day been signed by representatives of the Government of the People’s Republic of China and what they called the ‘Local Government’ of Tibet. I could not believe my ears. I wanted to rush out and call everybody in, but I sat transfixed……. What was most alarming, however, was that Ngabo*  had not been empowered to sign anything on my behalf, only to negotiate. I had kept the seals of state with me at Dromo to ensure that he could not. So he must have been coerced….”. Later it became clear that Beijing forced the Tibetan group leader to sign an already prepared ‘agreement’ under a seal of Tibetan government that was manufactured by Beijing especially in a hurry for this purpose. *(Ngabo Ngawang Jigme : a junior minister and leader of Tibetan delegation. He was the  Governor of Kham provice when China’s PLA attacked and defeated Tibetan army to occupy Kham in 1950.)In the recorded history of China and Tibet it was second time that an ‘agreement’ based on a ‘dialogue’ was being claimed to have been ‘signed’. The first recorded treaty dates back to 821-822 AD which was signed between a powerful Tibetan king Trisong Dretsen and the Chinese king Hwangti (Wen We Hsiao-te Hwang-ti).  This treaty remains engraved in Tibetan and Chinese languages on two identical stone pillars, one installed in Tibetan capital Lhasa and other in China. Opening with the declaration of an ‘alliance’ between the two kingdoms, this treaty clearly defines independent character of the two countries and calls for conditions that ensure that ‘Tibetans shall be happy in the land of Tibet, and the Chinese in the land of China’ in future. The operative sections read:“The Great King of Tibet, the Miraculous Divine Lord, and the Great King of China, the Chinese Ruler Hwang-ti being in the relationship of nephew and uncle, have confirmed together for the alliance of their kingdoms…..Tibet and China shall abide by the frontiers of which they are now in occupation. All to the east is the country of Great China; and all to the west is, without question, the country of Great Tibet. Henceforth on neither side shall there be waging of war nor seizing of territory….. According to the old custom, horses shall be changed at the foot of the Chiang Chun pass, the frontier between Tibet and China. At the Suiyung barrier the Chinese shall meet Tibetan envoys and provide them with all facilities from there onwards…… Between the two countries no smoke nor dust shall be seen. There shall be no sudden alarms and the very word ‘enemy’ shall not be spoken…… This solemn agreement has established a great epoch when Tibetans shall be happy in the land of Tibet, and the Chinese in the land of China…. If the parties do not act in accordance with this agreement or if they violate it, which ever it be, Tibet or China, nothing that the other party may do by way of retaliation shall be considered a breach of the treaty on their part……”17-POINT AGREEMENTThe language of the 17-Point ‘agreement’, though claimed by China to be the outcome of a ‘dialogue’ between the two sides, gives away the feeling that it was outright a Chinese draft that was simply pushed through the Tibetan government’s throat. Although the title “The Agreement of the Central People’s Government and the Local Government of Tibet On Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet” presumes Beijing’s unquestionable authority as the ‘Central’ government over Tibet as just a ‘local government’, yet the very opening paragraph of the main statement admits Tibet’s status as a separate entity where, for whatever reasons, China did not enjoy any effective control for “over the last hundred years and more”.Most of its clauses simply testify to the status of the Tibetan government, led by Dalai Lama, as an independent entity until the day China decided to walk in. Seeking support of Tibetans on so many counts, the ‘agreement’ also exposed the status of invading Chinese army as ‘outsiders’. For example, the very first point of the ‘agreement’ starts with calling upon the Tibetan people to ‘drive out’ some imaginary ‘imperialist aggressive forces’ from Tibet and expects that the Tibetan people “shall return to the big family of the motherland–the People’s Republic of China.”The second point, which reads: “The Local Government of Tibet shall actively assist the People’s Liberation Army to enter Tibet and consolidate the national defences,” too exposes what level of control the ‘Central Government’ or its army enjoyed in Tibet. This surely does not jell favourably with the present PRC leadership’s claims that ‘historically Tibet has been an inalienable part of China’.While assuring the people of