The following is part of Cornell Contemporary China Initiative Lecture Series
under the Cornell East Asia Program. The arguments and viewpoints
of this talk belong solely to the speaker.
We hope you enjoy.
>> Welcome back to the Cornell Contemporary China Initiative.
My name is Nick Admussen. I'm the director of the CCCI and the assistant professor
of Asian studies. Tonight I am very very happy to introduce Professor Allen Carlson,
who is a professor of government in the Department of Government
at Cornell University, one of our own, and also director of the China & Asia-Pacific
Studies program. I know we have a lot of CAPS students in the audience today.
CAPS is also supporting this lecture, today's lecture. I see you guys smiling
proudly, the CAPS students. All of them. Good. Allen's the author of an imperial
bushel of research, as opposed to an American bushel which I think is smaller.
But I want to zoom in for a second on his 2008 book called
"Unifying China, Integrating with the World" which I think taught the field a lot
of things about sovereignty. A lot of people had said or felt that sovereignty was very
important to Chinese government but I think very few people understood
how much it changes over time before Professor Carlson's research period.
And because national policy towards sovereignty affects international relations
as well as domestic policy, that puts him in a great position to talk to us today
about policy towards the Tibet Autonomous Region, which is what
he's gonna talk about today. I absolutely can't wait to hear this. I hope you're
as excited as I am. And let's give him a warm welcome.
>>
Thank you Nick, and I wanna thank the East Asia Program for putting together
this amazing series and also do call attention to the CAPS program
and its support of the series. And if any of you are interested in learning more
about China, CAPS is a really great place to do so whether you just take a class
with us, do the minor, or the major. Our offices are over in Morrill Hall.
Come by, I'm happy to talk to you or you can talk to our staff as well.
As for today's talk, we're talking about one of the least sensitive issues
in Chinese politics, he says sarcastically. This in fact is probably one of the most
sensitive topics when we're talking about China, as it is for all countries
when the question of who belongs and where boundaries should be drawn
becomes. So even before I start the talk I just have a question for y'all.
How many of you have been to Tibet?
Okay good. How many of you have been to a Tibetan region within China?
Slightly more. Excellent. And maybe those are the same things or not.
I actually became a political scientist after doing a semester with the School
for International Training Tibetan studies program when I was your age which took
me to Dharamsala, Kathmandu, Lhasa, and also Sikkim. And from that time
I was fascinated with this question of where Tibet sat, both within China
and within the international order. In my dissertation work, decades ago now,
I looked at this issue with reference to the question of sovereignty as Nick has said,
trying to figure out essentially how Beijing was constructing its sovereign claims
over Tibet, and in contrast how some Tibetans, not all, were forwarding us
a distinct narrative, their own narrative about Tibet as a separate place.
From that early research to today I've emphatically stayed away from
the question of which side is right. I don't find that normative question
all that interesting. Rather I'm looking at Tibet and its place in the world
more analytically. I'm trying to make sense of how and why we've gone from how
things were to how they are and looking forward a little bit to predicting the future.
So if at the end of the talk any of you want to ask me "so should Tibet be independent?"
I will say I do not know. Conversely if any of you say "so Tibet is part of China,
do you agree?" and I will say I don't know. In both cases, and we'll get to that soon,
whether it's the Tibetan claim of independence or the Chinese claim
of Tibet being a part of China, these are claims that are made within a Westphalian
or sovereign order, which has only existed in Asia from the end of the Qing essentially.
So relations before then, whether we're talking about where Tibet sat vis-a-vis
what was China then or Xinjiang, or even the relationship between countries there
or nations there, see they're not even the right terms, dynasties were more
ambiguous than what we have now. And so to go back and take our current system
and push it into that old order I think creates a number of difficulties for anyone
who's attempting to do it. Anyways, today I'm gonna focus more on contemporary
issues and particularly what I see, and it will document as a turn in Beijing's
policy towards minorities in general, Tibet and Xinjiang more specifically,
shifting from a degree of, there's always been a balance in Chinese policy towards
minorities between autonomy and assimilation and over the past four or five
years the more assimilationist approach has dominated, has come to the fore,
in treatment of both Tibet and Xinjiang, which I'm not as much of a specialist in.
And one of the things that signals this or one of the things where I feel the level
of this has gone beyond anything before is in a recent drive to sinicize, 中国化,
Tibetan Buddhism, 藏传佛教, which is a new turn in religious policy and policy
within the TAR. I'll highlight that towards the end of the talk. Also you see
the quote below which I haven't translated.
"像石榴籽那样紧紫抱在一起 [held together like pomegranate seeds]."
So even if you're not a speaker of Chinese you'll understand the image there.
This is an image of what?
>> A pomegranate.
A pomegranate, 石榴籽. And the seeds within a pomegranate, people drink those
like juice, which are pomegranates. I've never had one cause they're like
5 dollars a piece or something. It seems incredibly expensive. But the point here
is when you cut open a pomegranate the seeds are pretty much right on top
of each other. 紧紫抱在一起, they're squeezed together. Xi Jinping
when he was addressing the 19th Party Congress used this reference to talk
about how nationalities in China should be interacting with each other today.
They should be like the seeds within a pomegranate squeezed together.
This was in 2017 and I'll come around to this later in the talk but I think it really
represents the shift away from autonomy, there's still vestiges of autonomy within
Chinese policy towards Tibet, but towards more and more assimilationist approach.
