Tibet Protests

Need for India’s policy revisit

The present Tibetan unrest provides an ideal opportunity to India to revisit its policy of appeasing the Chinese, comments Abanti Bhattacharya

  Ongoing protests in Tibet, coinciding with the commemoration of the 49th anniversary of the 1959 March Uprising, were not unexpected, given that China is only a few months away from the Beijing Olympics. But what makes the Tibetan protests, the biggest in twenty years, quite startling is that they could be organised under the repressive communist regime with its well-established coercive mechanisms to curb resistance, or what it calls anti-China activities. This suggests that the Tibet issue is not dead despite every Chinese effort at reducing it to a matter of an internal dissent. The protests indeed indicate the failure of China’s economic policy in Tibet, which has focused primarily on creating prosperity in order to mitigate separatism. More importantly, the protests expose the political vulnerability of China despite its growing economic power and military might.
   While the hosting of the 29th Olympics in Beijing provided an opportune moment for the Tibetans to rise against the repressive Communist regime, various repressive measures adopted under Hu Jintao’s leadership particularly in 2006-7 provided the immediate background to the Tibetan unrest. First, in a major diplomatic move the People’s Republic of China (PRC) passed a law on reincarnation in July 2007 and asserted its right to manage and select all reincarnate lamas of Tibetan Buddhism. This legislation has infuriated the Tibetans and has gravely hurt their religious sentiment since this would allow China to choose its own Dalai Lama after the present one. Second, the failure of the sixth round of talks in June 2007 has created general disillusionment among the Tibetans and raised questions on China’s intentions. The Chinese side is demanding that before negotiations can begin the Dalai Lama should first recognise Tibet as being ‘historically’ part of China. To this, the Dalai Lama’s stated position is that being a Buddhist monk he can not lie and that history should be kept aside in the negotiations. The talks have thus stalled and the Tibetans view that Beijing’s strategy is simply geared to deflect international pressure and criticism while also biding for time and wait till the Dalai Lama’s demise. Upon his death, the Chinese believe, the Tibetan movement would fizzle out. Third, the inauguration of the Qinghai Tibet Railway (QTR) in July 2006 was seen by the Dalai Lama as a Chinese plot to ‘liberate’ Tibet a second time. The QTR project is central to China’s Great Western Development Policy, which aims at greater economic development of its underdeveloped western areas populated by ethnic minorities. This policy is also commensurate with greater ‘Hanisation’ of China’s West. The construction of the QTR is primarily predicated on developing strategic and defence structures in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) and the Tibetans claim that it has no direct positive benefits for the 85 per cent rural population of Tibet. There are apprehensions that the QTR would speed up Han migration into the TAR and marginalise the local Tibetans.
Among the long-term causes of the Tibetan unrest are factors such as acute human rights violation in Tibet, large-scale transfer of Han population in the TAR sidelining the traditional dominance of the Tibetan population, ethnic Han Chinese holding positions of real power and making key decisions in Tibet, and finally, the ill-effects of the Western Development Strategy that exacerbated economic polarisation between the urban and the rural sectors.

  While all these reasons lie at the root of the current unrest, the present moment is also regarded as crucial for the Tibetans and as a last chance to fight for their cause and bring international pressure on China.
   The hosting of the Olympics is looked upon as China’s formal arrival as a great power and as an event that heralds its potential emergence as a superpower in the years to come. Consequently, the Chinese government has been well prepared to confront any untoward developments that could tarnish its image as a responsible global power. Accordingly, the Chinese government has undertaken acute repressive measures to quell the unrest, made scores of arrests and sent in more troops to Lhasa and neighbouring provinces of Yunnan and Qinghai where the unrest has spread.
   The present repressive policy is rooted in Mao Zedong’s policy on Tibet. The 17-Point Peace Agreement, which promised the Tibetans the right of exercising national regional autonomy and guaranteed that the existing political system in Tibet would not be altered, was flagrantly disrespected in the subsequent period. The denial of self-determination and adoption of regional autonomy in Tibet became the means to promote Han hegemonism and Han expansionism in non-Han regions. Subsequent governments were no longer interested in promoting real autonomy of the TAR; instead they have unleashed the so-called ‘cultural security’ policy whereby China’s minority policy is no longer based on the idea of preserving minority cultures but on ‘refashioning’ them. This, in effect, means annihilation of Tibetan culture and identity. China’s present strategy is based on a carrot-and-stick policy to handle the Tibet issue — combining repressive and economic measures as a step to mitigate separatism — and finally reducing the Tibetans to be a nonentity in their own land.
   India has reacted to the Tibetan unrest as merely a matter of ‘distress’ for the Indian government. The government’s official position is squarely that Tibet is an internal affair of China and any comment on the present unrest would be deemed as interference by Beijing. A report by the Press Trust of India (PTI) on 23 March suggests that India has assured China that its position on the Tibet issue is ‘clear and consistent’ and that it ‘would not change in the future’. The Indian position on Tibet is based on its traditional opposition to separatist movements and opposition to foreign intervention to mitigate such movements.
   However, India’s current policy on Tibet is flawed. Given the intractable border dispute and given the large presence of Tibetan refugees in India, how could Tibet be an internal issue? Tibet, in fact, has grave security implications for India as the Tibetan issue is entangled with the India–China border dispute.
   India’s Tibet policy till 2003 was based on recognising Tibet as part of China. By repeatedly reiterating over the years that Tibet is a part of China, India diluted its leverage not only in shoring up the Tibetan cause but also in its border negotiations with China. The government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee made a serious blunder in its Tibet policy by stating that the ‘Tibetan Autonomous Region of China is part of the territory of China’. This had two critical impli-cations for India’s security. One, it excluded the Inner Tibet (Amdo and Kham) from the geographical notion of Tibet and sought to recognise the Inner Tibet (Sichuan, Yunnan and Qinghai provinces) as Chinese land. Two, more ominously, the TAR according to the Chinese definition represents the Outer Tibet. The Outer Tibet in Chinese understanding includes Arunachal Pradesh, as historically the Outer Tibet has been part of Tibet; and thereby China claims Arunachal as its ‘southern state’.
   Clearly, China is tackling its Tibet problem at two levels. One, it is involving the Dalai Lama’s represen-tatives in fruitless talks on the resolution of the Tibetan problem, while also disparaging him as a ‘splittist’ who aims to disintegrate China. Two, while arm-twisting India on the border dispute by raising the Tawang district issue, at the same time it is mesmerising the Indian leadership with rhetoric on India-China joint leadership in bringing about an Asian renaissance. In fact, however, the border issue is the core issue between India and China and no substantial improvement in their relations is possible without its resolution despite deepening trade ties. China has become India’s largest trade partner in recent times with two-way trade crossing $38 billion, an increase of 56 per cent over the past year. But Indian exports to China largely comprise raw materials like iron ore while the Indian market is being flooded with Chinese-manufactured goods. The situation is reminiscent of the British Raj when India’s raw material was drained out in lieu of cheaper British-manufactured goods.
   Therefore, India needs to revise its Tibet policy. The present policy of appeasing the Chinese would not help. China does not miss out a single instance when it could rebuke India, the last being the instance of showing displeasure on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh in February 2008. India’s conciliatory policy toward China is thus faulty and needs serious revision. The present Tibetan unrest provides an ideal opportunity to India to revisit its Tibet policy.

                          
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