Tibet that they “have the right of exercising national regional autonomy” (Point-3) the same clause takes it back simultaneously through the rider which clarifies that this autonomy would operate “under the unified leadership of the Central People’s Government.”The ‘agreement’ made many other promises too to the Tibetans which included “not (to) alter the existing political system”, especially the “established status, functions and powers of the Dalai Lama” (Pt-4); freedom of religious belief (Pt-7); development of Tibetan language (Pt-9); and “no compulsions” on reforms on the part of the ‘Central Authorities’ (Pt-11). The ‘agreement’ even went to the extent of assuring the Tibetans that the funds for the Chinese Army and administration would be provided by the ‘Central People’s Government’ (Pt-16) and that “the PLA entering Tibet … will also be fair in all buying and selling and will not arbitrarily take even a needle or a thread from the people.” (Pt-13).In lieu of all these ‘concessions’, the ‘agreement’ also announced the privileges which China was going to enjoy in Tibet. These included the predominance of PLA through dissolution of Tibetan troupes as “Tibetan troops will be reorganised step by step into the People’s Liberation Army” (Pt-8); and an end to all ties of Tibetan government with the outer world as PRC decided to take charge of ‘all external affairs of the area of Tibet” (Pt-14);As expected, the civilised world took note of this forcible takeover of Tibet by PRC as yet another case of colonising a powerless country. But no government or international organisation like the erstwhile ‘UNO’, demonstrated the guts to challenge the government of China on this issue. Even a country like India, the most affected by this sudden change in the Asian map, chose to discourage the UNO from taking any steps against China on the basis of Chinese Premier Chou En-Lie’s personal assurances to her Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru, that PRC would honour the unique cultural identity of Tibet and Tibetan people. No wonder, this meek and indifferent international response only encouraged the PRC leaders to take their own course in occupied Tibet.In next few years the much hyped 17-Point ‘agreement’ was more known for breach of most of the clauses than following its spirit or letters.  The promises of autonomy were overturned as the control of political and administrative system shifted to the hands of communist cadres and PLA’s machinery, thus,  leaving no scope for Dalai Lama to play any meaningful role. The sudden arrival of hundreds of thousands of PLA soldiers and cadres is a thinly populated Tibet pushed up food prices to  unheard levels. Forced cultivation of wheat in place of traditional barley too led to unprecedented food shortages and food riots all over Tibet.  The cadres’ intolerance for Tibetan religion forced closures of monasteries and monastic schools in favour of Chinese language schools. PLA’s armed attacks on monasteries forced the dominant community of monks and nuns to join the resistance movement which was already spreading across Tibet, especially in the eastern regions of Kham , Golok and Amdo.Things came to a head in March 1959 when a 100,000-strong crowd of visiting pilgrims in Lhasa clashed with the PLA. Soon this clash morphed into a Tibetan uprising against the occupying Chinese army. What followed was the escape of Dalai Lama to exile in India and PLA killing over 80,000* Tibetans across Tibet in order to put a decisive end to the uprising.BEHIND THE IRON CURTAINThe following two decades saw a completely closed and non-communicative PRC as far as Tibet was concerned. This was the period when Tibet witnessed the most intense and longest spell of political suppression and cultural destruction. Believing that religious faith and unique culture of Tibet were the only barriers holding the Tibetan masses back from assimilating into the socio-political system of ‘Motherland China’, the regional administrators of Tibet and communist party cadres did everything imaginable to destroy every visible symbol of Tibet’s religious, cultural, social and national personality. Far away from the eyes and physical control of central leadership in Beijing, remotely located Tibet faced the worst form of the Red Guards’ Cultural Revolution for a much longer time and with a far devastating impact.Out of total population of about six million Tibetans, over a million died of unnatural reasons. These reasons included direct execution of citizens by the Public Security Bureau (PSB) for various ‘crimes’; torture in jails; public death sentences in humiliating ‘Thamzing’ (public