Setting the stage for current Sino-Tibetan relations. As I was just talking about
what we had historically were two empires who interacted with each other in various
ways that waxed and waned depending on which was more powerful. There are some
seminal events within the Sino-Tibetan relationship which are referred to by both
sides, both the Tibetans and the Chinese, as symbolizing or representing moments
of either independence or belonging to a Chinese order. I'm not gonna go
into those today. Actually I'm giving - it just so happens this week that I'm doing
two talks on Tibet. On Thursday I'm giving a talk to the Reppy Institute,
which will focus much more on this question of international order and how
it's created at different points in time. And during that talk I will for instance
go into detail about the 5th Dalai Lama's trip to Beijing, in the 1600s it was,
when he meets with the Shunzhi Emperor, emperor of the Qing, and the question of
what type of protocol and order was followed, or subsequently later in the Qing
the institution of the use of the golden urn as a way to select reincarnates.
Leaving the details aside what's clear is that historically it was, as Michael Oxenberg
wrote in one of the last pieces he did before he died a decade ago, it was a
multi-layered relationship. So in that multi-layered relationship, again,
we're talking about a pre-Westphalian order in this part of Asia. So to take
concepts that we now are familiar with, whether it's independence or sovereignty,
any of those, and project them back is to take that old order and fit it
into a set of categories that we understand but will leave out parts of what was
going on at the time. In my mind it does an injustice to the complexity
of the dynastic relationship between those in Tibet and in China itself. That being said,
with the end of the Qing in 1911 and China's introduction into the Western
international order there no longer was the space for that ambiguity.
And what you had were actors on each side working assiduously
to construct legal claims to that status as part, in this case, part of China,
first the Republic of China and subsequently the PRC. And for what it's worth the Tibetans
at the time didn't really know what - were attempting to contribute
to these discussions but were in some ways even more marginalized
than the Chinese were. So China's coming into an order that's not their own.
Tibet is on the margins of China. And the Tibetans then, as for example
my research that was done by a former PhD student of mine, Amanda Cheney,
who now has a postdoc at the Lund showed, the Tibetans didn't even have
some of the words at the time to explain or to describe how they thought they fit
into this new world. The early usage of for instance the Tibetan word "rangzen,"
which is independence. Rangzen when it was first being used around the time
of the Simla Convention in 1913-1914 was translated by the Tibetans sometimes
as independence, sometimes as autonomy, sometimes as something else. And now
that term though is clear to any Tibetan. When you say rangzen or if you use
the term rangzen in a public demonstration, for example, within the TAR everyone else
knows what you mean too and you're not gonna fare very well. But that's the term
that we now know it's understood it's politically charged. But in this period
when we're moving from a dynastic order into the Westphalian order,
it was sort of indeterminate or at least up in the air and ambiguous. China was in
a superior position. It was an asymmetrical relationship. The Tibetans in the 1920s
and 1930s under the 13th Dalai Lama were somewhat in chaos just on their own.
In regards to whether Tibet was going to modernize, heavy contestation between
various monasteries and orders within Tibetan Buddhism, a lot of internal strife
and uncertainty about how to respond to becoming part of the outside world.
China itself is in a civil war between the KMT and CCP which ultimately
the CCP wins in the late 1940s. And through the 30s and 40s though
Tibet, again, is sitting in this ambiguous position as both being a part of whatever
China was becoming but also not fitting in particularly well to that. That ambiguity,
and then we'll move forward from there, ends quite quickly after the establishment
of the PRC in 1949. Mao we know stands in Tiananmen and talks about the Chinese
people having stood up. At that point in October of 1949, actually Tibet,
what becomes the Tibetan Autonomous Region, was still outside of CCP control.
It was basically the last region of what we now know as the People's Republic of China
that the PLA entered into and was able to take control over. So Mao stands up.
Mao is in Tiananmen and China has stood up.
One of the first military campaigns that then takes place after the establishment of PRC
is moving into the Tibetan region both to vest their control over Tibet and also due
to concerns about remnants of the KMT that may have still been in the area
and further south. Deng Xiaoping actually is the leader of this military campaign
and it goes quite quite smoothly over the course of 1950. Actually minimal
resistance on the part of Tibetans. We could even talk a little bit about why
it was so easy for China to move into Tibet, or for the PRC to move into Tibet in 1950
but that's maybe a detail that we can leave aside for the time being.
Regardless, through this movement - oh and also by the way in the Chinese
orthodoxy this is not a military campaign, but peaceful liberation of Tibet.
和平解放 [heping jiefang]. And there is again a degree of truth in that claim
in that initially the Tibetans again were divided about how to respond in their
interactions with the PLA in 1950. By the end of 1950 the PLA has established
control over much of Tibet, and in 1951 we get the signing of the 17-Point
Agreement between the Dalai Lama and Mao. The Dalai Lama himself
does not go to sign the agreement. Actually it ends up beings signed by
Ngapoi Ngawang Jigme who is the leader of the civilian government at the time.
This is a photo of the signing of the 17-Point Agreement. The core of this agreement
essentially is that the Tibetans give up claims to independence in return
for guarantees of a high level of autonomy within what will become the Tibetan
Autonomous Region. The 17-Point Agreement also, and this I'll show you
in a couple of slides, solidifies what continues to be a contentious issue,
that being what is Tibet and where do its boundaries lie. Not just within
the international order, so Tibet is part of China, but how extensive Tibet is
within the PRC itself. And as Nick referred to looking at, in particular, the Tibetan
Autonomous Region. So the 17-Point Agreement, the Tibetans are essentially
saying, there's not much we're gonna be able to do in terms of resisting
what China is doing but at the same time we feel distinct enough to have a set of
demands that will allow us to preserve Tibetan language, culture, and the rest.
