Tibet and China the Relationship

Tibet and China

The relationship between Tibet and China, despite the various ups and downs seen over the past several centuries, continues to remain fluid. The points-of-view of the Chinese and the Tibetans about the sovereignty of Tibet are diametrically opposite. The Chinese are firmly of the view that Tibet has been an indivisible part of China de jure since the Yuan dynasty seven centuries ago; they believe that all pro-independence movement in Tibet were and are encouraged and abetted by malicious Western imperialist powers who have always strived to weaken China's sovereignty. The Tibetan government in exile, led by the Dalai Lama who had fled Tibet after a failed uprising in 1959, is equally adamant that the current Chinese rule in Tibet is illegitimate and colonial, and it violates Tibet's historical status as an independent country.

At the same time, even the Dalai Lama now concedes that he does not support complete independence from China, as long as Tibet is given autonomy, self-rule and freedom of speech. It is also significant to note that not a single country in the world, including India where the Dalai Lama has set up his "government in exile," has recognized Tibet as an independent country. Hence, even though it is true that China has treated Tibet badly in the past, it now recognizes the unique status of Tibet, regrets the injustice meted out to Tibetans and its culture in the past, and is commited to the development of the region while giving it a special status and autonomy within the state of China. As such, other countries including the United States, should refrain from fishing in troubled waters and desist supporting seperation of Tibet from China as such a policy would only create turmoil and bring further misery to the poverty-stricken people of Tibet.

If we look at the history of Tibet for answers to question about its sovereignty, we will get nowhere, since one can see in its chaotic history what one wishes. The Chinese can point to the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) when Tibet, being part of the Mongol Empire came under Chinese rule; all succeeding Chinese governments, i.e., the Ming and Manchu dynasties, followed by the Republic of China (ROC) and the Peoples' Republic of China (PRC) have, therefore, inherited the right to rule Tibet. On the other hand, the supporters of Tibet's independence can argue that during the Yuan period, it was the Mongols (from Mongolia) who had conquered China and other parts of Asia including Tibet; hence, if the logic of the Chinese argument is correct, China should be part of Mongolia! They also contend that the Tibetans are ethnically and culturally different from the Chinese and Tibetans have never regarded Tibet as a part of China during its long history; moreover, China's control over Tibet was at best tenuous, before its illegal occupation by Communist China in the 1950s. (Hessler, 1999)

Most Westerners look at the pre-Communist era Tibet through romantic eyes. Their impression of Tibet is of a spritual Shangrila in which Buddhist monks and the rest of the population lived in blissful harmony and peace. The problem with such an impression is that it is far from accurate. The facts are that the Feudal system in old Tibet was cruel and unforgiving for the majority of the people. All land, farmland as well as land for pasture, was owned by the three major lords of the time -- the government officials, nobles and upper-class Lamas. The rest of the population were serfs who worked on the land for the benefit for the owners of the land and the lowest among them were virtual slaves with no rights whatsoever, being regarded as 'talking animals" by the elite. To make matters worse for the poorest class, the Tibetan monks formed, in the words of the dissident Chinese writer, Wang Lixiong, "an enormous parasitic social stratum." According to an estimate, in the 18th century about 13% of the entire Tibetan population (i.e., 26% of all Tibetan males) were monks (Lixiong, 2002). Tibetans had to contribute a considerable part of their personal wealth to provide for the monks and to build and maintain the monasteries and under the Dalai Lama's government, 92% of the budget was devoted to religious expenditure. (Ibid.) As a result, life expectancy in pre-1950 Tibet was thirty-six years; 95% of Tibetans were illiterate and a similar percentage of the population was hereditary serfs and slaves owned by monasteries and nobles. (Hessler, 1999)

In such a back drop, Mao's Communism, which promised the emancipation and rule of the poorest peasants, ought to have been embraced with open arms by the Tibetan peasants. The fact that it took almost a decade, after the initial foray of the Communists into Tibet in 1951, to do so was mainly due to two reasons. The first was the recognition of the special status of Tibet by the Chinese Communist leadership and its slow introduction of social and economic reforms in the region leaving the ruling elite intact; the second was the deep rooted deference for religion among the Tibetans combined with a complete absence of the tradition of class revolt in Tibet. However, when China decided to take direct control of Tibet after the 1959 Tibetan Rebellion and targeted the monasteries and the monks for "special attention," the erstwhile deeply religious poor Tibetans joined their new masters in the brutal destruction of the Buddhist temples all over Tibet. The ferocity with which the Tibetan population destroyed their previous deeply revered places of worship has surprised many analysts; according to Lixiong, it was a case of 'rotation of gods' -- Mao Zedong had replaced the Dalai Lama as the god in their minds as he had proved more powerful.

All of above, does not mean that the Tibetan masses did not suffer under the Chinese Communist rule, particularly during the Cultural Revolution. It is recognized by most people, including the Chinese officials, that the ultra-leftist policies of the Cultural Revolution inflicted tremendous human and economic damage on Tibet. But the damage caused was the result of a misplaced and over-zealous policy relying on the disastrous concept of peoples' communes and centralized control that also applied to the rest of China; it was not a case of deliberate persecution of the Tibetans by the Han Chinese, as alleged by the supporters of Tibet's independence. After the death of Mao and the coming to power of moderates such as Deng Xioping, however, the Chinese government has set about redressing the wrongs in Tibet. Massive Chinese investment has poured into Tibet since that time and respect for Tibetan culture and religion has been restored. The results of the new policy in Tibet have been remarkable and have brought tremendous improvements in living standards. For example, in 1979 the average income of Tibetan farmers and herdsmen was 147 RMB which had increase to 903 RMB in 1994, and rate of economic growth in Tibet is even higher than in China (Lixiong, 2002).