street trials) sessions which became a part of daily indoctrination and cleansing of “peoples’ enemies” in towns and villages across PRC; PLA’s killing of rebellious Tibetans who took to armed resistance to the Chinese rule; and starvation due to perpetual food shortage caused by the state’s colonial policies in Tibet. Barring a very few (less than 10)  among the 6259 monasteries and other religious centres,  almost all were either closed, destroyed or taken over by the PLA and party to accommodate their soldiers, cadres and their animals (horses, mules and pigs). In the fateful days of Cultural Revolution, even a ‘crime’ like making ‘Bod-Chha’ (traditional Tibetan tea with yak butter and salt) was labelled as a ‘reactionary’ act, even ‘treason’, which could end up into public execution in a ‘Thamzing’ trial. In later years Communist Party leaders did admit and regretted these atrocities in Tibet, but also termed it as of ‘little consequence’  compared to what happened in mainland China during Cultural Revolution.DENG OPENS THE DOORHowever, things started changing when Deng Xiaoping emerged on the scene with a brand new economic and political outlook. The Tibetan situation made him realise that attempts to win hearts through attack on faith and coercion had proved counter productive. He could see that Tibetan people’s faith in their exiled ruler and religious leader Dalai Lama had, rather increased during two decades of Tibetan occupation. His own pragmatic approach and PRC’s new interface with the civilised world made him understand that if handled properly, Dalai Lama could be made a part of the solution than treating him as ‘the problem’. It was at this stage that Chinese leadership started realising that Dalai Lama was a key that could unlock the Tibetan problem and, hence, deserved PRC’s special attention.An extreme view that emerged from this thinking, and still dominates the minds of a section of Chinese leadership, is that the real problem is Dalai Lama and not the Tibetan people. Most of their policies emerge from the assumption that return of Dalai Lama to China on China’s terms will end the Tibetan problem or, in the absence of such an eventuality, the death of ageing Dalai Lama will automatically see the end to the Tibetan headache of PRC.All this encouraged Deng to establish a dialogue with the exiled Dalai Lama. In early 1979 he sent a message to Dalai Lama in India through the latter’s elder brother Gyalo Thondup. A senior political functionary of China ’s government controlled news agency Xinhua, who personally knew Gyalo Thondup from their Hong Kong days, played a pivotal role in fixing his meeting with Deng in March 1979. To many Tibet observers, Beijing ’s choice of using Gyalo Thondup as its link to Dharamsala came as a surprise. For it was Gyalo Thondup who played a pivotal link between the American intelligence agency CIA and “Chu Shi Nga Druk” (meaning ‘Four Rivers, Six Ranges’), the fiery Tibetan guerrilla force that spearheaded the armed resistance against occupying Chinese forces inside Tibet. (In mid 1970s when USA ’s honeymoon with China overwhelmed its love affair with Tibet and its resistance movement, sudden withdrawal of CIA support to the guerrilla force made Beijing ’s job easier. Before Tibetans disbanded Chu Shi Nga Drug Beijing over ran its command centre in Mustang , Nepal and gunned down most of its leaders with active help of Nepalese Royal Army.)Deng asked Thondup to communicate to Dalai Lama that “except independence, all other issues can be resolved through negotiations”. This marked the opening of a new door between Beijing and Dharamsala, the seat of Dalai Lama and his Tibetan Government-in-Exile (TGIE) in northern India . TGIE functions through a democratically elected Parliament and an impressive paraphernalia of ‘ministries’ and representative offices in over a dozen important countries.HISTORIC APOLOGYEven though these talks broke down in 1993 and Beijing-Dharamsala contacts remained almost snapped until 2002, the 1979-1993 period saw some significant developments in these ties. The hope of bringing back the Dalai Lama to the fold of ‘great motherland’ encouraged Beijing leaders to usher in some relief in the life of Tibetan masses inside Tibet. They adopted relatively more liberal policies inside Tibet thereby bringing some relief for Tibetans who have been used to seeing difficult days.This welcome change provided some fresh breathing space to the Tibetan masses in matters like religious practice, social interaction and travel to other parts of Tibet and China. It was in this atmosphere that something unimaginable happened. Communist