And also this issue of, once more, of how extensive the boundaries or what Tibet
itself is. Anyways, 1951, the 17-Point Agreement, which establishes a temporary
calm between the Tibetans and the central government in Beijing. Over the course
of the 1950s though, and again I'm happy in Q&A to go into more detail about
what underlies these developments, but over the course of the 1950s
the agreement, which is signed here, ends up being unsatisfactory to at least some
living within Tibetan regions in the PRC. In particular, and I'm gonna skip ahead
in the slide right now just to kind of draw this out. In particular, so '51 is the 17-Point
Agreement. It establishes essentially the boundaries here of what in 1965
becomes known as the Tibetan Autonomous Region, the TAR.
What it leaves out are culturally and linguistically two large areas which were
historically part of whatever Tibet could have been considered. Not clear that here
Lhasa is the capital of the Ü-Tsang region of Tibet historically. Up here in what is now
Qinghai. How many people have been to Qinghai?
Yes okay. So Qinghai historically was the Amdo region of what was considered Tibet.
The 14th Dalai Lama actually comes from Amdo. And down here roughly in this area
we have the region which is referred to as Kham, which is now for the most part
outside of the TAR. Anyways, the agreements here about leaving Tibet alone,
giving it autonomy on the 17-Point Agreement, didn't extend to these regions
outside of what becomes the Tibet Autonomous Region. This appears
to have been the cause of unrest, particularly in Kham, starting in
the mid-1950s, 1955, 1956. And you begin to have fighting between those in Kham
and Chinese officials and the Chinese military. Between 1956 and 1959
this resistance picks up and actually you begin to have a number of refugees
coming from areas where there's conflict into Lhasa, which then politicized Lhasa
in a way that had previously not been the case. And this culminates in March
of 1959 with what is known as the Lhasa uprising and the flight of the Dalai Lama
to India where he has now resided for decades after the Indian government
gives him this little parcel of land up in Northern India in Dharamsala.
Has anyone been to Dharamsala?
Yes, okay. Me too. A long time ago, very long time ago. Actually when I was in
Dharamsala when I was very very young, about your age, I met Richard Gere.
He's the one celebrity I've ever met. This was before at the Oscars he gave
a speech about Tibet and the rest of it. He's been a devote Buddhist for a very very
long time. And the thing in Dharamsala, it's a very small town particularly at the
time, was you were supposed to act as if he wasn't Richard Gere.
Like everyone's there just practicing Buddhism and the rest of it. And so we're in
this pancake house and Richard Gere was sitting next to me and I thought,
oh my god. And I haven't met another Hollywood celebrity since. But I met him,
well I at least saw, at least I was in the room with him. Anyways. So in '59 in March,
March 10th becomes this charged symbolic date in Sino-Tibetan relations.
Pretty much anything big that happens with Tibet after this date is going to happen
on March 10th. The Tibetans are well aware of this. March 10th is not the day
the Dalai Lama actually leaves Tibet, but it's the start of this uprising in Lhasa
which results in extensive fighting. His departure, in his autobiography,
his departure from Tibet is treated as almost magical. It's almost like he flew out
of Tibet. Subsequent research which has been done, especially since more
archival stuff has been opened up, has made pretty pretty clear that the CIA
was helping extensively with his departure. So the narrative here is the Dalai Lama
almost walks over the clouds. In truth there's a lot of logistical support
which is going on. Actually after '59 we continue to, the US government continues
to support Tibetan opposition in a variety of ways. And actually, for what it's worth,
Cornell played a tiny role in that resistance in that some of the guerilla fighters,
who came to the U.S., their military training was received
out in Colorado, I think in Fort Hale. But they learned English here on campus
for a short period of time. Cornell probably doesn't want people to talk about that
right now. I'll try to find the records of this, and it's in a book about Tibet
and the Cold War. I haven't found notes and stuff but apparently this did go on.
'59 is hugely significant. So if we're looking at dates, '51 is this sort of
we're gonna be able to get along, the 17-Point Agreement. '59 is the end
of that facade. And in all nationalist disputes, history, the past, is always present.
And so in this case '59 stands out as a seminal date, on March 10th of 1959
a seminal date, for those within Tibet itself and in the Tibetan diaspora
because it's when the Dalai Lama leaves.
After 1959, I'm just gonna entirely, well I'll get there.
So '59 uprising, this slide is an entire course, maybe not a course that's probably
too much, but at least it's a lecture in and of itself. Tibet is contested internationally.
Where does it stand? And the external boundaries or international boundaries
of this part of the PRC are also contested, in particular in this case by India. So
to this day China and India have an outstanding border dispute over
all three sections, there's the eastern, western, and the central section,
but particularly the eastern and western sections of their border, and in 1962
went to war over the location of the boundary in this place. This is related
also though to the Tibetan question. Some of the debate about where
the boundary lies here goes back to the Simla Convention of 1914 and where
everyone ends up being located. But this is a contested border. And the Dalai Lama
from 1959 onward is living in India that has a border conflict with the PRC.
Anyways, in 1965 you get the establishment of the 西藏自治区, or the Tibetan
Autonomous Region. Again, the groundwork for this was set in the 17-Point Agreement
in 1951. A preparatory committee was established in '56 and the TAR was meant
to be established prior to the 1959 uprising. It takes until 1965 to be established
and this is essentially on the eve of the Cultural Revolution as well. When I first
started giving lectures on Tibet a couple of decades ago I spent a great deal of time
on the Cultural Revolution and its impact on Tibet. We could talk about that later.
but I'm leaving it out of today 'cause I do wanna get to the more recent issues
as soon as we can. The political structure of the Tibetan Autonomous Region falls
within this this framework. And what you then have is within the Tibetan Autonomous
Region the TAR government itself has a chairman who has always been ethnically
Tibetan, this is also the case in other autonomous regions within the PRC,
but real power has lied with the TAR party secretary, so the CPC committee
secretaries. And when we look at recent changes in policy towards Tibet,
these party secretaries play a particularly significant role and there's one especially
who I want to call attention to in a few moments who you should remember.
There's maybe three or four things to really take away from the talk. One is the pomegranate
seed reference of Xi. Another is Chen Quanguo, who was the party secretary
from 2011 to 2016 if my date's right. And a couple other things too but we'll
get there in a moment. So this is the TAR. Under Deng Xiaoping beginning in 1979,
this photo is from earlier, this is Deng accompanying Ngapoi Ngawang Jigme
on his way to Beijing to give peace talks, but what you essentially have under Deng,
as you have in the rest of the country, is an acknowledgement of some
of the mistakes that were made under Mao and an attempt to become a bit more
pragmatic in approaching political and economic issues. For the TAR
what this means more specifically, two things. One, in '79 very early after Deng
reaches his role as paramount leader he sends out an invitation to not the Dalai
Lama himself but to Dharamsala to allow a delegation from the diaspora
to come into the PRC to examine conditions within Tibet. This is in '79. Two delegations
end up coming in '79 and 1980. It backfires though from Beijing's perspective in that
Deng felt that these delegations would come, they would say things are great
and maybe the Dalai Lama can come back and there's no need to have any sort
of a conflict anymore. In contrast the delegations were received as if
they were affiliated with the Dalai Lama and led to an outpouring of public support
for the Dalai Lama in a way that greatly embarrassed Deng. And so after those
first two visits we don't get any more delegations going on. But it was a sign
of a more flexible policy being instituted. In addition restrictions on monastic activity
which had been put in place during the Cultural Revolution were lessened.
The monasteries which had been destroyed were allowed to be rebuilt.
There was no longer a prohibition against the practice of Tibetan Buddhism in public.
So this would be, again if we're talking about and the theme here is assimilation
versus autonomy, this is a period where the Chinese government was experimenting
with granting a higher level of autonomy to this region, not simply 'cause they were
feeling good but rather with the idea that this would be a more effective policy.
That assimilation created blowback and resentment and in contrast
autonomy, the idea of granting autonomy is that with autonomy you'll develop
a higher level of legitimacy for Chinese rule. We're giving you space to do what you want
then you accept the rules that we're giving you. And it appeared in the beginning
in the first part of the 1980s that this was working but the struggle for Beijing
when it comes to Tibet ever since the flight of the Dalai Lama and even earlier is that
Tibetan political institutions and religious institutions are so deeply intertwined.
And so to restrict religious behavior has impacts on people's political values
and ideas and vice versa. So by the late 1980s things in Tibet begin to shape up
in a new way. First of all in 1987, in September of 1987 the Dalai Lama
made his first political speech in the United States to the Congressional
Human Rights Caucus. The Dalai Lama had been to the U.S. before starting in 1979,
but this was the beginning of him taking a much higher profile role within U.S. politics.
This is then associated with a rise of protests, a cycle of protests, within the TAR.
This photo is one of the more iconic photos about Tibet that you'll find. I think if you
Googled Tibet and Tibetan protest this photo comes up. It's of a monk,
Jampa Tenzin, who was amongst protestors in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa in 1987
raising his fist and presumably shouting out something like rangzen, again independence.
This '87-'89 period is the time in which there is the highest level of public expression
of resistance to Chinese rule in Tibet since 1959, and there's been nothing
comparable to it since then. I'll talk in a little bit about the 2008 incident
and also self-immolations that have been taking place. But this is clearly like the
high tide of public opposition to Chinese rule over Tibet. It's led by the monastic
community and unfolds largely through making use of everyday religious practices
for political purposes. So for example between '87 and '89 there's somewhere
between 20 to 30 demonstrations which take place within Tibet and Tibetan regions
in the PRC. The vast majority of these demonstrations actually are starting with
not just monks leading them but through monks carrying out, again, everyday
religious practices. [Unclear], for example, is one of the core everyday
practices in Tibetan religion, so going around a temple or a monastery
in order to collect merit. It's supposed to help you in the next life. So everyone
does this. If everyone's doing it and then in the midst of that everyday practice
you begin to shout out political slogans, that's kind of taking this religious practice
and making it into something more. And these '87-'89 demonstrations
were very much in that vein. They were spurred in part by the Dalai Lama's
more public presence on the international stage and at the same time were
an unintended consequence of the partial reforms that Deng and Hu Yaobang
had instituted in the early 80s. So what had happened from those reforms was
an opening up of religious space which then made it possible for monks
not only to practice their religion but also to organize a social movement in opposition
to Chinese rule, which was then generally supported by the lay population as well.
In 1988 the Dalai Lama in the midst of all of this goes to the European Parliament
and makes what ends up being called the Strasbourg Proposal,
which is the core of what's considered the Middle Way for Tibet.
This is June of 1988. He in this statement says,
"the whole of Tibet, known as [unclear], which is Ü-Tsang, Kham, and Amdo,
"should become a self-governing democratic political entity founded on law
"by agreement of the people for the common good and their protection
of themselves and their environment," here's the key line, that within this he adds,
"in association with the People's Republic of China." So the Dalai Lama, who has now
been in exile for decades, in '88 despite the fact that some within the diaspora
are calling for independence in a stronger stand and even the demonstrators
within Tibet are looking for something more than autonomy, he doesn't endorse
the 17-Point Agreement, he doesn't endorse the TAR specifically, but he does say
that whatever this is going to be, whatever Tibet is going to be, will be in association
with the People's Republic of China.