Party Secretary Hu Yaobang offered a public apology to the Tibetan people when he visited Lhasa in 1980. He termed the unfortunate happenings as, ‘excesses of some over enthusiastic party cadres’ in Tibet in the past.FROM ‘RANGZEN’ TO ‘MIDDLE PATH’However, it was much later that these liberal policies were condemned and reversed by the later regime of Hu Jintao in Tibet in the wake of Tibetan uprising in 1987 and 1989 and the Martial Law that followed. It was believed among the dominant section of the Communist Party that these relaxations gave Tibetan ‘reactionaries’ fresh opportunities to reorganise and rise against the government. But openness on the part of PRC had its demonstrable impact on Dalai Lama’s side too. It encouraged the Dalai Lama to publicly climb down from his people’s popular demand for ‘Rangzen’ (total independence) to a more liberal concept of ‘Middle Path’ that calls for just ‘genuine autonomy’ for Tibet within the political framework of PRC.WAR OF WITSHowever, what followed the opening of doors in 1979 between the two warring sides reads more like a war of wits. The PRC leaders remained focused on enhancing their physical grip on Tibet during this period and prolonged the dialogue process to buy more time to achieve their goals of population transfer to Tibet. Dalai Lama too made a few brilliant moves to make best of this Chinese enthusiasm about bringing him back to their fold. Following the open invitation from Deng’s government for a dialogue, the Dalai Lama went public to express his eagerness to visit Tibet provided he was convinced that conditions inside Tibet were normal and as good as the Chinese claimed. Biting the monk statesman’s bait, an overenthusiastic Beijing offered him an invitation to come, even if on a short visit ‘to see things with his own eyes’ and to ‘seek truth from facts’.FACT FINDING MISSIONSIn his response the Dalai Lama accepted the offer ‘in principle’ but proposed to start the process by sending his ‘fact-finding’ delegations from among exile community to verify the Chinese claims of ‘progress, prosperity and happiness’ of Tibetan community under the Chinese rule. Between August 1979 and 1985 Dharamsala sent four such ‘fact-finding’ delegations. First three delegations namely the High Power Delegation of senior Tibetan leaders, the Delegation of Youth Leaders and the Educational Delegation were sent in quick succession between August 1979 and September 1980. The nature of study of each delegation was designed in such a manner that each got the privilege of travelling to all the three Tibetan provinces of Kham, Amdo and U-Tsang. Citing reasons like hugeness of the geographic area, lack of good transport system and tiring journeys, the travel plans of each delegation were spread over 2-3 months each to ensure that the delegates had enough time to see things and meet maximum number of Tibetan people.The delegations were comprised of senior serving and former cabinet ministers of the exile government, senior religious leaders, members of exile parliament; and other well informed community leaders. Almost all of them were such individuals who were familiar with pre-1959 Tibet and, hence, could make sense of the changed situation. An interesting aspect of this delegation diplomacy was that even though Beijing has been highly sensitive about presenting only ‘Tibet Autonomous Region’ (TAR) as the ‘real Tibet’, yet it permitted the delegations to visit those areas of Kham and Amdo provinces of Tibet which now belonged to the adjoining Chinese provinces of Yunnan, Sichuan, Qinghai and Ganzu. SHOCKING EXPERIENCEThese delegation visits proved a bit too shocking for Beijing leaders as far as the response of Tibetan masses was concerned. Relying heavily on the feedback reports of self-serving party leaders and government functionaries in TAR, the Beijing leadership had come to religiously believe that Tibetan masses were ‘extremely happy’ under the Chinese rule and that the country of ‘former serfs’ was too opposed to the Dalai Lama to see him back in Tibet. In their enthusiasm to make the guests comfortable in their former homeland and to save Beijing from any embarrassment caused by public hostility, the government propaganda machinery went in over drive to educate the Tibetan masses on how and how not to treat the visiting guests. In addition to regular radio broadcasts, loudspeaker fitted propaganda vans were specially sent to villages and towns to warn the Tibetan masses against ‘stoning’, ‘spitting’ or any other kind of ‘misbehaviour’ against the visiting representatives of the fugitive Dalai Lama.However, the actual public response turned out