This is a non-starter for Beijing. It goes nowhere. On the face of it it would seem like
this is a fairly moderate position. No independence,
working with the People's Republic of China. Beijing rejects it for two reasons.
One, they see it as disingenuine, feeling that he is not really talking
about accepting autonomy but is somehow trying to cloak or cover, come up with a ruse
to create greater independence. And secondly,
because the state of the Strasbourg Proposal is not just about the TAR. It's about historically
what was considered Tibet. And that really ends up being a sticking point
in subsequent negotiations between the two sides. So the demonstrations
are ongoing, the Dalai Lama is making these proposals.
And hopefully some of you will recognize who this is.
Who's Hu Jintao? Who is Hu, as they say.
Someone?
Yes.
>> Wasn't he the previous president [unintelligible]?
>> Yes. Before Xi Jinping he was China's leader. And before he became party
secretary and president of China he was also then the party secretary of Tibet
between 1988 and 1992. So he's actually brought in to the TAR to bring an end
to these riots and demonstrations. And arguably the degree in which
he effectively does that becomes a major stepping stone in his career
moving forward. Hu might not have become party secretary if he hadn't done
his time into that and accomplished what Beijing wanted so effectively.
If he started in '86 or '85 and these demonstrations occurred that probably
wouldn't look that good for him. In contrast he's coming in towards the end of them
and helps to bring them under control. This is done through a declaration
of martial law on Lhasa on March 8th of 1989 which lasts through May of 1990.
In signing the end of this declaration of martial law, Li Peng stated in view
of the fact that the situation in the city of Lhasa has become stable and social
orders have returned to normal, the task of enforcing martial law in the city
has been successfully fulfilled. By the way, the Dalai Lama wins a Nobel Peace Prize
in the fall of 1989 and continues with his relationship with the U.S. government
by visiting George H. W. Bush in April of 1991. And this is the first time
the Dalai Lama meets with an American president. So he'd been to Congress in '87,
meets with Bush in '91, subsequently meets with each American president to date.
He has not met with President Trump and I would think the odds of him meeting
with President Trump are fairly long, but who knows the world is crazy.
Before trump was elected he went on I think it was Charlie Rose's show
or someone and gave an interview where he made quite a bit of fun actually
of the president in a very good-natured Dalai Lama way. But he does this thing
where he took his hand down and "doo doo doo doo doo."
That was his Trump with the hair falling over. If you have like a minute Google
Dalai Lama and Trump, you'll find the video. It's kind of wonderful. I don't think that if
the president has seen it that he'll sit down with the Dalai Lama.
Now moving quickly. So that was all background but you need to know
the background, again, because past is present in these struggles and it's gonna be
the same thing in Xinjiang. I don't know the Xinjiang material like Magnus does here
but in all of these cases you have these moments in the past, which, not only
are not forgotten, become loaded with symbolic significance, whether it's dates
or locations or specific terminology. Here though what we're seeing, and this is
when I wrote my book this was the Tibet, there seemed to be a status quo
which had emerged. Which is we had these demonstrations in '87-'89. We knew
that at least, particularly the Tibetan monastic population, but the lay population
as well was not especially satisfied with being part of China. But the Chinese
government had established effective control over the TAR. And that control
was established through silencing dissent, and this through the use of surveillance,
detentions, other sorts of unsavory behaviors. But just silencing dissent,
you can understand what's entailed in that. And we're able to then control
public space. After '89 for almost two decades there's no noise coming out
of Tibet. There's a difference though between control and authority. So this policy
of silencing dissent and spurring development, so you have a massive influx
of capital in the form of infrastructure projects, economic incentives, the Tibetan
economy begins to develop rather rapidly. So development and silencing dissent.
Which actually, is kind of the formula for the PRC in general after 1989.
And it's worked in Han areas fairly effectively since then. Eli can talk about
labor unrest and other people. But overall this isn't something that Beijing
comes up with, that Jiang Zemin comes up with just for Tibet. This is the Chinese
government. Keep the troublemakers quiet, and there aren't a lot, and also you can vilify
the troublemakers as being unpatriotic and all the rest of it. So talking about
democracy then isn't about talking about a human right, it's about being a bad
Chinese. It's about being anti-government. And making sure that the economy keeps
rolling forward. And again, it works to a degree. And you see this for example
in the first White Paper in Tibet in September 1992, which I spent way more
time with. If you ever have a hard time falling asleep reading Chinese White Papers
is a good way. Just pick one up in English or Chinese and start thumbing through them
and you'll have, better than any sort of sleeping pill. This is the first White Paper
on Tibet. I think it's actually the second White Paper that China publishes after
its first on human rights. And it was kind of a big deal that at least Beijing
was talking to the world about what was going on within Tibet. But it was very
defensive white paper and saying what's going on Tibet is all good. There are no
problems here, nothing to see here. Like Kevin Bacon at the end of
Animal House. In subsequent White Papers the same theme is developed. New progress
on human rights in Tibet and Tibet marches toward modernization.
So new progress in human rights, this is not saying we're silencing dissent
but this is essentially saying there's no human rights problems here,
and there's no human rights problems here because we've gotten rid of all the
troublemakers. And we're marching forward on the arc of history,
going in the right direction.
Under Guo Jinlong, who's the TAR party secretary from 2000-2004, I would say
this one of the high tides of this "things are quiet, we're developing the region, nothing
to see here." And in particular the largest of the infrastructure projects which is
developed is the railway line which goes from Xining in Qinghai to Lhasa itself,
which actually through the late 1990s had been considered impossible
to complete in terms of engineering. Much of this railway is on permafrost
and it was in areas it was thought you couldn't build a railway line.
And it's pretty remarkable just in terms of engineering that it was completed.
And Guo was a main part of driving that through. It finishes after his term.
But this is again the old approach, which was not allowing for Tibetan
independence, not at all, but saying autonomy works especially if we get rid
of the troublemakers and we kind of are paying you off. That's the old line
and it appeared to work. The Dalai Lama meanwhile, I wanted to include this just
because the world is crazy sometimes. So George W. Bush, who gave an amazing
eulogy to his father actually last year which was remarkable to see, turns out
that he always wanted to be a painter. I don't know if he always wanted to be
a painter. But what he's largely been doing since he stepped down from office
is painting. And he paints people he met. And he's painted the Dalai Lama.
Apparently he actually quite loves and adores the Dalai Lama, George W. Bush.
Talks about him extremely fondly. And the Dalai Lama as it wouldn't be
surprising talks fondly about George W. Bush too. The Dalai Lama has not a bad
word to say about anyone. I've met him a couple of times many many years ago
and I do have to say that he is an incredibly charismatic and engaging individual.
I don't know what happens in the afterlife or in other lives but if there is something
about him which does seem to be rather special. And certainly he's captured
the attention of George W. Bush. And this is significant to the Tibetan Policy
Act of 2002. Because with Bush's support and this bill, which goes through Congress,
which commits the United States to, I need to look up the specific language here,
oops. Sorry
Oh forget it. I'm not gonna find it.
But commits the United States to both China and Tibetans have to be committed
to dialogue between the two sides, and it also establishes within the State
Department a position, a sort of under secretary for Tibetan affairs.
This formalizes U.S. policy on Tibet. And China is not at all happy about this.
Interference in internal affairs, violation of Chinese sovereignty and territorial integrity,
creates all sorts of noise. What's fascinating is in contrast just in the fall another bill
passed through Congress, and Trump signed it, which related Tibet and this
reciprocal access, and China essentially shrugged its shoulders. So 2002,
this infuriates Beijing. 2018, China doesn't really care. And I'll get to I think a little bit
why in a moment.
In 2003, 2004 you have more White Papers and Yang Chuantang is party secretary
who's also considered somewhat moderate and this leads to this quote.
There's a meeting between representatives of the Dalai Lama that "西藏形势很好,
根本不存在什么 '西藏问题'." There's no Tibet problem, no Tibet issue, nothing
to see here. And again that's when I was writing before. This shifts though fairly
quickly. Let me just go straight to here. In March of 2008 when you have unrest
in Lhasa. And how do you term this? Is it 骚乱, is it a riot? Or is it an incident,
or is it a demonstration, or is it a protest? Whatever it was, what it resulted in
was a real challenge to Beijing's assumption that there was no 西藏问题 [Tibet issue].
In 2004 you could say this, "there's no Tibet problem." China's leaders today will still say
there's no Tibet problem, there's no issue. 2008 blew that myth up though.
It's only two or three days of demonstrations and riots, not particularly organized
as were the '87-'89 protests. The monastic community was involved but not central to it.
The most visible aspect of incident was Tibetans within Lhasa attacking
Han establishments. Restaurants, other sorts of Han-owned enterprises.
And it results in some deaths and a number of casualties as well. And it's taking place
at the same time the Party Congress was meeting in Beijing itself. Actually
the party secretary at the time in Tibet was not in Lhasa and there's a whole
interesting set of discussions about why this sort of rioting lasts for three days
and probably it lasted in part because Beijing was caught off guard
and the leadership wasn't there. It's also taking place against the backdrop
of the lead up to the 2008 Summer Olympics. So you had this short-lived two, three days
of rioting within Lhasa itself followed by demonstrations around the Olympic torch,
which is being carried around the world to go to Beijing at the end of the summer.
So attracting both supporters of Tibet and supporters of China's position as well.
Becomes exceptionally contentious. Actually the last time on campus
that I talked about Tibet was in the middle of all this and it was a very charged
environment I'd say.
The question then is - so through the 1990s and the first part of the 2000s, development
and silencing dissent resulted in control. Beijing felt it was its position in Tibet
was solid. We can talk about why Tibet is so important to China. But the policy line
has appeared to be fairly successful. Now there is a reconsideration
of this granting of limited autonomy. And the question becomes do you double
down on assimilation or do you go with autonomy itself. This is followed by
a significant amount of writing coming out of the Chinese National Minority
Establishment and here in the form of writings which become known
as 第二代民族政策, or the Second Generation Minority Nationality Policy
which is led by people like Ma Rong at 北大 [Peking University] who's a sociologist
and also Hu Angang Hu Lianhe, I think Hu Angang at least is at Tsinghua
I can't remember where Hu Lianhe is. This is where using Chinese sources
becomes really interesting. In English this discussion is not unavailable.
In Chinese beginning in 2008, 2009, no one, whether it's Ma Rong or Hu or Hu,
they're not saying we failed but they're saying we need to reconsider how we're
governing these non-Han regions within the PRC. And there are three main
developments that weigh the scales in favor of assimilation.
First is the appointment, and again this is one of the people I want you to remember.
So the 像石榴籽, like the pomegranate seeds. Chen Quanguo, who's party secretary
from 2011 to 2016, really takes the lead in pushing for a more assimilationist
approach to minorities in general and Tibet more specifically. Chen is - just let me find
notes quickly real quickly.