just opposite of what the Chinese leadership was expecting. The delegations were mobbed by massive cheering crowds who listened respectfully to them, cried and competed with each other to shake hands or touch them to seek their blessings. It was first chance for the Tibetan masses to hear in their own language that their ‘Yeshi Norbu’ (‘Precious Jewel’, a common address for Dalai Lama in Tibet) was fine and what kind of life and freedoms the Tibetan refugees enjoyed in exile. At places the crowds swelled into such huge gatherings that the Chinese Public Security Bureau personnel were left with no choice but to stand aside and watch the unimaginable surge with surprise.The second delegation, comprising of some prominent youth leaders of the exile community, had to face trouble following similar public response from Tibetan masses in some areas. The visit of this delegation was cut short by the Chinese government alleging that the delegates indulged in provoking the Tibetan masses against it. A common feature of all these delegations was that many delegates had to leave behind their personal belongings to accommodate hundreds of hand written memoranda, presented by individuals and communities, addressed to the Dalai Lama. This exceptional experience had its own messages for all three parties viz. the Tibetan masses, the visitors as well as the Beijing rulers of Tibet.No wonder the Beijing regime kept the visit of the fourth and last fact-finding delegation on hold till 1985 when some senior religious leaders from exile were allowed to have a look at the religious situation in Tibet. The intervening period between the first three delegations and the fourth witnessed the beginning of a new process of negotiations between Beijing and Dharamsala. In 1981 Beijing invited Gyalo Thondup again. His meeting with Chinese leader Hu Yaobang on July 28 paved the way for opening a discussion process that was aimed at ‘probing the possibilities of detailed talks on the future of Tibet’. This was the real beginning of what many call the phenomenon as “Talks about Talks” between Beijing and DharamsalaDIALOGUE BEGINSTwo high-level Tibetan delegations under the leadership of Kalon Tripa (Prime Minister) Juchen Thupten Namgyal visited Beijing in 1982 and 1984.  Interestingly, the Chinese perceptions on Tibetan problem remained predetermined and never moved beyond the person of Dalai Lama. From the very onset Beijing appointed the Central United Front Work Department, as the exclusive interface between PRC and Dharamsala to underline the ‘local’ and ‘internal’ nature of the Tibetan issue. This Front, an internal organ of the Communist Party of China, was created by late Chairman Mao during his Long March days to win ‘cooperation’ of all those non-Chinese nationalities that Mao intended to absorb in his ‘People’s Republic of China’. Though the Front appears to be headed by a ‘Minister’, the overall status of the Front is nothing more than a ‘department’ of the Communist Party of China.  Its focus remains till this day on ensuring how the Dalai Lama and/or his fellow exiles are won back to the fold of PRC as just other ‘Chinese’ citizens. Beijing government’s official communiqués have been consistently presenting the delegations from Dharamsala as ‘overseas Chinese’ who were on ‘private’ visit to meet their relatives. At no stage Beijing recognised the Tibetan delegates as the ‘representatives of Dalai Lama’ or that of ‘Tibetan Government-in-exile’.REWRITING HISTORYIn addition, almost on each occasion China has been demanding Dalai Lama to give certain undertakings. One such undertaking demanded him to accept and declare that “Tibet has been an integral part of China through history”. To this Dalai Lama’s consistent response has been that although this is untrue and though he can not go back in history to rewrite it, yet he is ready to accept Tibet as a part of PRC provided some ‘genuine autonomy’ for Tibet and Tibetans is ensured. Another Chinese condition which Dalai Lama has been finding difficult to fulfil is to declare that “Taiwan is an integral part of China”. To this his response is that since he has no authority to speak on behalf of people of Taiwan, Chinese leaders should better contact Taiwan government directly on this issue.–Vijay Kranti is a veteran journalist, Tibetologist and photographer. He is the editor of Tibbat-Desh, the first Hindi news magazine on Tibet. The above article is reproduced from the “Border Affairs” journal, which published it in their delayed Jan-Mar-2009 issue and released on 14 April 2009. The second part of this article will be featured on this website on Monday, 4 May 2009.