Chen is from Henan province and had served as party secretary of Hebei before becoming
party secretary of Tibet in 2011. During his time there he really places an emphasis
on surveillance and control. And after his time in Tibet, Magnus would be quite
familiar with where he ends up, he becomes party secretary of Xinjiang.
And what's interesting to look at is the degree in which some of the policies
which are being carried out in Xinjiang now were first instituted in Tibet under Chen.
Surveillance, detention of a couple friends who had family members who were detained
in Tibet under Chen. So there is a pattern of behavior here where Chen,
whether it's on his own initiative or carrying out orders, is really pushing
a more assimilationist approach to governing a non-Han region.
And the extent to which he's using these policies in Tibet are probably less than
in Xinjiang for a variety of reasons but there are real similarities in the approach.
So Chen is a particularly important figure in minority policy within China over
the past seven or eight years. So his appointment is one of the things that weighs
in the direction of assimilation. Secondly, the Dalai Lama, who has been a constant
in PRC policy, in 2011 announces that he is stepping down from all political positions.
And this I think in terms of the move towards assimilation, it puts to the forefront
the fact that the Dalai Lama, the current Dalai Lama is not always going to be
around. And so I think up until 2011 there had been a sense that the Dalai Lama
was central to Chinese policy, in Tibet at least, they had to deal with him
and now there's a question of what will Tibet policy look like after he steps down
from his position of political authority. Third, between 2011 and 2013 you have
a wave of self-immolations in Tibet. This a painting by Tashi Norbu
who is a Tibetan artist based in Amsterdam and it was on her website. And she writes,
"the work expresses the dual hope that the self-immolator sacrifice will lead
"to the religious realization of ultimate reality through burning away ignorance
and also burning away the conventional reality of oppression." Not gonna show,
there are vivid images of self-immolations which occur. But I think this actually
is a little bit more palatable. I will add though that the various Tibet organizations
that have kept track of this have reported that there have been, this number
is unbelievable, 155 people have self-immolated since 2009.
And self-immolate is kind of that doesn't sound so horrible. It's horrible.
But what that means is these people have lit themselves on fire. Which is
historically unprecedented. Self-immolation as a form of political protest has occurred
at various points in time in various places most notably in Vietnam during the war
with the United States and with France. This number of self-immolations, I at least
in my preliminary research, there's nothing like this which has occurred anyplace else
in the world over time.
They largely are taking place between 2011 and 2013. The first is 2009.
But really focused during this period. In 2012, for example, 86 self-immolations
occur.
The self-immolations are concentrated. This map from
one of the Tibetan
organizations demonstrates the geographic distribution of the self-immolations
and you'll note that the vast majority are occurring actually outside of the TAR itself.
Again we can talk a great length about this but just to quickly go through. Beijing's
response is this regulation, "关于反自焚工 作暂行规定的通告." So the Notice on Interim
Provisions on Anti-self-immolation Work, which goes beyond saying that
self-immolation is illegal to establishing a legal framework to penalize anyone
associated with someone who self-immolates. So these set of provisions
relate to the type of punishments which will be meted out to those
who are affiliated with self-immolators. The institution of this policy has effectively
ended the wave of self-immolations. A few still occurred. A couple occurred
last year. But this really stopped things. Alongside of that you begin to get, again,
this hardening of China's position and what it is to be Chinese. So for example
here, this is an article that Hu Angang and Hu Lianhe published titled
"中国梦的基石是中华民族的国族一体化." So the English translation of this article,
which they forward in the journal, is "China Dream: It Belongs to Everyone
of the Chinese nation." But that seems like a loose translation at best. It seems like
the most favorable of translating things. So one could - we don't have time for a joke.
But here in particular the latter part of it, "一体化," the coming together emphasis,
which is drawn out more in subsequent statements, this is under Xi Jinping
who becomes party secretary in November of 2012 and president of PRC in March
of 2013. So between 2013 and 2017 Xi issues a number of statements
which really emphasize assimilation and control. One of the most significant
of these is a quote which he says in 2013, "治国必治边, 治边先稳藏." To govern
the country you have to control or govern the borders, and to govern the borders
or control the borders you need to stabilize to that. This becomes the guiding principle
for Beijing's approach to Tibet in subsequent years. It comes out,
for example, in 2014 in the Fourth Nationalities Work Forum which
produces the guidelines talking about 工体化. So community or belonging
and the emphasis again and again on 中华民族, or the Chinese people
or the Chinese nation. There's not a single translation of 中华民族. It can go different
ways. And in addition this emphasis on 各民族交往交流交融. So 交往 is just moving
back and forth. 交流 is exchange of information. And any of you who's taken
even basic Chinese, like 交流交流. Let's talk, we'll talk it out, we'll discuss.
交融 is a different term. 交融 is intermingling or mixing. And in this case it really is about
lessening distinctions between ethnic groups within China and drawing minorities
away from thinking of themselves as particularly distinct. 交融 creates
an opening for a heavier emphasis on assimilation than had previously
been the case. And all of these things fit together into the way policy ends up
being enacted. August '15, at the Sixth Meeting of the Tibet Work Forum
you get these 五个认同, which I'm calling recognitions. I spent more time actually
trying to figure out how I wanted to translate 五个认同 than anything else in these slides.
认同 on some level is like identity. You can talk about what your 认同 is.
And we also have 三个代表, the three represents. But 认同 isn't represent.
It's also not identity in this case. I think recognitions work. And so the guiding
principles of ethnic work are 认同, or recognizing, 伟大祖国, the great
motherland; 中华民族, the Chinese people; 中华文化, the Chinese culture; 中国共产党,
the CCP; and 中国特色社会主义, Chinese socialism.
This shows up in White Papers
and then it begins to materialize in policy. So Larung Gar is this massive monastic
structure outside of the Tibet Autonomous Region. At its high point there was
an argument that upwards of 40 thousand monks and nuns were living in Larung Gar.
In 2015, 2016 there is a drive to reduce that population and to modernize
Larung Gar to make it more sanitary and developed. Those who lived there
didn't necessarily see this as a modernization drive they saw this attempt
to shut the area down. Alongside of this you have the detention of Tashi Wangchuk
who is a linguist who talks about the need to preserve Tibetan language.
He does a video with New York Times which ends up with him being detained
as a result of that. The National Work - People's - Work Congress Report -
sorry. This is new stuff for me so I have all this material and I know this is taking
too long so I'm gonna quickly go through the last parts of it.
Here it's at the 19th Party Congress where Xi comes out with this statement
of nationalities. The people of China need to hold together, "像石榴籽
那样紧紧抱在一起." So the Chinese nation or people need to hold - I'm sorry,
the people need to hold together. This is the next quote. He also talks about
there's already been integration of the Chinese people. In a letter published
in Xinhua in 2017 he writes, this seems like it could come straight from President
Trump, this emphasis on borders and the need for borders to have peace.
In fact some of Trump's anti-immigration policies have echoed within Chinese
cyberspace in interesting ways, have been picked up and, particularly in Guangzhou,
questions of illegal immigrants, particularly Africans, and the degree
to which the Chinese government has dealt with them in contrast to what's seen
as Trump's effective policies and a further hardening of China's position.
In Analysis Published Within the Minority Establishment. Here this is actually
the core of the work that I'm doing. It's not necessarily super interesting
in terms of learning about what's going on in Tibet. In a work of Ma Rong, Chen Zhen
and Du Ganju, Ga CangJia, and Renqing Zhuoma there is a series of writings
which pick up upon these general themes of assimilation and the five recognitions,
the 五个认同, and argue that Tibetan Buddhism can only be legitimately practiced
when it incorporates those principles into those religious practices
and the argument in these articles is that in fact Tibetan Buddhism has always been
sinified, always draws upon actually the way Buddhism is practiced in China,
and to ignore that is essentially a perversion or an unorthodox version
of what Buddhism itself is. Which is a pretty bold set of claims. This is the first time,
this is the stuff I'm writing about. This is the first time that the Chinese state
has looked to turn Tibetan Buddhism around. Not to push it down and say
it shouldn't be practiced, but rather that if it's practiced in the right way,
which involves bowing to the central authorities in Beijing, then it's a wonderful
practice and a great part of Tibetan culture. If, though, it does not include those
five recognitions of the motherland, of the party, and so forth, then it is splittist
and also not real Buddhism.
So in a way it's a recognition that policy to this point has failed because what
the policy had been doing was changing the outer trappings of Tibetan life
without going to this core question of what Tibetan Buddhism is and how it is
to be practiced.
Subsequently Tashi Wangchuk is convicted to five years in prison in May of 2008.
And what you really have then in terms of this sinification of Tibetan Buddhism drive,
in 2018 Li Keqiang and Wang Yang, two of the just a step below essentially Xijinping
in terms of authority, both do visits to Tibet both talk about 藏传佛教的中国化.
Both talk about sinification of Tibetan Buddhism on these trips and the need
to sinify Buddhism in Tibet in order to establish greater levels of stability.
And to then carry out Xi's mission or vision that the growth and stability of the country
depends on stabilizing Tibet. And finally, and then we still have a little bit of time
for discussion, what the future holds. So in 2014, this is already a number of years
ago, the Dalai Lama in an interview with the BBC said, "whether the institution
"of the Dalai Lama should continue or not is up to the Tibetan people.
"There's no guarantee some stupid Dalai Lama won't come next who will disgrace
"himself or herself. That would be very sad. So, much better that a centuries-old
tradition should cease at the time of a quite popular Dalai Lama."
So what I've tried to do there is cover a whole bunch of stuff to give you a picture
of how we've gotten to where we are with Tibet. The relationship actually
to what's going on in Tibet and to what is going on in Xinjiang. But in fact any one
of these aspects of the talk we could really dig into and discover a lot more with it.
So this quote alone, on the surface it's this 80, at the time he was 80 he's 83 now
well maybe 79, it's a 70 to 80-year-old man just saying, oh well, I've done well,
I've been happy with the job, and things probably need to change.
Just the adorable old Dalai Lama. Good for you Dalai Lama.
You're so non-egocentric, you don't even need this institution continued.
But every single line here within this quote, the next Dalai Lama being some stupid
Dalai Lama, being a him or a her, a centuries-old tradition should cease
at the time of a quite popular Dalai Lama, all of that is loaded. Absolutely loaded.
Both to the Tibetan diaspora, to Tibetans living within the TAR, and to Beijing.
Where my research lands and where I hope you guys coming out of this talk
will hopefully build upon is we're in a time of potentially massive change within
the Sino-Tibetan relationship. Even reincarnate Lamas don't live forever.
The Dalai Lama has made it clear that he is not going to himself. He's actually
I think at this point lived longer than any other previous Dalai Lama. I think the 5th
maybe lived until he was 65, if memory serves. Although there's even some
questions about when he passed away. But whatever has gone on in Tibet
I think can be considered a prelude to what will unfold in the coming years,
which I think that Beijing has really no idea what that will look like.
I don't think the diaspora does either and those in Tibet as well. And I think
as a result it's going to be rather tumultuous and contentious
and hopefully after this talk you'll be more prepared to make sense of those events
as they unfold. Thank you.